CHAPTER FORTY-TWO #2
“Relax, I just need to speak with you first.”
His stare moved to the thin veil of fabric between him and the truth of Verena’s survival, then back to the Liraern blocking his path.
His arms folded, the motion stiff. “You have one minute.”
Nezra tilted her chin. “How long have you known?” Her voice dropped, low enough to blend with the hum of the camp outside.
His brow furrowed. “Known what?”
Her eyes cut to his forearm, the new mark burning beneath her stare.
Ronan’s gut twisted, a quiet admission growing. He wasn’t sure how long he had known. Perhaps from the very first moment, maybe even before she even existed in the flesh, when fate’s spite was nothing more than a mutter in his blood.
But he would never let Nezra hold that realism.
“Don’t play dull with me, Ronan.” Her voice sharpened. “You may not be the oldest in this cursed company, nor the cleverest, but you see more than you admit. So, how long have you carried the truth of who she is?”
She means the bond between you two, he told himself. The bond, nothing more.
But the gleam in her dusk-stained eyes spoke with the warning that she was hunting a deeper truth. One he hadn’t been brave enough to face.
“She doesn’t know,” Nezra continued. “And if you’re keeping it from her for your own gain, if you think you can twist this mission, twist her fate, to your advantage—” She leaned in. “I’ll make sure you regret it.”
He bent down, enough to see his reflection in her eerie eyes. “You think I’d hurt her?”
“I think,” Nezra sighed, “that Verena deserves the truth. And if you keep it from her, whatever it is, you’re no better than the ones hunting her. I think,” she whispered, head tilting, “you’re already tangled in lies. And when she finds out, it won’t be me you need to fear.”
“Don’t insult me by thinking you’re anything I would fear.” Ronan moved to pass her, but Nezra’s palm shot up, runes sparking to life across her skin. The air thickened, her swirling eyes catching him like a net. “Don’t you dare use your tainted magic on me,” he growled.
Voice now threaded with urgency, she said, “There are choices that must be made. So, you can’t tell her anything, not yet.”
These fucking Liraern.
Tendons twitched beneath his skin. “You’d have me bare my secrets, then demand I keep them caged. Which is it, tide spawn?”
The hurt crossed Nezra’s face and was gone just as fast.
Even if he never spoke it, how could Verena not know, how could she not feel it? The pull, the power that was always there, lacing them together, binding him to her.
“Whatever she feels,” Nezra ran her fingers over the runes, the purple light wavering under her touch, “tell her it’s the blood oath.
It’s normal. It’s what they all feel like.
She has choices to make before she knows what she stands to lose.
” The runes flared, then dulled, her hand falling back to her side.
“Think of your kingdom, prince. If she learns too soon, it could change the course of all we fight for. It could unravel Selvarra itself.”
Ronan eyes dimmed, just a fraction, smoke wiping the fire straight from them as he stared past the divider separating him from her.
So close. So godsdamned close to having her after almost losing her entirely.
He finally swept past Nezra, but her stare followed, heavy and accusing, as if luring him to cross that threshold.
It was subtle at first when Ronan entered. Not the bond itself, but what stirred awake within her because of it. Like a ripple over still water.
It hadn’t come from her body, but through the bond intertwining them. He could feel the cold coil of the curse, winding stealthy and patient within her veins. But layered beneath he felt something else.
Stronger, older. Rising and no longer content to be still.
Verena sat on the edge of a cushion, her legs dangling off the wooden bed pushed into a corner. Her fingers moved through the tangles of her curls, undoing the braid sewn into her scalp until soft waves tumbled down her back, veiling her lean shoulders.
She couldn’t see him through that fall of hair, but she felt him. The bond made sure of it. Her hands stilled, head snapping up. And then those bright, fierce azure eyes locked onto his.
The sight dragged at him. He wanted to cross the space, to touch her, to press his palm over the rhythm of her pulse.
Alive. The bond flared.
She smiled. And gods, if that didn’t crack him clean through.
“New shirt?” she asked, one eyebrow arching high.
His hands shot instinctively to his chest, where the fabric clung too damn tight. Words tangled on his tongue. “It’s Killian’s. Mine was soaked in—”
Her blood.
“Ah.” She clicked her tongue, a mock apology lacing her voice. “Sorry about that.”
