Chapter Twenty
Legend
I wake with a jolt, throat clenched tight like phantom hands are locked around it.
Air slams into my lungs in a violent rush, and I jerk upright. The stone beneath my palms is cold and solid and real. For a moment, I don’t remember why I’m here. Why my cheek aches. Why my insides feel like they’ve been liquified.
Then with a breath, everything comes back at once.
Her hand on my jaw.
The scream.
The tearing.
The way something inside my chest snapped loose and recoiled like it had never belonged there in the first place. Because it fucking didn’t!
I suck in another shuddering breath.
Gods. Fuck.
My hand flies to my sternum instinctively, fingers digging into fabric in search of some kind of wound—some physical proof of the violence that just moved through me. Instead there is only heat, raw and pulsing, and beneath it— her.
The bond is there, tight and undeniable, curled through my ribs like it’s been waiting for me to stop fighting.
The awareness of her slams into me so hard my vision whites out at the edges.
I feel her proximity and absence at the same time, like she just walked out of reach and left the door open on purpose.
The thread between us pinches, then flares.
Magic swells without being called, but it’s so fucking welcome. The force of it drives me to my feet before I make the decision to stand. I barely feel the motion. It’s instinct, dragging my body upright with a snap of energy that ripples through the chamber.
The air shifts with it.
The bond pulls again. My magic flares hotter and brighter. For a fraction of a second, I am weightless, power lifting through me in a column so fierce it almost feels like I could tear the walls down with a thought.
My foot hits the floor with purpose, every muscle in my body aligned toward a single direction. I don’t need to wonder, I know exactly where she is. Not physically, but I know without a doubt when I move, my feet will carry me right to her.
A clearing throat breaks the silence. I was so singularly focused, the sound slices through my roaring pulse like a lightening bolt.
I spin on instinct, magic still surging, ready to strike at whatever dares to stand in my way. When I find the source, my magic loosens the slightest bit.
Knight stands a few paces behind me, arms at his sides but shoulders tight and posture coiled.
“Easy,” he says, raising his hands as if soothing a wild animal.
There is nothing easy about the way my magic is clawing to move forward. The bond burns under my skin, alive and furious and demanding. I realize with a cold clarity that I have never felt it this loud before.
Behind him, Sinner leans against the frame with his arms crossed, his usual smirk absent.
They’ve been waiting.
“How long?” My throat burns. “How long was I out?”
Knight doesn’t blink. “Six earth hours.”
Six hours is fucking days here.
Heat spikes through the bond, sharper now, and I wince as it drives through me like a nail between my ribs. My hand flies to my chest before I can stop it, fingers pressing hard against the ache as if pressure alone could keep me from splitting apart.
It doesn’t work.
Nothing works. Every inch of the bond is alive, urging me toward her with a force I can barely think around. Why isn’t she here?
Fire tears through my chest.
This time, it’s her that’s left on my tongue. Her scent and specific brand of sorcery that has jack shit to do with magic. Intensity hits so hard I stagger, catching myself against a post as my vision swims.
“What the fuck is happening to me?”
Knight shifts. “The bond. It’s settling.”
“Settling?” I laugh, but the sound comes out cracked and hollow. “This feels like I’m being ripped open.”
“That would be the withdrawal.”
I force myself upright, fighting the pull in my chest long enough to meet his eyes. “Withdrawal from what?”
“From missing what should have been beside you all along.” Knight holds my gaze, a strange tension in his. “The fates don’t like to be fucked with.”
“Knight.” My voice drops so low my throat itches. “What did you guys do?”
He doesn’t answer.
He doesn’t answer.
The realization hits like ice water, and suddenly the haze in my mind clears just enough for fragments to surface. The ceremony. Arabella in white. Haide walking through that door and ready to burn the whole fucking building down around us if that’s what it took.
Her hand on my jaw.
The snap.
The screaming.
“You knew.” My throat stings as the words leave. “Both of you. You knew.”
Knight’s expression doesn’t change. “We were trying to protect you.”
“Protect me?”
The bond flares again, but this time the heat is different. Angrier. I feel her rage bleeding through the connection. It matches the fire climbing my throat. Violence.
“It was Creed, wasn’t it?” My voice rises with each word. “He tied me to that—”
I stop because the memory of Arabella’s touch makes my skin crawl, revulsion twisting through my gut so hard I nearly gag. How many times did I look at her and feel nothing? How many times did I force myself to believe she was my fucking cure and not my damn disease?
