Filed To Story: Between Two Kings: A Split or Swallow Book PDF Free
“Yes.”
“But what does that mean? Why do I feel so…?”
“Empty?”
She looked up at him. “Yes.”
“I took your love for the human king.”
Tem blinked. “Took it?”
“Yes.”
“So it’s just…gone?”
“I did not say that I disposed of it. Only that I took it from you.”
“Oh.”
Tem was having trouble wrapping her head around the fact that her love for Leo was something that could be taken. But then she remembered how Caspen had once placed his hand on her chest and taken her desire away-how basilisks were able to manipulate emotions and remove them at will. Love was an emotion, was it not? There was no reason why it couldn’t be taken like anything else.
“So that’s why I was able to choose Caspen?”
“Yes.”
“And nobody else knows that I…?”
“Love another?” He turned to her, his eyes dark. “No. They do not.”
Tem stared at him. “I can’t believe you did that for me,” she whispered.
“It is not a permanent solution,” Apollo said. “It must be given back. And quickly.”
“Oh,” Tem said again. There was a pause, and in it, she half expected him to give it back right that moment. But Apollo was looking at her with a peculiar expression on his face, as if he had just figured something out.
“What?” she prompted.
He didn’t answer. Instead he stepped closer, his brows furrowed. “You did not tell me the extent of your feelings for him.”
“Excuse me?” Tem had told him that she was in love with Leo. That was pretty much the extent of her feelings for him.
“You did not tell me that you crested him. Or that you have yet to consummate it. You did not tell me that his life hangs in the balance.”
Tem’s mouth fell open. “How do you know that?”
Apollo pressed his hand to his chest. “It is right here.”
She stared up at him. He’d gleaned all that just from extracting her love for Leo? If she’d known he was going to find that out, she never would have let him back inside her mind. Up until now, this had been her burden to bear-a secret only she knew the consequences of. Even Adelaide, her closest confidant, was not aware of the extent of it. But now that Apollo knew it too, Tem felt…relief. And also fear. What if he told Caspen? But Apollo would not do that. The time had come, finally, to trust that he wanted what was best for his brother and also what was best for her. Apollo was selfless in that way. He hid behind a facade of carelessness, but underneath it all, Apollo cared about Caspen, and he cared about his family. He was a fierce protector-that much was abundantly clear-and he had done the unthinkable in order to ensure Caspen’s victory. He’d placed his brother’s feelings over his own-he’d acted selflessly. That was a person she could trust.
“I must give it back, Temperance. I have no desire to hold on to this lie.”
Shame flushed her face. When he phrased it like that, it seemed so much worse than it was. But perhaps Apollo was right. Perhaps it was worse than Tem had thought it was. Every moment she harbored love for Leo was a moment closer to disaster. Apollo would not be there to take away her emotions every time they became a problem. Tem would have to deal with this head-on, or it would be dealt with for her.
“Besides,” he continued, “I could not keep it even if I wanted to.”
“What happens if you keep it?”
“It will come out,” he said simply.
Then he placed his palm on her chest and closed his eyes.
Unlike when he’d extracted her emotions before-violently and with no warning-this time they seeped back into her chest slowly, warming her the way a crackling fire would. It was as if a flower were blooming in her chest. Tem could feel the petals opening, reaching outward like fingers. Finally, her link to Leo was restored. The moment it was done, Tem sighed. Her love for him might cause her pain, but it also made her whole. She’d felt utterly wrong without it, like she was missing a part of her. And in a way, she was. Despite the fact that this was tearing her apart, it was also the only thing keeping her together. Without her love for Leo, she lost a part of herself.
“You must rid yourself of this,” Apollo said quietly.
But Tem couldn’t do that. She’d already tried falling out of love with Leo. Nothing could be more impossible. “I can’t.”
“Temperance.” He stepped closer. “You must. If you consummate the crest, your blood bond will be broken and Caspenon will be forced to kill you. He will never forgive himself.”
Tem shook her head. “I can’t tell him.”
“You cannot go on like this. You are tearing yourself in two.”
It was only once he said it that Tem realized it was true. She’d been living with these feelings for so long that she’d almost forgotten what it was like to be without them. She had gotten used to feeling like her heart was in two places. The agony was familiar to her now.
“Do you know what I felt when I took this from you?” Apollo asked quietly.
Tem shook her head.
“Pain. Not love, Temperance. But pain. You are hurting yourself by loving them both. You must choose.”
Caspen’s words came back to her:
The time will come when you will have to choose.
But Tem didn’t want to choose. She couldn’t choose. She hadn’t been able to then, and she was no more able to now. She was at a crossroads, as she always had been, and there was nobody coming to save her. It was untenable. But it was her reality.
“I can’t choose,” she whispered.
To her surprise, Apollo’s eyes softened. “I understand it cannot be not easy for you.”
That was the understatement of the century. Nothing about this was easy. It never had been.
“But your current state is unsustainable,” he continued, his voice gentle in the dark. “I myself could barely stand it for as long as I did. I do not know how you have been surviving it.”
Tem knew. She was two things: basilisk and human.
That was how she was surviving it. Each side of her loved someone else. It was unsustainable for Apollo; it was reality for her.
“Basilisks are not meant to love more than one person,” he murmured. “We share our bodies but not our hearts.”
Tem had heard it before. She knew what was happening to her was wrong, that she had crossed a line long ago. But that didn’t mean she could help it. And it didn’t mean she could change it.
“It is unnatural, this thing within you. I fear it will be your undoing.”
Caspen had once called her his undoing. How ironic that Leo would be hers.
“It is breaking your mind, Temperance.”
It wasn’t her mind that Tem was worried about. It was taking a toll on her heart now, and if things continued as they had been, there was no telling how bad it might get.