Chapter Thirty #3
People stop mid-conversation. Glasses freeze halfway to mouths. Everyone openly turns toward us, feeding on this moment like it’s the best entertainment they’ve had all year.
Panic claws up my throat. Because if I don’t have the protection of the Royals—if I don’t have him—then I’m just a target. An outsider. Fair game for anyone.
“What do you mean?” My voice sounds far away, like it’s coming from someone else. Someone weaker. “Legend, I don’t understand. What’s—”
“You want me to spell it out?” He cuts me off, stepping forward, and darkness rolls off him in waves I’ve never seen before. It’s wrong. All wrong. Like something crawled inside him and wore his skin.
I flinch.
Actually fucking flinch, and I see the exact moment he notices. See something flicker in his eyes—too fast to name—before it’s gone again, buried under ice.
“You’re a witch,” he announces. Loud. Clear. Making sure every single person in this room hears. “Sent by the island to drain me. To take my power. And you almost succeeded.”
My mouth opens. Closes. No words come out.
“She’s not my mate.” He pulls Arabella forward and takes her hand, bringing it to his lips. Kisses her knuckles while staring straight at me. “Arabella is.”
The room erupts.
Voices slam into me from every direction—sharp, accusing, vicious.
“Witch!”
“I knew it!”
“She should be executed!”
“Exile trash—”
“No.” The word comes out strangled. Wrong. I shake my head, wishing it could pull me out of this shitshow. “No, you’re lying. This isn’t—”
I’m about to say Sinner. It has to be Sinner again playing his stupid games, but I feel it. In the bond. In the place where he lives under my ribs, burning and constant.
This is Legend.
Not Sinner wearing his face. Not some illusion. Not a trick.
Him.
And he’s destroying me.
My eyes snap to Arabella. She’s smiling. Small. Victorious. Like she just won a game I didn’t know we were playing.
Rage ignites.
I don’t think. Don’t plan. Just move.
My body launches forward, hand already reaching for the dagger strapped to my thigh, aiming straight for that smug fucking face—
Legend catches me mid-lunge.
One second I’m airborne, the next I’m flying backward. My body slams into the far wall with enough force to crack stone. Pain explodes across my spine, skull, and ribs. The air punches out of my lungs.
I hit the ground in a heap, gasping, and the room spins.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I try to move. My body won’t respond, locked in place like invisible chains just snapped around every limb.
Sinner.
His magic crawls over my skin, holding me down. I feel his lips brush my ear. “You look hot as fuck in that dress.” His breath ghosts across my neck. “Shame you’re gonna die tonight. Would have loved to take a turn on you.”
My heart stops.
Legend steps forward, slow and deliberate, each footfall echoing in the sudden silence. The crowd parts for him like the sea. I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but watch as he closes the distance between us.
He crouches down at eye level. Close enough I can see the blackness swirling in his gaze, the cruel twist of his mouth.
“You’re nothing,” he says again. Quiet. Just for me. “You never were.”
Fear. Every inch of insecurity crawls its way over my skin. I shrink inward, my mind collapsing around me.
Then he stands, and walks back to Arabella.
He cups her face. Tilts her chin up. And kisses her.
Gentle. Soft.
Claiming.
The kind of kiss that says mine in a language everyone understands.
My vision blurs. Tears? Rage? I can’t tell anymore.
The crowd starts moving. Closing in. I catch the glint of steel—knives, swords, magic crackling in too many hands. They’re coming for me. All of them. And I can’t move. Can’t fight. Can’t—
My fingers twitch. Just barely. Enough to feel the dagger still strapped to my thigh.
Come on. Come on.
Legend pulls back from Arabella, whispers something in her ear that makes her laugh, then glances over his shoulder.
Our eyes meet.
For one heartbeat, something flickers in his gaze. Something that looks like—
It’s gone.
He turns away, taking Arabella’s hand, leading her toward the doors.
“I’m going to fuck my mate,” he announces to the room. Casual. Bored. “Do what you want with the exile.”
The crowd surges forward.
Weapons raise.
Magic ignites.
And I’m still pinned, still helpless, watching my death close in from every angle.
My hand finally closes around the hilt of my dagger. I yank it free, the blade singing as it clears the sheath, and I bare my teeth at the first person who gets too close.
“Come on then!” My voice rips out, feral and broken. “Let’s see who bleeds first!”
But there are too many. Too many bodies, too many blades, too much magic crackling in the air. I’m one person, held down by invisible chains, with nothing but a knife and rage.
This is it.
This is how I die.
Not on Exile Island. Not in battle. But here, in a glittering ballroom, betrayed by the one person I finally let in.
Movement at the edge of my vision. Legend, still walking away, Arabella on his arm.
He pauses. Just for a second. Glances back over his shoulder.
Our eyes lock one last time.
Then everything goes black.