Chapter 40
His name was on Ksenia’s cracked lips as consciousness crashed over her like a wave battering rocks.
It wasn’t waves at all, but instead a rolling thunder and rain on the windows.
Each breath wheezed and scraped down her throat in bits and pieces. The faint taste of antiseptic was on her tongue as she hacked a cough. A chill made her shudder beneath the woolen covers, but her muscles were still on fire.
Tremors not only from her body, but from fear of a future she couldn’t control.
A warm, soothing touch met her shoulder. A lighthouse in this ocean of pain, drawing her back to reality with each reassuring brush of their fingers.
Her hypersensitive skin could feel their pulse, and she anchored herself to it. Breathing steadily in and out, matching every few beats.
Minutes, maybe hours, passed in this warm silence, safe from the storm.
Her head lolled to the side and she caught a glimpse of her savior. She froze, like a rabbit standing in an open trap.
Bohdan.
She had sought out the worst possible person for help.
She had to leave the trap before its iron-hinged jaws snapped her neck.
Slouched in a wooden chair, one long leg splayed out while the other was bent at the knee, he propped his elbow on the wooden arm and rested his head against his hand.
Exhaustion had carved deep shadows beneath his green eyes, his usually sharp features even more severe. His ebony hair was disheveled, falling across his forehead in unruly waves that spoke of him running anxious fingers through it for hours. His chin and cheeks were shadowed with stubble.
His usually immaculately pressed tunic was wrinkled and flecked with blood, rolled up to his elbows and hung open at the collar.
He stared forward, as if unwilling to meet her gaze quite yet.
He knew she was the killer.
Swallowing thickly, her throat cracked in response as her body heaved with a string of coughs.
He sat upright, pouring water from a carafe into a steel cup.
His handsome brows knit together as he helped ease her upright, the pillows fluffed behind her.
Then, he held her head steady, his fingers gently caressing the base of her skull as he tipped the cup to her mouth.
She pressed her lips tight—it could be poison. But she couldn’t resist.
The liquid hit her like relief and revival all at once. She drank greedily.
“Easy,” he murmured. “You’ll make yourself sick.”
“How long—” Her voice wheezed.
“A few hours. You shouldn’t have survived,” he said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “I gave you everything I had and called Mirko for help. You vomited blood for an hour straight.”
Ksenia tried to sit up, but her body protested with muscles shaking. She needed to go.
“Thank you,” she managed.
“I followed protocol.” He set her cup down carefully. “Though I have to say, showing up here was bold, even for you.”
“I trusted you would know what to do.”
“Trusted.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Interesting word choice, considering the circumstances.”
“What circumstances?” She swung her legs off the bed, bare feet meeting the cold stone. She was dressed in his tunic, the collared opening draping low on her shoulder. Her eyes searched for her effects.
On the table next to him sat Caromir, disassembled, the blade and its tang laid bare.
“Circumstances where the killer struck again.” He rolled his cuffs. “Lady Milena was found dead in the garden with a gashed throat.”
“Terrible.” Tension snapped through her shoulders, but she kept her expression neutral.
He hummed. “Isn’t it?”
“Sounds like you have quite the problem on your hands.”
“Oh, I definitely had my hands full.” His eyes locked on hers, and she subconsciously took a step away. “The problem showed up at my door, covered in blood and poisoned by Milena’s hairpin needle.”
His hand plucked a small metal object from the bedside table. “I think you would have branded her too, if Milena hadn’t struck first.” The maker’s mark was within his palm.
A clap of thunder.
She snorted a soft laugh.
Now, he finally saw the monster she’d become.
“And yet…” Rage simmered beneath her skin, rivaling the burning in her side. “Here I am, alive and unrestrained. Which means you haven’t decided what to do with me yet.”
“What’s the rush?” His hand drifted toward the hilt of his sword. “It’s not every day you get to interrogate a serial killer in your own bedroom.”
Lightning illuminated the room.
“Serial killer.” A smile quirked her lips.
“I kept telling myself there was another explanation.” His jaw tightened. “So give me one.”
He circled, slow and predatory.
“Someone had to.” She matched his pace, keeping the distance. “The bondsmiths. The children. No one would’ve stopped it. So I did something about it.”
His expression wavered, but he wiped it clean.
He drew his sword in a smooth motion, the tip finding her throat in the blink of an eye.
Ksenia didn’t flinch. “Are you going to kill me, Bohdan?”
She moved her hand toward the table behind her and clenched her fist around Caromir’s bare tang.
