CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Verena
I HADN’T GOTTEN SICK THIS TIME, THANK THE FATES, but I still needed a moment to steady myself.
Not just from the strain begging to snap that Ronan had left, but from the toll of sifting itself.
It hadn’t gotten easier.
The sun had risen higher, light straining to cut through the shielded windows. His room stayed stubbornly dark, like him. Not a single ounce of color except for the rug stretched across the marble. Green threaded through its intricate pattern, not bright like his eyes, but deep.
It drew my eyes forward, pulling me all the way to the wide, spherical window.
But beyond it wasn’t sea, no salt spray, no crashing waves.
The world outside moved in a slow drift where haze washed across the glass like a living veil.
Not an entrance to water like the rest of the Sahfyre palace, but one into the clouds.
Ronan stood before it, before me, his body sculpted and bare. A masterpiece of effort, not simply inheritance. Every line, every ridge of muscle earned, not gifted. Curls clung to his brow, making the jade in his eyes burn vivid.
He looked unearthly, too primal to be real.
It was the same power I’d felt the first time I stood in his presence, when even the air itself had seemed to bow. It took everything not to sink to my knees and crawl to him.
To surrender. To beg.
But Ronan didn’t want me crawling. He didn’t want my submission. Not to him. Not to anyone. He wanted my force. My teeth. My will. Wanted me unbroken, unbending, his equal, not his shadow.
That’s why he waited across the room, watching me with fire in his eyes and restraint in his limbs. Why he hadn’t touched me when we sifted into this dimly lit chamber. Why he had only stepped back, letting me choose.
He was giving me the choice. The power. The burn of control.
And gods, a part of me loved him for it.
I rushed to him like he was the breath missing from my lungs, like my chest would cave if I didn’t reach him. My hands glided up, weaving between the swirls across his chest until my fingers found the chain at his throat, tugging lightly as I rose on my toes, until my lips brushed his.
“I do not wish for a savior,” I whispered into the heat of his mouth. “Not tonight.”
His smile broke against mine, hands curved to my ass. “Good.” His voice was a promise of lust and no mercy. “Because I’m already halfway gone.”
Effortlessly he lifted me, tossing me onto the bed where I sank, already reaching for the strain of him, for the hardness I ached to claim—
He caught my wrist gently, stopping me before I could. “No,” he said. “Tonight, I worship you.”
Before I could agree, his mouth found me, lips marking a path down my throat, over the swell of my breasts.
A feral want bloomed when his lips closed around my nipple, his teeth grazing until a cry tore from me.
His other hand slid between my thighs, fingers slipping with ease, curling into me as if he’d always known exactly how to wreck me.
Then the smoke came. It slid from his wrist, a cool breath in the dark, drifting between my thighs where his fingers left untouched. The tendrils teased, circling the swollen ache just above where I pulsed for him.
It wasn’t just touch. It was sensation. Slick and shadowed heat, rolling over the most sensitive part of me with a mind of its own.
A gasp broke free, my body working into its rhythm. His fingers moved with ruthless precision, palm pressing just enough, while the smoke traced circles of devastating pleasure. The two together, flesh and phantom, undid me.
Tension knotted in my core before snapping and I shattered beneath him. My hands fisted the sheets, voice breaking raw as it consumed me, dragging me under until all that remained was his name burning in my throat.
Ronan watched, every twitch, every cry, with love soothing into the lines of his face. Chest heaving, he sat back on his knees, his cock hard and proud between us.
“I love the way you feel across my hand,” he rasped. “Like liquid silk.” He brought two glistening fingers to his lips, sucking them into his mouth while he moaned greedily against them. “And the taste of it—” His eyes grew heavy-lidded. “Like the gods sweetened you just for me.”
The sight of that alone would be my next unraveling.
A smoldering tremor rolled off him and through me before he even touched me again. “More,” he demanded.
He moved, hooking my legs over his shoulders, lowering himself until his mouth replaced his hand. The drag of his tongue was slow and sinful across where I throbbed for more, for him.
Smoke followed, delving deeper, teasing inside me even as his tongue worked in maddening movement. My thighs trembled, clenching around him, fingers tangled in his hair, clutching, as my body pulsed hotter against every stroke.
“Oh gods,” I moaned, far too loudly than I meant to.
