Page 42 of Wolf of Ashes
“But… if I understood you correctly before, you only need to take life if you’re creating something from nothing. Surely, the crown allows you to harness the energy in the air to create lightning?”
He nods. “It does.”
I blink at him. “Then… why?”
His jaw clenches. “Because I’m a dark creature and I have the power to choose.”
“Well, fuck me,” I whisper. I’m not sure if I should be terrified or excited that he chooses not to limit himself.
His dark-blue eyes raze across my face. “Don’t worry, I promised you revenge. That means not taking a shred of your life.” He inclines his head at the panthers. “Or theirs.”
His voice lowers. “But you should know, beyond my deal with you, my choices are my own. If I want something badly enough, maybe I won’t care what life I take in the process.”
An incredibly dangerous truth.
Beneath it, I sense an even greater darkness. He may warn me about taking what he wants, but the tension around his eyes and lips speaks to me of a lingering shadow. A deep rage. The kind that can only have simmered for millennia. Maybe since the time of his creation.
He told me he doesn’t remember his name, but I push a little further, selecting my words carefully.
“Do you think it’s possible that you chose to become a keeper or is it more likely that you were forced into it?”
His lips twist and he answers me with a question. “You know why we were created, yes?”
“My mother told me the story, which basically boils down to: Untethered magic was destroying the world. The keepers were created to absorb the excess magic and stop such a thing from ever happening again.”
He nods. “So when you ask me if I might have chosen to be a keeper, the only true answer I can give you is this: Is there truly a choice when the world you know will be consumed if you don’t act?”
I don’t have an answer for that. Mostly because speaking the truth is too fucking bleak.
Sometimes choice is an illusion.
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
I’m not afraid of the keeper’s anger, the simmering rage that seems to beat in time with the crashing lightning out on the ocean.
Leaning back on my hands, I say, “Well, since you don’t remember your name, why not choose a new one?”
He casts me a hard stare and I return it with wide-eyed anticipation. “A real choice for once,” I say. “Completely your own.”
Some of the tension leaves his body and his countenance flickers, shifting a little. For a few seconds, I glimpse the blond-haired, tanned, and laid-back façade he wore when we were eating burgers.
Then he returns to his darker countenance. He folds his arms across his chest with a moody huff. “I don’t know where to start.”
I shrug. “Start with… Greg.”
I peer at him, gauging his reaction.
He stares back at me in all his dark glory. No matter how brightly the lightning flashes, it doesn’t lessen the depths of the shadows that live across his skin.
I grimace. “Nope, you’re not a Greg. How about… Dave?”
His glare increases.
I give him a wide grin. “Look, you’ll have to come up some ideas of your own if you don’t like mine. I can keep going forever. I’ve got all the names I’ve ever read in books. Bob, Brandon, Brady…Bnames are great. Why don’t we start with Brett and take it from there?”
He screws up his nose. “No, not Brett.”
“What’s wrong with Brett?”
