Chapter 2
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I took a step back. Not because the punch had been that hard—though, it was—but because I knew I’d screwed up. I shouldn’t have touched her. Shouldn’t have dared to get that close. I deserved worse.
Theo gave a low whistle. “Well, that’s one way to say hello.”
My cousin, the ever-helpful bystander. I shot him a glare, then exhaled, slowly.
Tried to let the sting of pain blooming in my jaw ground me.
“Guess I deserved that.” I finally looked down at her.
She hadn’t moved since she’d struck me, her fist still half-raised.
I wondered if that meant she was thinking about doing it again.
I stood my ground. I wouldn’t dodge if Pendragon came at me. I’d meant what I said: I deserved it. Then I took in her expression. Somewhere between furious and broken. Something wrenched inside. Oh, Pendragon.
But that was the hell of it—I couldn’t touch her. Couldn’t even say her name out loud.
She had dark specks of blood spattered across one cheek.
She smelled … a little strange. But beneath it all I caught the familiar scent of her.
Her entire posture screamed Get the fuck away from me!
from the power in her stance to the fury in her eyes, the way her whole body radiated a pure kind of grief that demanded the world get its shit together and do a hell of a lot better.
She was the most alive thing I’d ever seen. The most beautiful thing I would ever see. I wanted to step closer. Wrap her in my arms. Soothe her, say all the comforting words I could think of—which weren’t many, under the circumstances, but damn if I wouldn’t give it a try.
But I couldn’t. Didn’t dare. Didn’t have the right.
I looked around the hall, saw the blood spattered on the floor.
Clearly, I’d walked into something. But just what, I wasn’t sure.
Pendragon was breathing hard—not just from hitting me but like she’d been running.
For all I knew, she’d been running since the moment I’d betrayed her in the Dragon Court and hadn’t stopped until now, when her fist had finally found my face.
Wasn’t I the target she wanted? I’d fucked her over completely.
Gone behind her back. Lied to her. Made her lie to her dragon.
I’d tried to turn Nyxaris back to stone.
I’d done a lot of shitty things in my life.
But that one kept me up at night. When I wasn’t thinking about Aenia, which was a lot of the time, I sometimes let the guilt gnaw at me.
Just for fun. It wasn’t as if I was actually sleeping anyhow.
Pendragon was still looking at me. I wondered what she saw.
I dropped my hand from my jaw. My fingers itched to raise it again, to touch my left eye—or what was left of it.
My body was healing. Benefits of vampirism.
But the damage would never be entirely undone.
The skin around the eye socket was still tender, taut.
The eye was still, well, gone. The healers weren’t sure if it would ever grow back.
Highbloods had sometimes been known to grow back limbs, but it wasn’t guaranteed.
In the meantime, I didn’t need a mirror to know I looked like something a dragon had chewed up and spit out.
Blake the highblood golden boy? Not anymore. Not with a red-scaled monster hiding under my skin.
Pendragon’s expression had changed into something less angry but no less guarded.
I longed to ask her what she saw when she looked at me.
But just having her look at me at all would have to be enough.
One of her red curls suddenly plunged over her face.
I stared, transfixed, as she brushed it back, tucking it behind an ear.
Hell, it was the loveliest thing I’d seen all week.
I’d never stop being in awe of that hair.
Of her hand. Of every little thing she did.
I closed my eyes briefly, trying to get a fucking grip.
I’d tried to redeem myself that night. I’d stood between Nyxaris and Florence.
Offered myself as a dragon snack to try to save a friend who mattered to her.
But the fact that if all had gone according to plan, I’d have betrayed her that night and rendered my attempt to atone hollow.
It didn’t matter what I’d done afterwards. I was a bastard. A villain.
Still, those words she’d said to Nyxaris?
I’d never forget them. But that didn’t mean she’d really meant them.
Not in the way I hoped she did. She’d saved my skin.
I hadn’t deserved it then—I didn’t now. I wasn’t foolish enough to think she’d ever truly forgive me.
But she was here. She hadn’t walked away yet.
So for a second, I let myself breathe it in.
The shape of her. The memory of how good it felt to just be near her.
I didn’t have a shot in hell. But Bloodmaiden help me if I wasn’t still hoping.
“Have you seen Visha?” Theo demanded, interrupting my thoughts—which was probably for the best. Pendragon and I couldn’t just keep staring at each other forever, even if I would have been fine with that.
“Visha?” I shrugged. “Once or twice around the common room.”
Theo frowned disapprovingly. I guess he was thinking I didn’t seem concerned enough about Visha. She’d lost someone. I was her House Leader. I should be stepping up. He was right.
“You weren’t at dinner last night. I didn’t see you in the common room. Where’d you go?”
I stared at my cousin for a second. In some other timeline, I should have been furious with him.
He’d killed Aenia. Taken my little sister away from me for good.
I wasn’t over her loss—in some ways I’d hardly even started to face it.
I woke up every morning from dreams that seemed so real, dreams of Aenia and me running on that beach.
Happier times. Every morning, I had to remember the truth.
She was gone. No second chances. Some highbloods might have already ripped Theo’s throat out for what he’d done, accident or not.
But I knew—knew—in the very blood that ran in my veins that Theo hadn’t wanted to hurt Aenia.
It went against everything I knew about my cousin.
He would never have caused her harm unless there’d been truly no other way.
Everyone had seen Aenia as a lost cause. But she was one I’d planned to never give up on. Still, I knew who was really to blame for it all. And I didn’t have to look far to find him. The real culprit. The source of almost all my woes.
“Blake? Where’d you go last night?” Theo repeated.
I closed my eyes. “Viktor. I went to see Viktor.”