CHAPTER FIFTY
Verena
LEAVING THE BANQUET HALL FELT FREER, a skin I hadn’t realized I was wearing finally being shed.
I had let my darkness out in a chamber full of royals, full of dragons, and no glass or curses were thrown, no blood was shed.
Well, blood had almost been shed.
But instead of being looked at in only disgust or dread, I had been seen as a force, someone essential.
But Aero’s eyes...they’d sunk further after Aelora fled the room with her fury brittle and loud.
I understood her anger. Pride can become a poison when it curdles. Her loyalty to her kingdom was something to marvel at, but the way she needed that crown, it was distasteful.
Her hatred of me, it hadn’t begun when she learned who I was. No, it had started the instant Ronan brought me into Sahfyre. Because my presence made me important. And her unworthy.
He had spoken the same words to her that Reve had once spat at me in a dungeon. The same string of cruelty, though a different mouth, different malice. And while it hadn’t gutted me the way it had her, it still sliced its lines into my skin.
Reve’s words, I would have loved you if not for who you were, they had pitted me, left me feeling undeserving of love.
Ronan saying it to Aelora, it stripped her instead.
Made her feel like nothing. I could taste it in her eyes, the salt of her heartache.
I never loved Reve. Not even when I was a foolish, young girl.
But Aelora, maybe she had loved Ronan once.
Not for his crown. Not for the throne. For him.
For who he was when no one was watching.
And that made me her enemy. No matter what I did. No matter what he chose.
The fire blazed in the hearth, its roar loud enough to remind me that I had nearly killed her tonight. No thought. No conviction. Only instinct when I’d climbed that table, fangs poised for her throat. If Ronan hadn’t intervened, she would be a corpse now.
And me? I would be ash.
The chaise in my chamber had become an acquainted comfort, my body filling in the sunken space like I had never left.
Only three hours had passed since I awoke in Sahfyre.
One since dinner ended. Thirty minutes since I found myself here again.
Still glazed in silks, still trapped in the only thing Ronan had left me.
My filthy clothes were gone, erased as if they’d never existed. The book I had held lay reperched on the mantle, the spine lined back up like I hadn’t touched it at all. The bed, too, untouched. No creases. No blankets tangled from a restless body. No proof I belonged.
My throat closed, lips trembling as tears fell, sliding down cheeks warm from the fire. I had gotten Elva out, despite the toll, despite the nightmares waiting in every corner. We were days from Nyctom, hopefully from its heir, and from whatever hope might still be clutched there.
And still, I had failed.
Failed Gemma. Failed Elva and Callum. Failed Selvarra. Failed exactly as expected, even if the gods had whispered otherwise.
The truth bore down, laden with unspoken things: war was coming. And salvation was not the key to stopping it. Only blood.
But if the stars do not weep for what they burn, why should I?
Ronan’s footsteps didn’t bother with subtlety.
Four. Three. Two. Each strike a countdown, until his knuckles rasped against marble and found me.
I didn’t move, only brushed a weary drift across the bond. I was too drained to rise from the hour spent rehearsing a truth that still blistered on my tongue.
That I was not worth war. I could spill blood. But the blood spilled for me was wrong.
The door eased open as he stepped through, still wrapped in the trappings of court.
His shirt was untucked, the sleek fabric undone enough to bare more than chest. His curls were a tangle, mussed as though his hands had raked through them repeatedly since my departure.
And his eyes, like Aero’s, were shadowed, rimmed dark.
His smile broke like dawn across devastation. Small. Fierce. Enough to set my soul on fire.
My mouth lifted, but the smile stopped short. It didn’t widen when he closed the distance. Not when he bent, hands warm and strong, cupping my face. Even when his lips pressed to mine, heated, salted with my tears.
The kiss stole breath and gave back something harder, his mouth tasting like vow, like smoke, like inevitability.
For a heartbeat the world went quiet. There was no prophecy, no demise. Only this, his touch binding, his kiss undoing, the wild terror of being chosen when I had already decided I should not be.
I told myself again, I wasn’t worth this.
Smoke hovered at his shoulders, restraint barely holding when he heard every word.
“You are worthy of everything you desire,” he said.
