Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ronan
RONAN KEPT TO THE MURK, SPINE PRESSED FLAT against the corner stone, every breath quiet.
Shadows moved restlessly at his boots, mirroring the pulse in his throat.
The Viper shed her cloak and slipped through the door without a trace of awareness, as though her home wasn’t steeped in silent peril.
As though he wasn’t already there, watching.
She undressed as she crossed the room, shirt dropped, pants kicked aside.
There was no sign of dark veins, no claws. Not one sign that damnation lived beneath her skin.
Ronan lowered his eyes, forcing his stare down to whatever was left as she disappeared behind a door, a dull thud shaking the window.
Nightfall had devoured the sky, draping the chamber and shrouding him whole. Curls pressed into the ceiling where he was forced into a crooked stillness. Even here, hemmed in and hunched, his presence was too much for simple Fae walls.
A hanging plant brushed his temple each time it swayed, the scent of mint coating his senses. It was almost laughable that she kept herbs and trailing vines like she was nothing but a woman with dirt beneath her nails.
Water hissed on tile, steam bleeding through the divide in the door, curling like fog into the room.
She was bathing.
He shifted, creeping forward before he could stop himself, smoke absorbing each step. Lemon and lavender struck him first, sharp citrus cutting through the cracks.
He should leave. He’d come only to see what else she might be hiding. Proof of what she fought, or what she was becoming. Proof of who made her this way.
Not this. Not steam and skin.
His mind commanded retreat. His body ignored it, stopping before the door, curiosity sinking its fangs into him.
She was a wicked contradiction, and the realization settled wrong in his chest.
A Viper’s den should reek of venom and death. Yet her chambers carried virtue, something like preservation.
It wasn’t clean nor the bone-and-blood he’d expected. But it was lived-in, comfortable.
Plants dangled in tangled green and violet, dripping from wooden beams, vines brushing the tops of his shoulders. A porcelain tea set waited on a narrow table, a book at its side, its pages creased at the corners.
He recognized the style as something old, written by Fae who believed feeling was a form of survival.
On the back of a chair hung the dark cloak she had flung off, patched at the hem, repaired more than once. Someone had mended it by hand—poorly—with impatient stitches.
And the bed, though unmade, was softened by a silken throw of ivory satin. Innocence arranged like a disguise. Gentle masking lethal.
His hand moved before thought could leash it, the blanket slipping through his fingers, delicate against his calloused palms.
Satin brushed across his skin as he lifted it, cool as moonlight on steel, his mind rebelling even as his body surrendered.
And with it came her scent, rich, warm, nothing like the tang of rot, but a weave of smoked-sweet amber laced with lavender.
It hit him like a sultry blow as he frowned.
He drew in deeper, dragging it into his lungs despite every disciplined bone in him snarling to stop. The blanket pressed too close, and her scent clung to him, sank through him, seeping into marrow and shadow.
Until the line blurred—
A curse scraped up his throat. This was not what he came for. He should drop it, burn it, let smoke erase the evidence of his weakness. But he didn’t. He only gripped it tighter.
And the dragon in him, the fume, the fire, the oath-bound wrath, wanted more.
The spell snapped the moment he realized the water had gone still. It was silent…until her chuckle came. A sound that didn’t belong to this room of plants and star-woven fabric.
But one that belonged to her. To what she had undisputedly become.
Ronan flung the blanket aside, spine straightening as he pivoted.
She emerged through the veil of steam, droplets sliding from her hair, tracing cold lines down her jaw, splattering against stone. She crossed from the shadow into the spill of silver light pouring through the window.
Her pupils were slitted, vertical, reptilian. Fangs dented her lower lip where a snarl tore out of her. “You motherfucker.”
The dagger came next, carefully drawn from her hip with the kind of precision that screamed intent. Not panic. Her tunic clung to damp skin, revealing lines he had no business noticing.
Either she had planned for a fight, or she hadn’t planned to stay in tonight.
Steel gleamed as she raised the blade between them, her head cocking to the side in a movement too sharp, too inhuman.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” She stalked toward him, water droplets marking the path of a huntress.
Ronan’s smoke stirred, moving toward her, winding around her ankles, drifting along her legs, testing her. Tasting.
She didn’t flinch this time, didn’t recoil. She leaned into it and the grin she gave could have gutted a lesser man. One fang grazed her lip, splitting skin, coaxing a bead of red to well, rich and bright.
Her tongue swept out, dragging the ruby across her mouth until her lips shone with it.
Flames burn him, that was lethal.