Months.
Months of feeling like I was losing my mind.
“You let me—” The accusation lands between us like a gauntlet thrown. “You watched me struggle with a bond that felt wrong every single day, and neither of you said a fucking word.”
Knight’s jaw tightens. “It wasn’t that simple.”
“Then explain it to me.” I step forward, teeth bared, and the air in the room shifts, pressure dropping as my magic rises unbidden. “Explain how betraying your own brother counts as protection.”
“Creed,” he pauses, “we did what we thought was necessary.” The balls on him to still stick by his actions.
As if he wouldn’t tear the flesh off me with his teeth if we pulled this shit between him and London.
“The kingdom needed stability. You were falling apart after you first got back to Rathe with her on your arm. She was the only connection to your failing powers we could see.”
“Holy fuck.” Memories spiral, twisting me into knots that will never be untied.
Knight continues, voice vibrating in my head. “I didn’t agree with what Creed put in motion, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t understand why. Creed made a decision to save you with the information he had at the time. Father would have done the same.”
“Do not bring him into this,’ I seethe. “Creed made a decision about my life with false information.”
“He made a decision about all our lives.” Knight’s voice rises to match mine. “You think you were the only one affected?”
“He put a stranger in my head and you helped him!” My fist slams into the stone wall. “Let me believe I was just a game to the girl who I—” I cut myself off. Never in my life had I known betrayal could burn so badly. I had everything I never knew I wanted, and they made me think it was all a lie.
And I blamed her.
“Legend, you were dying.” Knight’s eyes flash. “Every day she was here, it got worse. You got worse and she grew stronger. What were we supposed to do?! We just lost our father. We were not going to lose you too! We did it for you.”
“Is that what you tell yourself?” I step closer. “That forcing me to let go of the only person who has ever made me feel alive was for my sake?”
“We thought she was sucking the life out of you!”
“And I told you she was my fucking air!” I scream back, voice nearly cracking. “You should have trusted me the way I trusted you when London came along.”
Knight looks away, tension lining his features. “We did what we thought we had to do to save you,” he repeats, though without the same heat.
My fingers dig into the wall, chipping the stone. “You hurt her.”
“I fucking—”
My fist lands before the thought finishes. Cartilage crunches under my knuckles, the shock riding my arm to the shoulder. Knight’s head whips sideways, spit flying, yet he’s already moving, shoulder drilling my gut, driving me spine-first into cold stone.
Air leaves my lungs in a rush.
I barely feel it.
We crash into the table, chairs scattering, wood splitting apart beneath us.
“Enough!”
Sinner hauls us apart, grip iron-tight for someone who usually plays the fool. He shoves Knight backward and plants himself between us, palms raised, expression sharp.
“Whatever you’re feeling right now?” He begins, voice stripped of its usual drawl. “Save it. Both of you.”
Knight spits blood onto the stone floor. “He needed to hear it.”
“He needed to hit something, and you volunteered.” Sinner doesn’t look away from me.
“I get it. The bond’s fucking with your head.
Everything feels like too much and not enough at the same time.
But if you two kill each other, I ain’t about to be left fathering both your fucking mates because you couldn’t pull your shit back in. ”
“He has no right to be angry,” I snap.
Sinner rolls his eyes. “He’s angry at himself for interfering with your bond when he knows firsthand how fucking important it is.”
Knight heaves a humorless laugh.
Blood drips from my split lip, but the sting is nothing compared to the bond that keeps pulling even as I try to catch my breath. I need to find her.
But there’s one more royal who needs to bleed first.
“Where is he?” My voice is rough between breaths. “Where’s Creed?”
Neither answer.
But the fucking pity is practically dripping off their face.
“Where.” A step. “Is he?” I repeat, slower this time.
Knight finally meets my eyes, the fight leaving him. Neither of us are too keen on leaving London and Haide to be handled by Sinner, or vice versa.
“He’s with her.”
…
Haide
Creed is upset. No, more than upset, I’m pretty sure he’s crying.
I don’t know what to do with that. A royal with enough power to literally trample through your head like it’s his playground—and he’s sitting on the floor of Crowsnest with his back against the wall with his head bowed and elbows resting on his knees.