“I’ve seen the kindness beneath the mask, the woman who still aches to be light, even when the world told her she wasn’t allowed and they named her the nightmare.
That woman is worth defying fate. Look at me.
..” His thumb brushed across my cheek, catching the tears that refused to stop. “She is worth everything.”
I didn’t know when Ronan had become the piece that kept me from shattering. Maybe when I’d told myself I forgave him for setting my course on the wrong road. Maybe when he chose me, again and again, even when he hadn’t known that’s what he was doing.
His hand stayed cupped to my face, ember-soft heat rooting through the salt and ruin of me and I drank in what he didn’t realize he’d offered until it filled me to my core.
A current inside me sparked, the ember I thought was smothered now shimmering to a flare until it burned brighter than it ever had.
He felt it, I know he did. And he didn’t pull away.
My arms locked tight around his neck, fingers sinking into his hair, twisting as though I might stay there forever. He lifted me without effort, my legs curling around his waist, liquid cloth sliding as he carried me to the bed where the sheets received us, soft and decadent.
Gods, I should have napped here instead.
I hadn’t known what to expect when he laid me down. But it wasn’t this—not silence stretched warm and endless. Not bodies pressed close, limbs tangled, the hush between us louder than words.
And yet, I didn’t need more. This was enough.
My hand drifted with teasing precision through his curls, tugging and smoothing, while the other traced idle circles along the carved planes of his shoulders, down the hard muscle of his arms. Every inch mapped, every inch memorized.
He held me tight, drawing long strokes across my back until our hands met between us, fingers lacing together in perfect unison.
I wasn’t sure when Ronan had truly saved me. Perhaps he hadn’t yet. Perhaps he never would. But lying there, caught in the heat of him, in the inevitability of us, it didn’t matter.
I woke before the world had shifted, the moon still veiled in colorless clouds. An hour, maybe. No more.
Ronan’s eyes moved beneath their lids, lashes wavering, his breath slow and even.
Our bodies hadn’t drifted; they had barely even stirred.
Heat pressed along my skin from the closeness, and it startled me how flushed I felt, how undone.
Intimacy had always been suffocating. Even after sex, the stillness of contact was always too much.
But this was different.
This was like breathing after drowning. Like air I’d never known I needed until my lungs ached for it. After years of holding my breath, I could finally exhale.
His voice cut through the dark, lids fluttering open. “I think I was starved.”
I looked over at him, dazed. “What?”
His laugh was low, euphonic, a sound that grooved down my spine. “We really need to work on your shields,” he murmured. “You thought you were drowning. And I—” His eyes traced me. “I think I was starved.”
“I hardly think you were ever starved,” I shot back, poking at his core.
His muscles tightened instantly, his groan spilling into the dark.
“Of you,” he said. “When I was younger, I thought Aelora was it. We grew up together. Forced on one another from the start. She wasn’t bitter then, wasn’t how she is now.
” His stare moved past me, remembering ghosts.
“She had plans for herself. Until those plans twisted into us. My father sealed it with a contract at the height of it all. We thought marriage was the best choice. So, we signed.”
I stayed quiet...words would have only fractured the shape of this moment. I wanted to see him, not the heir, not the prince, but the boy molded into the man. The one who became empathic in ways he would never admit aloud.
“Aelora thought we were mates, but I knew fate had written otherwise. That pull I had felt, it dimmed the moment the throne began to fill her head. Power. That’s what she wanted. She was important, and she loved the charge of it. But that wasn’t what drew me to her at the start.”
“Why is she so important?” The question had been planted since he mentioned it. Why keep her alive at any cost?
He exhaled long, heavy. “Aelora wasn’t bred. She was created.” A name dropped into the room like a stone into black water. “By Vivianna, the Primal God.” His eyes found mine. “She’s the only rose-colored dragon to exist. The only fire that might one day outburn Hel itself.”
Oh. I swallowed, chest hollowing. Thank the fates I hadn’t sunk my fangs into her throat at that table. Thank the damn fates. But Ronan would have let me...
“Vivianna created her as a weapon in case Deimos rises?”
Or, in case they needed a dragon to burn a curse to hel. Never mind. I should have killed her.
His shirt spread loose as he shifted onto his back, a hand dragging over his eyes. “Yes. And rumor claims she wasn’t the only weapon created.”
