Chapter 28
Merrit
The rope had been fraying for hours.
One fiber at a time, working it against the sharp edge of stone behind me while pain screamed through every movement. My wrists were raw, bleeding, the hemp cutting deeper with each twist. But I kept going.
Because I could feel them getting closer.
Through the bond—weak, flickering, damaged by whatever blood magic Tobias had used—I felt Kieran. Determination. Fury. Love. It grew stronger with every passing minute as the distance between us shrank.
He was coming.
And I could hear them fighting now.
Out there, beyond this door. Shouting. Metal on metal. The crash of bodies hitting walls. Rhett's voice raised in something between a war cry and a curse. Jex's roar—pain, not fury.
Through the bond: Kieran's spike of alarm. His rage as someone fell. His desperation bleeding through the damaged connection.
They were dying for me, and I was tied up like a fucking sacrifice, helpless while Tobias waited for Kieran to reach me so he could kill him in front of me.
No.
I worked the rope harder, ignoring the way my shoulders screamed, the way the brand on my shoulder sent fire through my nerves with every movement. The iron cuts burned like they were still being made, my Fae blood reacting to the metal even now.
Through the bond: pain. Fierce and sudden. Kieran was hit. Wounded. Still fighting but hurt.
“Hold on,” I sent, even though I didn't know if he could hear me through the damaged connection. “I'm here. Hold on.”
Almost there. Just a few more fibers.
The door burst open, and Kieran stepped through. Our eyes met across the room—his wild with desperation and fury, mine likely showing every bit of terror and relief I felt.
The relief hit me, even as his desperation became clear. He was wounded. Badly. And the fight wasn’t over yet. “You came,” I pushed through our connection that was slowly knitting back together.
“I will always come for you.”
He started toward me.
"I wondered how long it would take."
Tobias stepped from the shadows beside the door, blocking Kieran's path. Neat. Composed. Like he'd been waiting patiently instead of orchestrating a massacre.
"Your Highness. Thank you for coming. I was growing bored."
Kieran stopped, instinctively positioning himself between Tobias and me. His hand went to his sword—already drawn, already bloody.
They began to fight.
I'd never seen Kieran truly fight before. Not like this. He moved with desperate precision, every strike calculated, but Tobias was faster. Older. Six hundred years of experience against three hundred and fifty.
And Kieran was already wounded. Already exhausted from fighting through Tobias’ conspirators to reach me.
Through the bond: his pain. His determination. His fear—not for himself, for me.
Steel clashed against steel. Kieran was good, but Tobias was better. A cut across Kieran's shoulder. Another across his ribs. But Kieran held, continuing to fight as if he hadn’t just been wounded further, his rage tangible through our connection.
Then the door burst open again, and Lorenzo stumbled through, barely standing, bleeding from a dozen wounds. His eyes found Kieran first, then me.
"Kieran—"
Tobias didn't even look. Just turned mid-strike and thrust.
So fast I barely saw it. Just a blur of motion, the wet sound of steel punching through flesh.
Lorenzo went down.
No.
Through the bond—the bond that had been flickering weakly for hours, damaged by whatever blood magic Tobias had used—I felt Kieran's horror. His rage. His desperation.
He attacked with everything he had left.
But Tobias was faster. Centuries of experience against exhaustion and grief.
I watched Kieran fight. Really fight. Not the controlled sparring I'd glimpsed in training, but desperate, brutal combat. Every strike was blocked, every opening closed. Tobias was toying with him, wearing him down.
A cut across Kieran's arm. Another across his side, deep enough to make him stagger.
He was losing.
I could see it in the way his movements slowed, the way he favored his left side, the blood soaking through his clothes. Could feel it through the bond—pain, exhaustion, determination fraying at the edges.
Tobias disarmed him with a casual twist of his wrist. Kieran's sword clattered across the floor, and he reached for his dagger.
Tobias’ boot caught his hand, crushing it against the stone. The sound of bones breaking was sickeningly clear.
Kieran dropped to his knees, Tobias’ hand forcing him down, blade pressing against his throat.
No. No, no, no—
The rope snapped.
My hands were free.
