CHAPTER FORTY-TWO #3
A sharp hiss cut through the air, the flush across her cheeks mirroring the rose-stain of her mouth as she jerked back, shaking her head.
“We shouldn’t—”
Words tumbled, as though she needed a reason, any reason, to explain why she had almost kissed him. Why she had wanted it.
Ronan drew back, slowly, carefully, hoping distance might stitch the moment shut before it devoured them both. His hands slipped from her, fingers curling into fists against his knees to stop himself from reaching again.
The bond pulled, a hook buried deep in his chest. He felt it like a cruel reminder that what he wanted most was already his, and yet not his at all.
Her voice still fluttered in the air between them, but he didn’t answer it. Couldn’t. If he opened his mouth, the truth would spill, and he wasn’t sure if it would bind her closer or drive her further away.
Smoke stirred at his knuckles, but he forced it still. Forced himself still. She wouldn’t meet his eyes now, and he didn’t dare ask her to.
When her next words came, they were thin, meant to cut through it. “We’re supposed to hate each other, you know.”
His stare lifted. “I know.”
He meant to swallow the rest, bury them deep. But the pulse of her mended heart hammered so violently, and he couldn’t pretend not to hear it. Not anymore. He couldn’t let the truth slip back into silence.
“But tell me, has it felt like hate?” His thumb traced her lips as her eyes dropped to the gold chain at his neck, then back to his as she swallowed.
Before she could stop it, her hand lifted, fingers brushing along the line of his jaw, her own thumb fixed against the stubble of his cheek. She wanted to close the distance; he could feel it in the way her breath caught.
She held herself back, lips parting on a whisper instead.
“Fate is against us. You and I…” She paused, eyes cinched shut like she was fighting something from escaping.
At last, she opened them again, the green almost eclipsing the blue entirely.
“I’m dangerous, Ronan. Not in the tragic way everyone likes to pretend, but real.
Whatever you think you see in me…it doesn’t survive the reality of what I am. ”
“You think you’re giving a warning,” he muttered, “yet I hear nothing but fear. And it’s not of what you’ll do to me. But maybe, of what I might already mean to you.”
A sound left her, shaped like a laugh, but he heard the crack in it. “I’m built for endings, and not happy ones. You’ll meet death at my side long before peace.”
He looked at her then, really looked, like she was everything—curse and salvation, ruin and reason.
His chest tightened as he said, “Then let it be so. Because death isn’t what frightens me.”
“Oh,” Verena surged upright, tugging her sleeve up past her elbow. “This is pretty cool.” Her fingers traced the delicate black lines now etched into her right forearm, the glow subtle but vital.
A celestial spiral unfurled, swirling like constellations molded into flesh until it took the shape of a serpent, its eyes burning as if lit with flame.
Ronan shivered, a faint sensation running across his own skin.
“Kind of odd for a blood oath though, no? Is yours the same?” she questioned.
He offered his same arm, letting her lift the cuff of his shirt. Shadows curled there, smoke and thorns twining up his wrist and forearm until they shaped into a flaming heart, its ember glow pulsing hotter beneath her touch.
“Scars often remind us of the worst.” His mouth tilted in the corner as her finger halted in the center of the heart. “I wanted this to remind you of promise. Of hope.”
The tip of her lips curved, eyes catching him with sudden light. “You are a sap, aren’t you? So damn soft between all that smoke and steel.”
The bond flared.
Wisps swirled from Ronan’s palm as every candle in the tent roared to life, flames as black as the space between the stars casting them in shadows.
Verena sighed, her body falling back, sinking deeper into the bed. She had to still be exhausted, Ronan’s magic had knit her flesh back together, but her body would take longer to remember it wasn’t broken.
“Elysian was…visibly furious with you for saving me, by the way,” she voiced, letting her fingers stay drifting along the back of his hand. “Elva noticed. She said he nearly sprouted fangs.”
Smoke shivered around his shoulders. Not quite anger, just acknowledgment. “He has every right to his concern. But I will speak with him. He worries…loudly.”
Her tracing went deeper along his hand, following the veins up his wrist. “Why does he hate me so much?”
He huffed a quiet laugh. “He doesn’t like anyone.”
“Except Elva.” She arched her brow. “He practically turns into a guard dog around her.”
There was a tic in Ronan’s jaw, a muscle jumping like an insult or agreement. It was hard to tell. “He calls it vigilance. But I prefer to call it more of a selective tolerance.”
“Is that why you call him the hound? Is it some special title here, or just your personal pet name for him?”
“His sense of smell is…inconveniently effective. Give him a scent and he’ll track you anywhere on the continent. Even across it.” His eyes warmed, the memory of history building in his pause. “It’s only ever a matter of time before he finds whoever he’s hunting.”
“And he just let you pick hound?” She fought back a laugh. “That close to a dog when he’s basically an overgrown cat?”
“It’s funny,” Ronan said plainly. No shame. No hesitation. “And he tolerates it.”
Verena snorted. “That’s your metric for nicknames, tolerated mockery?”
“It’s not mockery,” he countered, completely sincere. “Isn’t that how others show affection?”
She stared at him. He stared right back. “So, you do have a sense of humor?”
“Yes,” he said, completely flat.
As if that settled the matter for all eternity. Like stating a fact of nature. The sky is blue. Dragons breathe fire.
She tried not to smile, failing miserably. “You know, if Elysian ever hears me call him that, he’ll come for my throat.”
He huffed what might have been a laugh; it curled around her like heat. “He’d try. And you’d answer in kind—fang for fang. I’d have two feral creatures on my hands and one very ruined realm.” His thumb dragged once across her knuckles, claiming nothing, promising everything.
She cleared her throat, rubbing absently at her neck. “I do have one question.” Her eyes landed on the jug of water across the room, resting on the table.
Tendrils rolled across the floor, carrying it across the distance and setting it gently into her hand. She drank greedily, tilting her head back, and chuckled when he refilled it instantly.
“What’s that,” he asked her.
“What is the blood oath between us?” Her throat bobbed as she swallowed the last of the water.
Without smiling, Ronan said, “That you must obey my every command.”
She sputtered, choking, water spraying in a stream across his tunic. His lips twitched as her eyes went wide with outrage. “What?”
Smoke swirled over him until his shirt was dry again. “I’m kidding.”
When he met her glare, his focus went straight to the tiny brown patch in her left iris, that fleck of dark blooming in the sea of blue-green. It had grown.
“It states that we cannot harm one another. That I can lend you my magic, if needed. And...” He coughed lightly, covering the rasp in his throat.
“That I can try to help control yours, if it ever becomes...necessary. We’ve become a team, at least for now, until the heir is found and the kingdoms unite. ”
He braced himself, waiting for the fury he knew she had every right to unleash. Would she see only chains in his words? Would she accuse him of binding her curse for his own ends?
Her silence was terrifying. She didn’t rage, didn’t laugh, didn’t accuse, only studied him, then lowered her eyes back to the serpent mark spiraling her arm.
He had chosen the opposite arm of where the burn still marred her skin from the viper he’d slain. The need to cover it had been strong, but he hadn’t wanted to erase that scar, hadn’t wanted to take another piece of her away.
This time, he only wanted to give something back. To make amends for what could never truly be mended.
Through the bond came the brush of her thoughts, confusion first, then the simmer of anger curling hot at the edges.
He braced for it. But what followed was understanding. The slow, reluctant warmth of acceptance. His chest loosened, a ragged breath slipping from him before she even spoke.
“Okay.”
One word. But it was enough to steady him. Enough to damn him.
Okay, Ronan told himself.
And just like that, the weight of his lies doubled.