Chapter Twenty-Nine
Legend
Gods, her body is fucking perfection, so soft for such a prickly little thing, my mate.
My Haide.
“He’s waking,” someone says.
Waking? From what?
I reach for my mate’s legs, tugging her closer, but my fist closes around nothing. My eyelids flutter, peeling open to find my brothers standing above me.
The sight of Creed has my teeth clamping until something in my jaw pops. I stare at my oldest brother, wondering if I look hard enough, I’ll find the seam where the lie he spoke was stitched into him.
My bond is real.
Sinner bursts through the door, wearing my fucking face. I glare at him, until it morphs back into his own. He looks from me to my brothers. “It’s done. She saw me.”
A sound in the hall draws all our attention, and Silver rushes in, eyes hard. “She’s waiting.”
“Let her in,” Creed orders.
The room goes thin around the edges as the smell of salt and winter herbs cut through smoke and copper just as the mage appears. She steps over the threshold and stops like she ran face-first into a fate she didn’t order.
Her eyes take me in. From my busted nose to the smear of black drying at my mouth and chest. The shake in my wrists I’m pretending isn’t there. Something like alarm breaks through her stone-cold expression.
“This is worse than I thought,” she says. She drops to her knees beside me. Cold, dry fingers press to my sternum, and every muscle in my body lights like a fuse. My limbs burn, a starved fire racing out to my edges, and then some invisible hook takes my spine and lifts.
My chest rumbles with a deep groan. Every bone aches as I’m held, torso suspended, eye level with the Stygian like the room forgot which way gravity was supposed to go.
Knight swears and steps in, but she flashes him a look that stops him mid-lunge.
“Touch him and you will snap his spine,” she warns. “And it seems he’s unable to heal so I suggest you stand back. It’s weak. Any movement, it tears.”
“Tear what?” Sinner asks, voice gone flat.
“The braid,” she says. Her palm never leaves my chest. I can feel her power tasting me like a viper’s tongue. “Two threads, one knot, and a third, much older, looping the others tight.”
“Speak like a person,” Knight grinds out.
She ignores him, eyes on me. “Listen, boy,” she murmurs, and the word boy should make me laugh, but nothing in me remembers how. “The shore you want will drown you if you go as you are. The moon split its light to keep a tide alive. One part burns in you. The other burns where she’s missed.”
“Riddles,” I breathe, head lolling, fury too tired to lift its fists. “Why are you here, mage?”
“We will end this,” Creed says again, steadier now, tasting my glare and not looking away.
“Creed,” Knight shakes his head.
“There is no choice. We have to buy time, figure out how to cut her from his core without unraveling the thread that’s actually keeping his heart beating.”
Knight’s jaw clenches so hard I hear it. “We’re not—”
“We are,” Creed says, not looking away from me.
The mage’s hand leaves my chest and the invisible hook lets me drop an inch or two. I sway and Knight lunges to break the fall.
The mage clicks her tongue, and I jerk to a halt like a marionette whose strings were yanked from above.
Creed steps up, decision in his shoulders like armor. “London,” he says. “shield the room. No one can know.”
“What are you doing, Creed?” I jerk.
Why can’t I move?
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
Why can’t I speak?
“God damn it, do it!” Creed shouts. “Now. Everyone, all at once.”
“It’s wrong,” Knight snaps.
“I said fucking do it!”
“It’s forbidden, even to us.”
“There is no choice.” Sinner.
“Enough! Now! All of you!” my brother screams.
The air goes cold, prickles of ice erupt across my skin, only to burn like fire a moment later.
I think I scream or roar. Hands clamp me from all angles.
My body ceases, chest thrashing with each ragged breath, lungs burning as I try to contain the storm inside. In and fucking out—chaos scratches her razor-sharp claws down the marrow of my bones, leaving splinters of madness in her wake.
Red. Everything is fucking red.
“WHAT THE FUCK!” The roar that leaves my chest is feral. It’s years of hunger rolled into one explosive moment, echoing off the walls with enough force the windows rattle.
The door flings open with enough force to crack the wall behind it. The sound barely registers through the searing hot rage, and pain.
Pain.
Aching. Like an open infected wound beneath my skin that will never close and—
“Oh my…” soft. A voice, unfamiliar yet somehow known, pulls me to her. She stands at the threshold, golden waves that curl around her shoulders like silk in the dim light. Her skin, pale and fragile as porcelain, seems to glow from within.
Her eyes lock on mine, and something shifts in the universe.
