Break Her Heart (Books of Bronwen #2)

Chapter 1

Bronwen

You made me king. I’ll make you my queen.

The words rang in my head—too loud, too real. My stomach twisted. I had expected his hatred, his rage. I had been ready to die for what I had done. But this? This wasn’t vengeance.

This was a claim.

And somehow, that terrified me more.

“N-no.”

August’s laugh tore through the woods, echoing off the trees like thunder. Snow swirled through the air, flakes catching in my hair and melting against my flushed cheeks.

“No?” His voice was a blade. “Do you expect me to listen? Like you listened to me when I told you not to kill him? I am your king now, remember? And as your king, you will do as I say.”

I recoiled at his words. His command.

“I will not marry you.”

In an instant, he was standing above me, pressing my back against a tree. His eyes glowed red, a wicked brightness against the midnight shadows.

“Say that again,” he whispered, edged with madness.

His breathing was uneven, his fists clenching and unclenching as if he couldn’t decide whether to strike me or pull me closer.

He pressed forward, pushing me harder against the tree, his movements sharp and jerky, like his own body was fighting against him.

“You think you can just walk away from me? After everything?”

My hands trembled as rage burned beneath my skin. He was not going to tell me what to do.

But the August standing in front of me wasn’t the one I had come to know.

Not the one who made me feel… something.

Dark webs pulsed beneath his red eyes. That playful smirk he always wore was long gone.

His hair was in disarray—the hair that I had clenched in my hands only hours earlier.

He was so vulnerable then, worried about me, begging me to trust him.

And I did. Then I used his trust to do the one thing that I knew he despised.

I pulled his magic, sending him through what I could only imagine to be unbearable pain, and I used that to kill his father.

When I did that, something inside him had shifted, like I’d broken a part of his soul that he could never get back.

The way something inside me broke when my parents died.

The guilt twisted through me like thorns, sharp and relentless. I had used him. Manipulated him. And now I stood here trying to pretend I was the righteous one.

But hadn’t he been manipulating me, too? Keeping secrets, holding back the truth until it suited him? Trying to control me even now? My thoughts tangled, torn between anger and guilt, between the anguish in his eyes and the cruelty in his words.

No. Carrow deserved to die. I was willing to sacrifice my relationship with August for that. That was a truth that didn’t change. No emotion burned brighter than the pain I felt from seeing my parents’ lifeless bodies. Nothing mattered more than getting revenge.

“But you hated your father,” I snapped, pushing him off of me as I moved out of his reach. My breath spilled out in frantic clouds, the chill scraping against my lungs.

“This has nothing to do with my father,” he said coldly. “This is about Carrow.”

“What?” Why did he say things like this? Things that never made sense. “Your father is Carrow!”

August glanced to the left as if he’d heard something that I couldn’t. His shoulders tensed, jaw clenched. His gaze flickered through the darkness, searching for whatever threat he sensed.

“Your brother is looking for you. Let’s go.”

He stepped forward, but I matched the distance with a step back. Fear threaded through me, each breath a struggle against the cold that seeped into my bones.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

His eyes locked onto mine. “You will.”

My fists clenched at my sides, the heat of the magic I stole from Carrow rising like a fever against the winter chill. Flames itched beneath my skin, desperate to be released.

“Tell me, Winnie,” he said, cruelly calm. “Has your… curse been broken? Do you feel the magic pulsing through you? Are you fixed? Or are you still a hollow shell of a witch?”

His words cut deep, but the truth remained. Nothing had changed. No surge of magic when I killed Carrow. No divine awakening. Just the magic I had stolen from him, still burning beneath my skin like an echo of what I could never truly have.

I didn’t answer.

He laughed, bitter and full of venom. “I thought so.”

Again, he looked to the side, his body coiled like a beast ready to lunge. “Now come on.”

“No!” My voice cracked. “I will not go with you. I will not be your queen! I never want to see you again.”