Returning to the snarl in her hair, her fingers tugged at the stubborn knot. Wisps twisted from his palms, gliding across the space, reaching to untangle the strands for her.
She startled, flinched, and the smoke evaporated into nothing.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “Can I help you?”
“It’s okay.” She patted the cushion beside her, an invitation disguised as simplicity. “Come sit.”
The bond went taut and Ronan stumbled forward, almost tripping over his own boots as it dragged him toward her.
Was it her, calling him closer? Or the bond itself, doing what he had grown suddenly, impossibly too nervous to do?
The cushion dipped beneath his weight, the frame giving a soft groan as he settled. Verena slid higher onto the bed, sinking back into a mound of pillows. With quiet audacity, she stretched her legs across his lap.
His hand hovered before finally resting against the curve of her ankles. Hesitant, but not unwilling, his thumb began tracing slow circles over the supple leather of her pants.
New pants. No blood.
Her weight was nothing across his lap, and yet it anchored him more firmly than the throne he had been bred for.
He told himself not to grip tighter, not to reveal how badly he needed that simple contact.
But his thumb moved anyway, circling again, slower this time, feeling her warmth through the leather.
Steady, alive, real.
He had spent centuries learning to keep himself distant from this, to bury softness beneath steel and smoke. And still, one woman, one curse-damned woman, undid it all by laying across him as though it meant nothing. As though it were natural.
As though it had always been so.
For a moment, calm held them.
This was what Ronan had almost let slip into nothingness. His pulse hit a wall behind his lungs. He had almost let this die. Almost let her die.
The thought soured in him.
She was supposed to be Selvarra’s undoing. But in a twist of rarity, Verena had gone from nothing, to something, to everything.
“So...” Her words might have startled him if he hadn’t already felt the sorrow twisting through the bond. “You heard about Maerin?” Tears welled in her eyes and she choked them down, refusing to let them fall down the blush of her cheeks.
The last glimpse anyone had of Mae was her silhouette darting into the trees, the Bright soldiers flooding the clearing behind her. The pixies had searched until dawn blistered the sky.
There had been no trace. No trail. Just a single crushed starbloom where she’d been hiding. The roots had been disturbed. The moss had been torn. And the air stank faintly of Bright iron.
But there wasn’t a body or even a drop of blood. Sometimes that was worse.
Ronan couldn’t shake the way Maerin had looked at him before Reve and his men hunted her down. Her ivory eyes had swirled with knowing, her voice meant for him alone.
Her heart will die long before her body does, Maerin had whispered. But yours will keep beating for the both of you. That is how she survives.
The way she spoke it had felt unfinished. Like the words had cut off mid-breath. Like the rest of the prophecy had gotten left on her tongue.
He should have been furious, another chain, another twisting path. Instead, his heart had sunk, only dread living there in its place.
Because some part of him, some idiotic, treacherous part, wondered if the Veyari was only naming what he’d already begun to understand.
His hand tightened where it still rested in comfort. “I’m sorry.”
Verena gave a sad little laugh. “That’s twice you’ve said sorry in the last few minutes. You didn’t get knocked on the head during all that fighting, did you?”
He almost smiled, but he knew better. Knew her humor was armor, a fragile disguise to keep her from losing herself.
She shifted, sitting up, every muscle of his going tense when she reached for him. Pale scars ghosted against the tan of his knuckles as her hands wrapped around his.
Her scent, vanilla laced with amber, hit him like a memory he’d somehow missed.
Lifting his hand between both of hers, she guided it toward her lips, the soft press against his skin a whisper, her words barely more. “Thank you.”
Steady, his free hand rose, cradling the back of her neck, drawing her closer until their foreheads touched.
“You don’t have to thank me,” he said, inhaling the shaky breath she released. “You are worth more than the fate you think you deserve, Verena.” His voice came low, but the conviction in it was unshakable.
She didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away from the grip he held on her. The one that felt too terrifying to release. Neither of them moved to lift their gaze, their foreheads still pressed together as he felt her heartbeat pushing into his chest. As though it had always belonged there.
Her chin tilted, lips brushing against the fire of his, as she waited for gravity to do the rest.
His exhale shivered over her tongue, and he knew when she swallowed, she could taste him. His restraint, his desire. The way it was all held back by the one inch that would drag him under entirely.
The world stilled, held its breath, as his hands swept down her back, tracing the arch of her spine.