I brought them around—saints, everything hurt, my shoulders on fire from being bound for so long, my wrists slick with blood—and fumbled with the knots at my ankles.
Come on. Come on.
My fingers were numb and clumsy. The knots were tight, professional, and I couldn't get them—
Tobias’ voice cut through the room. Calm. Conversational. Like he was discussing the weather rather than preparing to execute someone.
"Your mother, by the way? That wasting illness she succumbed to?"
I looked up, finding him standing over Kieran: blade at his throat, Kieran on his knees, and blood trickling down his neck.
My fingers found the edge of the knot, and I pulled desperately.
"I poisoned her. Slowly. Methodically. Brought her medicine every day—medicine that was killing her."
The knot loosened. Just a little.
"Watched her fade for six months while your father mourned."
Faster.
Through the bond—clarity rang, suddenly, terribly clear—Kieran's shock slammed into me. His grief. The way that revelation hit him like a physical blow.
Tobias raised his blade.
And underneath Kieran's grief: acceptance. Resignation.
He thought he was going to die.
No.
The ankle binding came free.
I tried to stand, and my legs gave out immediately, crashing to my knees, biting back the sound trying to escape my ruined throat. Everything hurt: the cuts, the burns, the exhaustion, the blood loss.
I forced myself up, anyway.
Used the wall for support, every muscle shaking, and took one step toward them. Then another.
Kieran on his knees, and Tobias stood over him, raising the blade for the killing blow. Lorenzo lay motionless on the floor beyond them, chest rising and falling shallowly, but alive. Barely.
"This is where you die, Prince. And she watches."
Through the bond, Kieran sent everything he had left. Love. Grief. Apology.
“I love you.”
Not a declaration. A goodbye.
Fuck. That.
I didn't think. Didn't plan. Just reached for the one weapon I had left.
My mind.
I'd been gentle before. With Kieran, in the castle, learning the shape of his thoughts. Careful. Controlled. Asking permission with every tentative probe.
This wasn't that.
This was invasion. Violation. The same thing Tobias had done to my body with his blades, I did to his mind with my power. I found his consciousness—six hundred years old, layered with shields and walls and carefully constructed defenses—and I slammed into it.
His mental shields were strong. Ancient. Built over centuries of practice. I ripped through them anyway.
Desperation made me strong. Terror made me vicious. But underneath both was something stronger: rage.
For my parents. For Kieran's mother. For his mate. For every person he'd killed over six centuries of systematic genocide. I tore through his defenses like they were paper. Found his mind—cold, calculating, broken—and invaded every corner of it.
His memories were there. Organized. Clinical. Three hundred twelve kills, each one cataloged. Each threat eliminated. Each telepath, seer, mind reader erased from existence. And buried beneath them all, locked away where he thought no one could reach was her.
The seer. His Whisperbound. The most beautiful mind he'd ever touched.
I saw her through his eyes. Small, dark-haired, with eyes that saw futures branching like tree roots.
Luminous. Breathtaking. The other half of his soul.
I saw the king demanding one more vision.
Her bleeding from her eyes, consciousness tearing itself apart trying to see too far.
Tobias begging her to stop, to let it go, to hold on.
I saw her die in his arms. Felt the bond shatter like glass. Felt him break.
And I grabbed that memory—that perfect, terrible, devastating memory—and I shoved it to the front of his mind. Made him relive it. Feel it. Experience it again like it was happening now.
Every second.
Every moment.
The sound she made when her mind fractured. The way her hand went slack in his. The emptiness where the bond used to be. The king's empty condolences. The feast that same evening while Tobias sat alone in chambers that would always be too empty.
I unleashed three hundred and fifty years of grief all at once.
Tobias screamed—a raw, broken sound that had nothing to do with physical pain and everything to do with a wound that had never healed.
His blade clattered to the floor. He staggered back, hands going to his head, trying to block out the memory, the pain, the bond that had shattered and left him hollow.
My knees buckled. The psychic attack had taken everything. I felt it immediately—the backlash, the cost. My vision blurred. Blood poured from my nose. I caught myself against the wall, barely, everything spinning.
Too much. I'd pushed too hard, burned too bright, used power I didn't have.