A God’s hand shaping more than one. An army, born of divinity and desperation. Vivianna had known war would rage whether kingdoms sparked it or Deimos woke just to set the world aflame.
“Our offspring would have been undeniably the strongest dragon Selvarra has ever seen. Perhaps even stronger than this world has known.”
I nestled closer, head falling against his chest, my fingers curled around the chain that rested there. It slid between my knuckles, collapsing into my grip. “But?”
“But…my insatiable greed did not end with her.” His eyes stay fixed on the dark above. “I want to keep Aelora safe. Not out of love. But because, like you, she has a greater worth than she knows. I will not breed with her simply to have our young turned into weapons.”
My hand sought his, guiding it from my neck, lacing our fingers back together until our twin marks aligned, pressed side by side. I kissed his skin where the bond burned, and the taste of it sent a shudder humming through me. Through us.
“You were made into a weapon.”
He nodded. “Exactly. And fate has been cruel.”
Tell me about it.
I blew out a sharp breath. “I think Aelora’s just...scared.”
The words tasted bitter. Gods, I hated giving her anything resembling compassion.
The woman had called me a pest. But still, it was easy to see what this was about.
Jealousy, yes. Maybe a touch of envy. If I were her, I would have been furious too.
But mostly, it was worry—for her kingdom, for the cage of expectation wrapped around her shoulders.
She believed her greatness lived only in her rarity.
That if she didn’t shine like a jewel in the dark, she was useless.
Dammit, Aelora.
“She should trust me,” Ronan said.
Oh, the vanity.
“The look on her face earlier wasn’t recognition, Ronan. It was fear.” I remembered the taste of it still, thick on my tongue. Not only when the Viper had revealed herself, but when Ronan had summoned his smoke to knot around her. “You can’t trust someone you fear. Not entirely.”
He moved then, fast, fluid, pushing up, bracing on his arms until his body caged mine. “I trust you.”
“Your first mistake.” My chin tilted, lips parting as my teeth closed on the bottom one, a deliberate invitation.
He saw it. Answered it. His mouth crashed against mine, his tongue tangling, demanding. My fingers fell down his arms, dragging his shirt with them until the fabric was ripped away, baring ink and muscle.
The kiss broke, his breath shaking as he whispered, “And I fear you.”
My tongue traced his lips. “Why?”
A hand framed my throat, brushing along my jaw as he let out a strenuous breath. “Because you unravel me.”
The world stuttered as his confession settled between us. I should have reveled in it, but the way he said it, it wasn’t surrender, it was trust.
“Show me.” The words slipped from me like a command.
He kissed me as though he had been starved for centuries. Even when I ached for air, I ached for him harder as the world narrowed to only our bodies joining.
His hand slid along my hip, over scarred skin, reverent where I was most raw, ending where the fabric began again. My breasts fell from their confines as he used his other hand to push the fabric up, out of his way.
A groan rumbled low in his chest as if the sight of me, bared, unguarded, was more than he could stand. And then he indulged, taking one of them in his mouth, his teeth gently biting at what perked.
My back arched, head tipping back as my throat was exposed to him, offering more than skin. Not surrender or weakness, but a gift, a sign of trust back.
He took it, lips sweeping along my jaw, lower, down the curve of my throat, each kiss a brand, each touch a spark that set me blazing from the inside out. My breath caught, my hands tangling back into his hair, tugging him closer, unwilling to let even air between us.
My legs wound around his waist, fabric falling aside like it had never mattered. His head moved up, away from my throat, his mouth back on mine. The kiss turned wild, hungry, devouring us both.
Desire crawled up my neck when his hand traced lower, down the planes of me, over skin I had only ever kept guarded until him. His touch skimmed over my tender flesh as he moved between my legs, where my body dripped for him. It coated his fingers, each stroke drawing utter mercy from me.
Then—
Ronan’s heart glowed.
Blue light surged beneath his chest, bleeding through skin, pulsing urgently to drag him from me.
I clutched his chain. “Let them wait.”
With gentle fingers he brushed strands of hair behind my ear, his thumb rubbing over the gold hoop. But the light only flared brighter, until the room was drenched in it. Until I knew, whatever waited for him in that glow was already here.