I felt the curve of his satisfaction against me. “It’s just me and you here, love.”
His mouth left me only to chart a path upward, kissing over every line etched across my belly, each press of his lips a promise. He reached my mouth, so close I could taste myself lingering on his lips—
—and then he flipped me.
His mouth found my flesh, kissing the carved length of my spine until my hips lifted on their own, offering. Then lower still, his lips admiring the curve of me, biting lightly, teasing before his tongue found me again.
A whimper cracked out of me when he stopped, only for him to grab a fist of my hair, pulling, guiding, until my back arched just the way he wanted.
Until I was exposed to him, remade in the shape of his desire.
He slid inside of me, filling me to the brink of pain, to the brink of defeat. A cry tore from my throat, my body overwhelmed, quivering beneath the size of him. He moved slowly at first, but the growl in his chest warned me it wouldn’t last.
The grip tightened in my hair, yanking me upright until my back pressed hard against his chest. One hand clamped my jaw, tilting it back, the other slipped between my thighs, stroking in time with each deep, punishing thrust.
I felt the swell of him, the tremble in his chest as he cursed low against my neck, the words searing into my skin. “You don’t even know what you do to me,” he whispered. “I’d burn kingdoms for this. For you. Do you understand?”
Before I could speak, his mouth demanded mine. Messy. Consuming. A kiss that stole breath and gave it back as fire.
But it wasn’t just him I felt, it was more. The energy rising with him. Smoke wound tighter and darker, punching through his veins about to break.
It licked along my skin, his power dragging over every nerve, claiming me as surely as his hands did. He was coming undone, and gods, I felt it. It was a thrum through the bond, a flame down my spine, the way it rushed outward in waves.
His grip tightened near my throat, just enough to make me gasp.
“That sound,” he praised, “don’t you dare stop making it.”
Then he thrust deeper, final, and I ruptured at the same moment he did. My body clenched around him as a force crackled like lightning against my skin. He roared behind me, hips locked to mine, power bleeding loose, carrying us both under.
It rushed through me, into me, filling every hollow, every aching inch until there was nothing left of me that wasn’t blazing. It was raw, devasting and fucking divine.
I folded into the pillows, spent and glowing, while he hovered over me, eyes glowing ember-deep. A purr smoothed through his chest as he nudged my knees wider.
“Spread for me,” he murmured. “Let me see the mess I made of you.”
It wasn’t like me to yield; I should have bristled at being told. Instead, something older unwound in my soul and I offered myself willingly. Because it wasn’t just obedience, it felt like memory.
Security wrapped around me as I lay bound into Ronan’s chest, my head resting over the steady beat of his heart. The sheets clung against our skin, the room still thick with the taste of us.
The edges of my fingers coasted just beneath his collarbone, tracing the scars. Ten, fifty, hundreds etched into his body like runes. Some were raised ridges, some half-moons. Others were straight punctures where blades had once kissed too close, ending dangerously close to his heart.
His skin was a battlefield, and I traced it like scripture.
From somewhere unseen, a melody drifted slowly through the room, heartache woven into every note. Wordless, but desperate with longing. It clung to the walls, a hymn of sorrow and desire tangled as one.
“Why do you keep them all?” My voice was hushed, nearly lost to the song. There were so many. Too many.
His hand ran down the curve of my neck, across my freckled shoulder. A touch that made my spine shiver. His sigh released solemnly against my ear before he said, “Like you, I keep reminders.”
I pressed a kiss to his chest, letting the beat of his heart sink into me. “What are they reminders of?”
“Of everything I’ve fought for.” His fingers stilled on my skin.
“And everything I’ve lost along the way.
” My chin tilted, catching the shadows pulling at his face, watching reason flicker and fold in his eyes.
“But also,” he added, rougher now, “of everything I’ve achieved.
Everything I’ve forced into existence, despite every attempt to cut me down. ”
My brow arched as I tried for humor. “Please, who in their right mind would try and take you down?”
He didn’t look at me. “My father. Most of these scars are punishments. When I disappointed him, he would cut me, slice until the bucket at his feet was filled with my blood.” His jaw worked, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
“Sometimes my magic healed fast. Other times…I’d lie half dead on the floor, waiting to replenish enough to crawl upright again. ”
“Why?” The word cracked. “Why would he do that to you?”
