Chapter 32
B ronze’s head was hammering against his skull as if his brain matter was a kidney stone being worked over with the most efficient ultrasonic propulsion. And if that wasn’t enough, he still wasn’t entirely certain he had it in him to stand still while Broderick and his boys dragged a muzzled-and-leashed wolf out of the room by his tail like some animal control trophy capture.
Except it wasn’t a trophy. It—because Bronze was so not ready to believe there was anything worth dignifying as a male in that piece of shit—was a king. Clara’s king. Her father.
And, as far as Bronze was concerned, on borrowed fucking time in terms of breaths left.
When Halpin shifted and lunged for Clara, Bronze’s soul had punched into action before his muscles had a chance to regroup, so deep was the shock of seeing a male of her own blood coming at her with a ferocity strictly reserved for enemies. But after so long without Bronze’s power, he couldn’t yet trust in its accuracy or strength. One millimeter off and Bronze could fry Clara instead of the king. Instead, he’d turned to what he knew would see him through and what had been tested time and again over the past several days: his strength.
It was just enough of a successful trust exercise to convince Bronze that, yes, he was fully capable of sinking into his power, calling forth his full angel fire and wielding it with ease.
Of course the first time he’d become whole in soul and strength would also be the first time his full power was called into service for Clara’s protection.
So that was why, after the king had been dragged away, Bronze’s brain was spinning out, his powers cowering on the fritz, and his heart slowing to a worrisome degree when Clara looked up at him from the note she’d been holding.
She spoke the words again, with clear diction and enunciation, to ensure there was no possible confusion as to what she was asking.
Which made total fucking sense. Because when you were accusing your soul bond of ulterior motives, you needed to make damn sure he had all the rope he needed to hang himself.
For the first time in all his years, Bronze didn’t know how to respond. Oh, the rest of his body sure as shit knew to freak out and panic, but the part of his brain responsible for the sweet care and protection of his female had nothing, and maybe that was a relief, because lies never stuck around to see the fruits of their labor.
No, they were always the first to get good and gone, leaving the hard truth to clean up the mess they’d made.
“May I see what you’re reading?” he asked over a hard swallow.
“No. You may answer my question first.”
He knew better than to take a step forward, even though he was a blink away from rushing to her just so his body could impress the truth of his being into hers and chase the doubt of his lying words away.
There was no question in his mind. She knew. He didn’t know how, but she knew, and if he wanted any hope of keeping her in his life, he had to give her what she was asking for.
“It was my original plan to retrieve an item, yes, but it had nothing to do with making love to you.”
A gripping chill crept over the stone walls, blanketing the room in a cold that seemed to freeze everything in place. Clara, likewise, stood frozen, her face a mask of smooth indifference and quiet calm.
When she spoke, only her lips moved. “Your . . . relations with me were secondary to your true goal? A goal that would have you stealing from my people?”
“No! No. Fuck, Clara, you weren’t secondary to anything. Please, what are you holding?”
“Are you asking me so you can ensure your story is in line with what I have discovered?”
Cold. Her words were so cold, they cut through him like jagged icicles.
“I don’t understand,” he admitted honestly, and even that small acquiescence to the truth seemed to help thaw the tight band around his heart, just enough so the withered muscle could start to bleed out.
Clara held the paper out to him between the tips of two fingers, offering up only what contact was required. “This is an official missive from Lord Raff to my father, dated the morning before he died. I have verified the seal and handwriting as his own.”
Bronze stepped forward lightly and took the note she offered, but he didn’t linger at her side, instead shrinking back to the place he’d previously occupied across the rug. Like a fucking coward.
After a few hard blinks, he managed to make the words coalesce into something that resembled paragraphs, though none were what he wanted to read.
Your Majesty,
I wish to recount my observations of the previous night. Upon witnessing the supposed demigod, Bronze, donning his shirt in the hallway after leaving the lady’s bedchamber, I followed him to the royal coffers you had pointed out to me during the tour the day of my arrival. There, he was intently inspecting the coffers’ door, and I confronted him on his intentions. He evaded my questions, naturally, but it was clear he never intended to be caught. I also suspect that he had no true intention of remaining as the lady’s champion and competing any further for her hand and, by extension, your kingdom’s best interests. In my experience, once a thief acquires what they have been searching for, they tend to flee.
Use this information as you wish. As a testament to the strength of our future alliance, I share this freely so you and your daughter may go into the days ahead with open eyes and clear consciences.
-Lord Raff
Bronze let the note fall to the floor. It was either that or incinerate the thing and piss on the ashes. “Clara?—”
“I shall have the truth now or nothing at all. I recall that night you were angry with me, as you should have been based on how I treated you, but I cannot understand . . .” Clara’s eyes dipped lower a fraction, her only deference to a debate. But all too soon that arctic gaze returned to him, and the mask was set into place once more. “I never showed you where the coffers were. I only told you that they existed. The serving female who brought me linens that night, she was also carrying the moonstone relic to return it to the coffers.”
Bronze saw the moment those cogs fit into each other like shark’s teeth, and a true soul-crushing fear gripped him.
