Chapter 9
nine
Cressida
There’s a thrum in the back of my skull. It’s a steady, simmering pressure just under the surface, like a storm rolling across my mind.
They’re foreign feelings that don’t belong to me.
It doesn’t take long for me to understand where they’re coming from and only seconds to cipher through them to determine what that thrum means.
Konstantin is angry.
No, it’s more than that. Kon is bloody furious.
I don’t know how I know, not really, but it’s there, deep in my bones like the ache of an old wound right before it rains. It pulses through the bond, heavy and hot and full of teeth.
He’s doing his best to keep it contained, but his truth is leaking through. Rage, guilt, vengeance—they’re all there balancing delicately.
And beneath it, flickering like a barely-there flame . . .
Fear.
For me.
This man, who I’ve not known nearly long enough, fears for me.
I close my eyes and exhale, pressing a hand to my chest, right over the place where our flash bond hums like a second heartbeat.
It’s not been long since it clicked into place, but it’s already made itself a home in my chest.
But this thing . . . it’s not soft.
It’s not some dreamy string of fate or gentle soulmate magic. It’s violent and demanding. And it knows me. It reads my shadows, my feelings, and it peels back my armor when I’m not looking.
And I hate it for that.
Mostly.
Because even now, with my own fear swallowing me whole, I can feel him. Not just the anger and not just the heat.
But him.
And damn it . . .
I need him to feel me, too.
So, I breathe in slow and shaky then I close my eyes and reach.
I don’t know how I do it. There’s no instruction manual for flash bonds. No step-by-step for how to tether yourself to a Bratva monster and not lose your mind. Just stories passed down that tell you what gain, what you experience, but nothing on how to control it.
But I focus on the only thing I can give him right now anyway.
Warmth and comfort.
Just a flicker of it. Like the feeling of sunlight through a window, the sound of my laugh when I’m half-asleep, or the way he looked at me the first time I called him ‘monster man’ without flinching.
I send it all across the bond. Just a soft thread of reassurance. Nothing demanding. Just something that’s there.
A pulse of quiet.
An invisible touch to the cheek of a man with blood on his hands and fire in his chest.
I don’t know if it reaches him, but I know the fury dulls enough to let me breathe again.
Sunniva and I sit in the garden of her estate, a quiet place for us to talk without her father’s men roaming the halls.
In here, it’s just us, with Lucetta guarding the entrance from unwanted visitors.
Sunni hands me a mug of the tea she prepared before we came out and sinks into the chair across from mine. “You look like you’re in your own head,” she says, voice gentle but unblinking. “Wanna let me in?”
I stare into my tea like it might offer answers.
“I felt him,” I say finally. “Konstantin. Through the bond.”
Sunniva nods. “That’s part of it, right?”
“No, not like this, Sunni. I felt him. His fury. His fear. All of it. Like he was standing inside my skin. This isn’t the first time either.”
She blows out a breath, her eyes wide and intrigued. “Whoa. That’s . . . a lot. What did you do?”
I glance at her. “I think I sent something back?” I reply with more of a question than an actual answer.
That gets her attention, and she leans forward, all quiet intensity. “You did? What did you send?”
“Warmth,” I murmur. “I just . . . I didn’t want him to drown in it. All that rage. That’s too much for one person to carry. I wanted him to know I was here.”
Sunni watches me for a long moment. “You’re scared of it.”
It’s not a question, but I answer anyway. “Yes.”
“Why?”
I chew the inside of my cheek. “Because it’s real,” I whisper.
“It’s not just magic or fate. It’s not just chemistry.
It’s . . . invasive. Intrusive. I can’t lie to it.
I can’t hide from it. And I’ve spent most of my life building walls around everything I am so that no one can hurt me.
Now they’re crumbling, and he sees everything. ”
Sunniva doesn’t argue. She doesn’t try to fix it. She just sips her tea and lets me unravel like a good bestie does.
“I used to think you and Giselda were the only people who really knew me,” I say, barely louder than a breath.
“And she—” My voice breaks. “Like you, she knew how I thought, what I feared, who I loved. Now, we find out she’s not really dead, and instead of coming back to us, the people she called sisters, she’s out there just . . . destroying others.”
“You feel betrayed.”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” I grit my teeth.
“I feel stupid, mostly. For mourning her. For screaming her name in my sleep anytime I’d have nightmares about her wreck.
For folding a piece of myself into a box marked ‘grief’ and burying it.
Because now she’s alive. But it’s bigger than just that, Sun.
She’s pushing drugs onto the street that are killing people.
Giselda’s turned into something I always thought she hated.
For some reason, I feel like I failed her. Like we failed her.”
“We didn’t fail her, Cress. She failed us.”
The words land heavily.
“I keep wondering if any of it was real,” I admit. “The nights we all spent under the stars, talking about what we would do if we ever escaped this life. The secrets we all shared. The pinky promises we made. Do you think she meant any of it? Or were we just steps in a plan she created long ago?”
For a few minutes there’s nothing but silence.
Then Sunni replies softly with a hint of pain her voice.
“She was our sister in every way that counted. That’s not something we can turn off.
So, maybe she meant it once, but she chose another path.
One that led her away from us. And now, we get to choose too.
Because the Reaper . . . that person isn’t our friend, Cressida.
She’s something else entirely. She’s a monster and I’m not going to grieve for a monster. Not anymore.”
I lean my head back and stare up into the starry sky as I play over her words. There’s one truth that settles inside of me.
My friend did die that day seven years ago.
I loved her, I lost her, and I grieved her.
I don’t have it in me to do it again, so I won’t.