Red bleeds to a hue I’m unfamiliar with, something warmer, gentler. The rage, for the first time in my memory, submits to something softer, leaving me breathless in its wake…
Her lips part, trembling like she isn’t sure if she should speak, but instead of words, it’s the faintest smile that curves her mouth. It’s…fragile, almost sad, like she walked into the pit on purpose and already knows the monster will eat her alive.
Am I the monster she fears?
No, she should never fear me, she should…
My mind splinters and my teeth snap, jaw aching with the need to tear the softness right off her face.
Her eyes grow glossy and my brows yank together as my chest rattles from the sight, something deep and primal tearing at my insides. It’s a vicious demand clawing through me.
Fix it, comfort her, touch her.
It’s brutal, the way it tears at me. Like my skull is being split open from the inside, pressure behind my eyes making the room tilt. Making my heart slam too hard against my ribcage.
The girl lowers slowly, almost like she’s floating to the floor’s surface. Like gravity bends differently for her and is honored to do so. Every inch of her body folds down in front of me, and my anger intensifies.
Why the fuck is she on her knees for me?
I should be the one at her feet. I should be the one begging to—
No.
I growl, shaking my head and rattling the thought from my skull.
No. What the fuck is going on?
I thrash forward, but my body goes nowhere, a sickened snap sounding as fire curses through my veins. My wrist has snapped and my head swings to the side.
My brothers hold me back. One on each arm. Red and black ropes winding around my arms, binding me to them like an animal on a fucking leash.
“Who is this?” My voice cracks across the room, rough, jagged. “What the fuck are you doing?”
They pull me back harder, an invisible force locking me in like a pathetic little pet, and the rage floods, thick and hot, burning every nerve raw. I thrash, teeth bared, desperate to break free and rip the truth out of them.
And I fucking will.
I’ll tear this entire room apart and I’ll find my—
A whimper, low and devastating, tears the fucking roof off and drops the world flat.
I freeze, every muscle locking like chains just cinched me. The sound rips through me like claws to the spine, sinking deep, tearing everything open. My lungs seize, my chest caves, and I can’t breathe past the punch of it.
I turn toward her on instinct, like every string in my body’s been tied to that sound and yanked tight.
Hold. Touch.
Her tears shine because of me and my rage collapses under it, leaving me choking on the need to put her back together. To drop to my knees and press my hands over the crack I made and swear I’ll never fucking do it again.
Every muscle in me pulls toward her, violent and helpless.
I search her for any injury but I find none visible to the eye, and a small part of me eases.
This girl… She’s gorgeous. The definition of perfection and purity. She looks like something that belongs in a display case, porcelain and untouchable, like a doll.
My little doll…
“No,” I grit, throat raw, tearing the thought apart. “What the fuck is happening? What are you doing?”
Dark hair. Defiant eyes.
Wild and crazy and mine.
My mate.
“It’s not working,” Knight growls.
“It will,” Creed fires back.
“He’s losing it,” Sinner adds.
“He won’t!” Creed barks, his tone then lowering with the command, “Do it. Now!”
No!
I fight against them. Every ounce of energy I have surges, but then something as soft as silk drags across my skin, and the fight drains out of me before I can even claw it back. The sensation carves straight through, splitting me open and stitching me into something else.
My whole body seizes, shudders, spine snapping tight like a bow pulled too far.
It isn’t just the touch.
It’s the recognition. It’s a brand carved, a tether locking into place with the kind of certainty I’ve never known. The air itself strokes me softly, but beneath it is steel chains, and vows older than time.
My eyes jerk up and slam into hers. The girl.
Her green eyes pierce mine, a calm of emerald, stabbing into me until breathing feels like a crime.
Her other hand joins the first, pressing into the opposite cheek. My power answers instantly, violent and uncontrollable.
Heat explodes from my chest in waves that shake the floor, and my vision sears white.
“Is it working?” someone asks.
“Is it killing him?” Another.
“Quiet,” a third voice whispers. “Look at his wounds. They’re sealing.”
“He’s getting stronger.”
“He feels the truth now. There is no denying.”
Don’t know who says what and I do not care. I want them out.
To leave me here alone with her.
Because this girl, this perfect little doll on her knees before me, she is all that matters now. When she smiles, my body vibrates in response.
“Hello, my King.” Her voice is silk stretched thin over steel, sliding straight into my bones, and I’d give up my crown to keep it there.
“Hello…mate.”