“Yes.” But the blade didn’t press forward.
“You won’t.”
“Why is that?”
“If you wanted me dead, you wouldn’t have saved me.” Caromir trembled in her palm.
“I wanted you to prove me wrong.” His voice was tight.
“I won’t, so do it,” she challenged, stepping closer till the tip sank into her skin, crimson rising to the surface.
Through his blade, she could feel the tremor of his hand.
“Confident, for someone who can barely stand.” He lowered it an inch, the tip red.
“Do it.” A wicked smile twisted her lips. “Watching you struggle is pitiful.”
“You don’t know what I’m struggling with.”
The silence stretched.
She thrust Caromir forward, and he caught her wrist mid-reach, twisting it behind her back and disarming her as he spun her around.
His sword clattered to the floor as he used both hands to control her, her back pressed against his chest. “Nice try.”
She drove her elbow back into his ribs and stomped on his foot. He grunted but didn’t release her, adjusting his grip to pin both her arms.
She hooked her foot behind his ankle, throwing her weight backward.
They hit the floor hard. She twisted in his grip like a snake, despite her leaden-feeling limbs.
She got a hand free and closed it around his throat.
He caught her arm, using his weight to roll her beneath him, pinning both her wrists above her head with one hand.
Their faces were inches apart, both breathing hard.
“Are you done?” he asked, voice dark and rough.
“Are you?” She bucked her hips, trying to throw him off.
He settled his weight firmly, melding his hips with hers. His free hand came to rest beside her head. “You’re not strong enough to win this right now. Stop fighting me.”
“I don’t care.”
“I know.” Something shifted in his eyes. “You never surrender. It’s…” He stopped.
“What?” she demanded.
“Infuriating.” Her breath caught, but nothing could have prepared her for what he said next. “You’ve done in a matter of weeks what I’ve been too scared to do my entire life.”
Wait.
She stopped struggling.
The wayfinder coins, the missives, his presence in the Vein…
“I killed innocent people so that I could save more.”
Innocents, including her.
Realization slammed into her like a sledgehammer.
“You’re the Shepherd.”
He smiled wryly.
No. No. She knew what to do with evil.
She could counter evil.
She didn’t know what to do with him.
The foundation of her hatred broke.
“How—how are you able to fight his compulsion?”
“I spent my whole life underneath my mask.” His sigh was heavy. “To hide the fact that he can’t compel his own flesh and blood.”
Ksenia stilled.
His mask was survival.
Karsan’s own son was immune.
He had always been immune.
“Then, you’ve always had the power of choice.” Her golden eyes snapped to his. “Every time. Every command. Every person.”
Silence stretched between them.
“Did you ever hesitate?” she said low. “When he called upon you?”
His jaw tightened. “Every single time.” He held her gaze, though it seemed to burn him.
“I—forced myself to do it because if I broke, then everything I’d done as the Shepherd would be meaningless…
” His eyes turned hollow. “There were even times I’d been forced to kill the very parents of the children I’d just saved.
” His hand curled into a fist by her head.
Ksenia’s skin prickled, reliving the fateful night they crossed paths.
If she had met him in the Vein, he would have helped her escape. But in that forest, he’d led her to her death.
The strong line of his shoulders broke as if he’d taken on a physical weight. “I’m going to rot in hell.”
This was what she wanted.
Bohdan was exposed before her. Ksenia had all the power over him. She could make him hurt, as he made her.
His eyes met hers. “Why did you ask?”
The silence stretched between them.
He let it.
“Don’t you recognize me?” she murmured, her voice warbling at the end.
His eyes searched hers.
Every day since her rebirth, she had been present in the castle, but unseen in her body.
And here was the last person who had truly seen her as herself.
She watched as the pieces clicked in place in his sharp mind.
His hand reached for her face, then faltered.
Her name was a prayer and a curse on his lips.
“Ksenia.”
Not Senka. Not Lady Sevrant. Not the serial killer.
As quickly as her softness had spread, anger took root. A familiar, seething heat beneath her skin.
She loathed that her subconscious led her to him in her time of need.
That he was her safety in the heart of darkness.
He watched her hand close around Caromir once more.
This was what she wanted. This was what she came here to do.
Exhausted green eyes peered back at her, as if she were his savior and damnation and he was done pretending otherwise.
Her grip closed around his throat, slamming him against the bedpost, straddling him.
Say something. Fight back. Be the monster.
Silence.
He was patient, entirely hers to do whatever she wanted.