“I don’t know.” He turned, covering my hand with his own, dragging it to the scar nearest his heart. His voice was steady now. “But I will never be like him. Not to you. Not to anyone.”
Ronan D’Vyre. A man bred solely for war. A weapon forged before he ever had the chance to choose who he might become.
The scars weren’t just validation of enemies conquered. They were reflections of something deeper. Who he had been, who he might have been, if he hadn’t been molded into something perilous from the moment he drew breath.
I pushed myself off his chest, hair curtaining my breasts as I sat taller. My fingers found the scar carved across my cheek, the one Wells had given me. The skin was thick beneath my touch, but I felt nothing as I traced its curved edges.
“This,” I admitted, “this is my favorite reminder. Not just to me, but to Wells. That he bested me. That he could hurt me if he ever wanted to.” My head tilted, quiet refusal binding me.
“It’s evidence that beneath the Viper’s mask, I’m still just me.
The dreamer who wants to belong somewhere.
The one who wants to fix a broken world. ”
The words trembled, but I forced them out, my eyes drawn to the clouds shifting beyond the window. A reminder of how small I still was. How breakable.
Ronan rose with me, all that strength softening as he caught my chin, turning my face back toward him. “Then we don’t stop.” His eyes burned with something that could raze empires. “We’ll remake it, piece by bloody piece. And we won’t stop fighting until it’s whole again.”
And in that vow, I felt it, the click of fate’s jaws closing.
Sleep had taken what it needed from me shortly after Ronan’s promise, as brief as it was. He lay stretched beside me, one arm thrown across his stomach, the rise and fall of his chest the only sound between us.
The sun, though delicate, now greeted us through the window, lighting up the journal resting on the nightstand.
My eyes snagged on its unmarked exterior where a feathered pen balanced on top.
Ivory faded into rich sorrel, the quill too rare to be stolen from any ordinary creature.
It called to me and I reached for it before I could stop myself, the creased leather worn down beneath my touch.
“Curious little thing,” Ronan muttered, not opening his eyes.
“Nosy,” I corrected, flipping open the cover. The pages smelled like dust and smoke. “You left it here in the open for me to wonder about.”
A pause, long enough to feel him watching me. “It’s not mine,” he said.
The first page was covered in neat, slanted writing. The ink had faded, but not the weight of the words. I read it aloud.
“We’ll always find our way back to each other. Even in the dark. Even when all that’s left is everything we couldn’t remember.”
My breath hitched. “Who wrote this?”
He turned his head toward me, eyes still drowsy from dreaming. “It was already in the journal when I found it in my father’s office.” A beat. “I think my mother wrote it. Maybe to him, or me.”
I trailed a finger across the words, the edge of my nail catching on the grooves. “The handwriting looks familiar.”
His gaze lingered on my face, unreadable. “Does it?”
I didn’t answer, just kept flipping through the pages. There were dozens of entries, some blurred by time, some deep, like someone had been desperate not to forget.
“There’s not even dates on these.”
Sighing, he raked a hand through his hair, “I know. None of it makes much sense to me.”
My eyes caught on another passage, different handwriting but written with the stroke of royalty. I hesitated, then read it aloud—
“He asked once, and I refused. He asked again, and she accepted. I promised I wouldn’t decide for her, and still, she chose for us both.
Before the memory fades, I need her to know—her life was never the sacrifice.
Nothing could ever make me forget her. I will follow her anywhere, to the world’s end, through Hel’s gate, into whatever waits after.
But time ran out before we even had a chance to begin. ”
I swallowed. “Why keep it if it isn’t yours?”
His eyes shot toward the ceiling, the muscles in his jaw shifting. “Because I thought maybe, one day, I’d fill it. Write something worth remembering.”
My fingers lingered on the page. “And why haven’t you?”
He looked at me, fully, the kind of look that unraveled every wall I’d built. “Because I don’t know where to start,” he said quietly.
A gust of wind blew against the window, throwing shadows of clouds across the wall like wings. I didn’t know what to say to that. Didn’t know how to answer such a truth. Because just as he said it, just as those words left him, I felt it.
The pull, the surge of a past finding its way back into my memory. And in the space between heartbeats, I saw it.
The grave of another life, another time.