Ronan’s jaw locked so tight he felt the grind. He didn’t dare move, not without revealing the kind of hunger that could level kingdoms. Adjusting his stance would be to admit, and he refused to give her that.
She was supposed to be a disgrace. But godsdamn, she was divine ruin. Meant to solely be survived.
Even masked in death, her scent carried, reaching him, nearly bringing him straight to his knees, a sinful lace of sweetness.
Smoke drew back on his exhale, shadows seeping back until the air between them was clean.
He stepped forward, into the space it left, and said, “Looking for something.”
No lie, no mask. She’d be buried with his truths soon enough.
Her gaze darted, noting the absence of power, the lack of wings. Of every advantage he usually wielded.
The twitch in her mouth showed amusement, more—temptation.
She clicked her tongue. “Wrong move, prince.”
She struck before the echo even settled, moving so fast he nearly faltered to keep up. Steel whispered past his ear, too close. The dagger kissed flesh, carving a thin line of fire across the curve, spraying blood hot against the cold air.
Ronan hissed, more irritation than pain, hand snapping up to the sting, and that instant of distraction was all she needed.
She launched and a second blade appeared, shimmering in her grip as if conjured from air.
Where in hel had she hidden it?
The impact was brutal, staggering him back even as he caught her wrist, the world collapsing in tandem, wood splintering, the bed’s frame scraping before it shattered.
His spine slammed the floor, her thighs locking like iron around his ribs, a cage he could break if he wanted, but didn’t.
Steel found his throat, just enough to promise devastation while her venom dripped onto his chest, burning through the thin fabric of his shirt.
And her body, gods, was pressed into every other part of him as she demanded, “How did you know who I was?”
Ronan didn’t lift a hand. Didn’t try and throw her off. Instead, he let a slow, knowing smirk unfurl across his mouth, letting the dark close in. “Corruption wears many faces.” His breath pebbled across the line of her collarbone. “You don’t hide yours as well as you think.”
The blade stayed at his neck, steady. “You’re lucky you bear that heir mark,” she hissed. “Bleeding you dry right now would make my entire godsdamned week.”
She shifted, rolling her hips as she adjusted her hold, and Ronan, dammit, bit down on the groan clawing up his throat as his control snapped. Her eyes dropped, froze, then went wide, lips parting then shutting again, like she couldn’t quite process what she was seeing.
Ronan huffed a laugh, letting the edge of her dagger bite deeper as he tilted his chin. “You really are a wicked little stray, aren’t you? All bite.”
Her fangs bared, a snarl vibrating through both of them where the dagger punctured deeper. The sting should have woken his fury, his duty, the oath burning against his wrist. Instead, all he felt was heat.
The kind that made him wonder, just for a heartbeat, how her venom would taste if he took it straight from her tongue. That thought, that damn thought, was enough to tip him over the edge.
In a single breath, he moved, rolling them in one violent twist. Her dagger never left his skin as he pinned her to the shattered floorboards, his thighs caging her hips. Her legs stayed locked stubbornly around him, holding him as tightly as he held her down.
The room shuddered with them, shards of wood jutting from the floor, hanging plants falling wildly as shattered mugs rattled his boots.
Her innocence crashing to pieces around them.
Ronan lowered himself until his chest pressed flush to hers, her fangs a breath from his mouth, her pulse hammering against his sternum so loudly he savored it.
“Our time will come, Viper,” he said, his tone a vow rather than a threat.
She snapped, fangs catching the corner of his mouth, drawing the faintest sting of blood. The taste hit him immediately, iron, heat, her. Because the moment she bit him, the smear of crimson already glistening on her own lips brushed against his.
A warning. A promise.
His answering smirk was slow.
“That mouth will be your ruin one day,” he warned. Smoke moved up from his shoulders, slipping around her wrists, her throat, a phantom of restraint, a threat he didn’t need to make, but enjoyed giving. “You’d spill me here without hesitation,” he murmured. “But you’ll dream of this instead.”
Her legs tightened around him, a trap, and for one fractured second, Ronan almost gave in, almost bent the last inch to let violence become something else entirely.
Almost.
He drew back, and dusk followed, smoke brushing her cheek as he pulled away. Wings expanded as they split the air, a sift tearing open like a wound in the world behind them.
“Do try to behave in my absence,” he said.
A wink followed, both infuriating and deliberate as Ronan vanished into the dark, the echo of her snarl following him.
And when he tasted the blood still clinging to his tongue, he hated himself for swallowing.