“Winnie—”

“Don’t call me that!” I hissed. “You kept things from me this entire time. You knew who Carrow was from the beginning. You let him meet me, feed on me—and you let him kill my parents. I told you I would kill Carrow, and I did.”

“You didn’t,” he said.

“What is wrong with you? Did you not see me kill him? Are you truly that insane?”

He ran his hands through his hair before letting out a grunt, the frustration in him boiling over. “You killed his host body.”

“What are you talking about?”

“On the next Blood Moon, his soul will take over my body. It’s his loophole—his way to gain true immortality. You can’t kill him. He will always be here, controlling everyone around him.”

The air vanished from my lungs. “No,” I said, barely above a whisper. Fire flickered in my hands, heat rolling down my arms, defiant against the frigid air. “He—he can’t. That’s not possible.”

“It is. He left his fae form and took the body of the Joveryn King. When that body gave out, he moved to the son, and then the next son. Now?” August’s eyes met mine, cold and calculating. “Now it’s my turn.”

I shook my head slowly, the world tilting beneath my feet.

“No,” I whispered, but the word tasted wrong—empty and thin. I stumbled back a step, needing distance, needing something to hold onto. But there was nothing. Only the jagged ruins of what I thought I’d won.

“You’re lying,” I said, but even I could hear the desperation bleeding through the words. August didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He just stared at me like he was waiting for the rest of me to shatter.

He’s dead, I wanted to scream. I killed him! I killed him!

But deep down, in the place I couldn’t protect, the truth had already started to root itself. I knew it. I had felt it even then—that killing Carrow hadn’t been enough. That it was all wrong.

I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to hold in the panic clawing at my ribs.

“I burned him,” I said, as if saying it out loud could make it true. Could make it real. “I burned him to nothing. There was nothing left.”

August’s mouth twisted. “Ashes can still speak. You just weren’t listening.”

The floor seemed to shift beneath me, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

This wasn’t just my failure. It was everyone’s loss.

And it was mine to carry.

I dug my nails into my palms, welcoming the sting. You did this. You trusted the wrong person. You let the wrong man close.

When I opened my eyes again, August was still there. Waiting. Watching me fall apart and daring me to stand back up.

“What do you want from me?” I rasped.

“I want you to fix it,” he said simply, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. As if it hadn’t already broken me.

He looked like a caged animal, every muscle pulled taut, his breath uneven and raw. Fury swirled within him, but something else too—something frantic and helpless.

I shook my head as he stepped closer.

“So you can either kill me now,” he said, “or you’ll marry me and find a way to stop it.”

Snow crunched behind me.

“Bronwen.”

My name, spoken in a voice so familiar, cut through the icy darkness like a blade.

I turned sharply, my body still shaking from the fight with August. Adar stood just a few steps away, his chest heaving, eyes wide with panic.

His gaze darted between August and me, confusion twisting his features into something close to horror.

I had kept so much from him this entire time. You have to trust me, I had said when I formed the plan.

And he did, without a second thought. But he didn’t know that everything that happened was my fault. He didn’t know that the man I told him I was sparring with was a monster. One who dragged us all into this nightmare.

But it was all coming together for him now.

“What did you do?” The words scraped out of his throat like broken glass. His eyes searched mine, pleading for an explanation that I didn’t have.

August’s voice sliced through the air like a knife. “You haven’t told him?” He laughed, the sound splintering against the silence. “You didn’t warn him that he was killing the king?” Each word flung like a poisoned dart. “Or that you were fucking a vampire?”

Adar recoiled, his shoulders jerking as if the words had struck him physically. I saw the betrayal flicker across his face, raw and bleeding. His fists clenched at his sides, knuckles white from the force of it.

August smiled. “Or that you are the reason your parents are dead?”

Fire exploded from my hands.

I wanted to make it all stop. The madness, the pain, the twisted threads of truth and lies that bound us all together. The fire lashed out of me, uncontrollable and savage. I was ready to end it. To move on from the games that had consumed me. To finally kill August.

But instead, I ran toward Adar, grabbing his arm with fingers that trembled with both fury and desperation.

And then we were gone.