But Kieran was moving.
Through the haze, I saw him grab the fallen blade with his off-hand. Drive himself up off his knees through sheer force of will.
Our eyes met across the room. Through the bond—fully open now, the blood magic finally burned away—I felt everything. His love. His fury. His determination. His understanding.
“Together.”
I nodded, even though the room was spinning, even though I could barely stand. Took one step toward him, then another, using the wall for support.
My legs were shaking. The world kept tilting. But I kept moving.
Tobias was still reeling, still lost in the memory I'd forced on him, still experiencing his mate's death over and over as he crumpled to the ground.
Kieran met me in the middle.
Up close, he looked like death: blood soaking through his clothes, cuts across his face and arms and chest. His sword hand hung useless, bones shattered. But his eyes were clear.
He looked down at the blade in his hand—not his sword, something he'd grabbed from the floor—and then at me.
Held it out.
I took it with shaking hands. The weight was wrong, unfamiliar, but I gripped it tight anyway. Had to. This was ending. Now.
Kieran's good hand closed over mine.
His fingers wrapped around my knuckles, steadying me, lending me strength I didn't have left. Holding me up as much as guiding the blade.
He reached for me through the bond. “For your parents. For my mother. For everyone he killed.”
“For them all,” I agreed.
Tobias was recovering. The psychic assault was fading, his shields reconstructing, his consciousness fighting back toward control.
His eyes focused on us. Saw the blade. Understood.
"Do it," he said. His voice was raw, broken. "End it."
We moved together.
Kieran's hand guided mine, my hand holding the blade, both of us driving it forward with everything we had left.
The blade punched through Tobias’ chest.
Through cloth and skin and muscle and bone, straight into his heart.
He gasped, looking down at the blade buried in his chest, at our palms still wrapped around the hilt. Our hands fell away, leaving the blade where it was.
Blood bubbled at his lips, and he looked at Kieran first. "You think..." He coughed, red spattering his neat clothes. "You think this changes anything?"
His eyes moved to me. "The king... killed her..." Another cough. "He'll kill you, too..."
Then back to Kieran. "Duty... always comes first..." His voice was fading. "You'll see... you'll become... just like him..."
His gaze found me one last time. "You should’ve... stayed dead..."
Then there was nothing. His eyes went empty. His body went slack. Tobias—King's enforcer, coup conspirator, murderer of hundreds—was dead.
I stared at him. At the blood spreading across stone.
He was dead. It was over.
And the last of my strength went with him.
My legs gave out. I didn't feel myself falling. Just suddenly the world tilted, gravity became wrong, and the floor rushed up to meet me.
Kieran caught me before I hit the ground.
His arms—saints, even injured he was so strong—wrapped around me, pulled me against his chest, held me like I might disappear if he let go.
I tried to say something. Tried to tell him I was okay, that we'd won, that it was finally over.
Nothing came out, and I was so tired. The psychic attack had taken everything I had left: every reserve of strength, every last bit of will. I'd burned myself out completely just to save him.
Worth it—worth all the pain, worth everything—because we were together, safe.
Through our connection—so clear now, so loud after being muffled for hours—his emotions crashed over me.
Relief. Love. Terror. Gratitude. Horror at my injuries. Rage at what had been done to me. Joy that I was alive. Fear that I was too hurt, that he'd been too late, that—
“I'm okay,” I sent, even though it wasn't quite true. “You came. You saved me.”
“You saved yourself.” His hand was in my hair, cradling my head against his chest. “You saved me. Again.”
I tried to laugh. It came out as a choked, breathy sound.
“We saved each other.”
His other arm tightened around me. I could feel him shaking—exhaustion, adrenaline crash, relief, all of it hitting at once.
"You're safe now," he said out loud, voice rough. "It's over. You're safe."
I wanted to stay awake. Wanted to make sure he was okay, check on Lorenzo, see if the others had survived.
But darkness was pulling at the edges of my vision, exhaustion dragging me down.
The last thing I felt before everything went black was Kieran's arms tighten around me and his voice through the bond:
“I've got you. I'll always have you.”
Then blackness took me.