“You followed her,” she whispered, understanding brightening her gaze but dragging down her features with even more disappointment. “Followed where she took the relic so you’d know where the coffers were located. In truth, I observed you noticing her, but I foolishly thought you were worried she might stumble. She was carrying quite a load down the stairs, and she is getting on in years.”
Fuck. This was spiraling too fast. Every time his mind latched on to one thread to try and tame it, another would spring loose and unravel at twice the speed. All the while, Clara was shrinking further and further away from him, until he barely recognized the look she gave him, so foreign it was to see it splayed across her features.
It was one of disgust, repulsion.
“It was the relic,” he admitted, his hands outstretched before him, desperately reaching for her even as she pulled away.
“What?”
And then his arms fell. Just plunked to the sides of his frame as if he had nothing left to offer save for whatever truth he could submit that he hoped would at least fill in the gaps left by his lies.
“When I pulled you out of the river and brought you to my brothers, Rhode noticed the relic around your neck as something other than what you know it as. It was a mirror image of what he’d seen in Cyro’s possession, something with enough power to possibly open the gates of the Empyrean again.”
“I thought you said your goddess revealed it as a celestial mechanism by which our souls could at last discover each other. That was what the magic was for, to finally free your powers.”
“ After . All of that happened after I’d already joined with you, and I had no idea the thing was capable of any of that.”
She seemed to latch on to that piece of information, and he held the kernel of hope in his chest that he could somehow still get through to her.
Until she held her claw above the one thread he’d hoped she wouldn’t snag and shredded it.
“So your goal the entire time was to obtain the relic so you might use its magic—the magic you suspected it of having—to return home. You never intended to remain here with me, in this kingdom, even as a visiting monarch as per our original agreement.”
There was no going back from what she’d ripped open. He knew that now and knew that, as she stood there with those expectant eyes begging him to tell her anything other than the truth, he’d ruined the one thing in his life that gave him hope for happiness.
Bronze dipped his head, shame weighing the thing down, and spoke the truth. The entirety of it. “The tattoo you saw on my chest, the one with Polina’s name, was born from a celestial oath I made with her brother, that’s true, but there was more to it. I swore to look after her, not in the manner of her brother’s best friend but as a mate.”
An icy chill thickened the air further. “A mate?”
“Yes. My station as a sentinel would have afforded her more security. I had the skills and means to defend her should things with Cyro’s armies get worse. But it was a promise made to a dying friend on the battlefield, Clara, not one thought out and the repercussions examined for eons to come. I made it out of love for Malik, not because I loved Polina as anything more than a fond acquaintance. Fuck, I haven’t even seen her since I fell, and I don’t even know whether she knows about the oath.”
“But you’ve thought of nothing else since then, clearly. And you used me and my circumstances to try and find a means to your own end so you might discover a way back to her.”
“At first, yes, but listen to me.” He rushed toward her, but the warning in her stare drew him back.
“Why did you insist I wear the relic last night when we—” She cleared a sob from her throat, stomping out the emotion. “When we had sex?”
Had sex. Not made love.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I just did.”
“Was it just for your own vanity’s sake? Or were you so impressed at how beautifully you’d orchestrated this whole production that you wanted to marvel at your exploits while conquering another?” She leaned forward on her hips and flared her eyes. “Tell me, were you disappointed when you couldn’t cut it from my throat? After all the times you had to bleed on my behalf in the games that I begged you to compete in?”
“No! Never!” His heart. Oh, mages, his heart. The thing hemorrhaged freely, each pump expelling more of the vital fluid that had kept his hollow shell of a body moving throughout the ages.
And he had been doing just that, he’d realized. Moving. Fighting. Fucking. Whatever his body demanded of him so long as he kept his eyes on the prize. Destroy charmers. Save souls. Kill Cyro. Get home. There had never been room for anything else. Perhaps that was why he always found a joke or two handy to offer up. Laughs were simple and fleeting. A quick dopamine hit that was gone as soon as it arrived but had the strength to change the vibe of a room and, more importantly, divert attention from what people would otherwise prefer to keep secret.
What they’d prefer not to dwell on.
Clara didn’t move, didn’t shake, didn’t even look at him. There was no light in her eyes. Just a rigidity to her stature that he’d seen warriors adopt time and time again when they had no true fight left in them but were still resigned to their fate.
“Clara, please . . .”
The shift happened so fast, he nearly fell back on his ass. Clara roared a great painful howl to the ceiling, one that was a haunting mix of mortal and wolf. Then sleek muscle coated in thick white fur sprouted through her garments, and a muzzle holding far too many teeth was pointed right at him. Those tawny-brown eyes that had always reminded him of cinnamon and maple were now trained on him in the style of a predator. One large paw moved forward, then the other. Saliva dripped from her sharp fangs, landing in neat little drops before her, anointing the path she would take to annihilate her prey.
When she was a few feet from him, she snapped her jaws wide and swiped her claws at his chest. He jumped back at the warning shot and knew damn well she wouldn’t give another.
After all, judges didn’t bring the gavel down twice.
With all his options exhausted, Bronze turned from the room, shaking, and shut the door behind him.
Unlike the last time he’d shut a lycan in there, eerie silence met his back. There was no hurled furniture. No breaking glass. Nothing.
Just the absolute stillness of a broken heart.