CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE #2
He gave a slow nod. “Nezra. And I think Elva suspects. I’ve been masking the scent, keeping the bond veiled until I told you, and,” he swallowed, hard, “until you made your choice.” There was a shift between us, as though some star high above tilted its axis.
“Is that why you marked me?”
A grimace flashed at the corner of his mouth, almost sheepish, almost feral. “Yes,” he admitted, “but also no. It was instinct. I didn’t think, I just…felt.” His thumb brushed my knuckles, a faint apology in the motion. “And I am sorry.”
I wrenched my hands from his, only to cradle his face instead. His skin was rough where the scars crossed his jaw. Then I kissed him, a collision of our mouths, a clash of teeth, tongues tangled in a need undone and unarmored.
When I broke away, his breath scorched my lips. “The best thing I could ever be,” I said, voice shaking, “is your mate.”
Ronan’s eyes ignited as he caught my hands again, this time lifting them and pressing his mouth to each palm.
“The best thing you could ever be,” he murmured, “is who you already are. Or whoever you choose to become.” His thumb dragged a slow circle against my wrist, sealing each word like a vow. “And I will love every version.”
The space between us fell away, exposing the bond fate had tied—breath, fate. A pulse too rare to name.
“What are you thinking about?” Ronan’s voice slid through the hush as we sat on his balcony, our legs tangled in a lazy knot.
He’d explained the barrier being like the panes in my chambers, except here, we could see out but no one could see in.
Not that it mattered. We were suspended above the world, hundreds of feet hidden in the clouds.
They drifted past like silver ribbons while the kingdom below dissolved into a quilt of mist.
The sun was setting, but the chill skating down my spine had nothing to do with the air. It was the thought of him glimpsing what had flashed behind my eyes earlier, the mirror, the stain, the crown of obsidian cracking across my skin.
If Ronan ever saw me for what I truly was, it wouldn’t matter how deep our bond ran. He would kill me. He would have to.
The power between us was never equal. He could send what he pleased through the tether, curtain himself in silence, but I couldn’t stifle mine. No matter how hard I pushed happiness or calm across that bond, he knew. Even when he didn’t see it.
My voice scraped as I asked, “What if—” A pause, debating if I should swallow it instead. “What if I really become the monster they built? The curse,” my fingers tightened into my palms, “I can’t glamour it much longer. It’s too strong now.”
Did his power let him see how undone I was beneath it all—past the mask, past the skin, down to what pulsed, black and endless, underneath? Did Ronan know exactly who he had bound himself to so easily?
“My soulflame.” He let my foot slip from his palm and, before I could blink, he was between my legs.
The shift was fluid, his hands catching my cheek.
“What if you become more? We all fail. We all let the dark guide us when the weight becomes too much. But,” he pressed his forehead to mine, “I promise to bring you back. Every time.” His other palm locked onto my face.
“Look at me,” he whispered, making sure I met his gaze. “Every time, Verena.”
The first sob punched out of me, grief I’d locked away spilling over, unrestrained.
“I’m not who I was anymore.” My head turned just enough to escape the full heat of his stare, the words searing as I forced them out.
“I’m losing myself. The woman you see now…
she’s drowning. Eventually, she’ll be gone. Lost for good.”
He tried to dam it off before it reached me, but sorrow seeped through the bond anyway, inescapable. I couldn’t tell if it was for me or for him.
“What I feel for you exists beyond all of that.” He threaded his fingers through tangled curls, past the gold hoop glinting at my ear, and pressed his forehead to mine.
“Give me your fears, your doubts, your dread.” His scent wrapped around me, warm spice and salt, dragon-fire…
and home. “I want your bloodlust and your nightmares. Spill them onto me. Because if you become a monster,” his pupils flared wide, catching the movement behind my own, “then I’ll become worse.
So, they come for me before they ever reach you. ”
My arms slid around his neck, legs knotting at his waist as I folded into him.
“You are not alone anymore,” the promise settled into me, finding its home there. “Give me all of it,” he whispered. “Until there’s nothing left for you to feel but my devotion.”
Recognition lived in his eyes. Impossible, and so boldly unearned.
I didn’t deserve this—this serenity, this rare stillness that only existed inside his touch.
He took my sorrow the way storms drink rivers, every tear devoured by the promise he’d made, until my eyes were dry and my lungs emptied.
And still he held me, unmoving, a fortress built around whatever was left of my heart.
His arm shifted from the arch of my back, his palm sliding to my thigh as his mouth found the curve of my jaw, then the crook of my neck, each kiss a brand, a claim, a question.
In answer my fingers twined around the chain at his throat, a murmur vibrating against my skin, a sound too soft to catch, more breath than word.
I drew back, searching in his eyes. “What did you say?”
The fist he had tangled in my hair loosened as it dropped to cradle the back of my neck. “Thank you,” he said again.
My brows drew tight. “For what?”
He smiled. “For the first time, my vision is finally clear.”
I didn’t remember Ronan carrying me back into the room, only the pull, the gravity of him.
“I need you.” His breath was a plea against my mouth. “Not gentle. Not slow. Real.”
I couldn’t do anything but nod and that was all he needed.
Our lips crashed, desperate and bruising, while he spun, moving through the shadows with me in his arms. He halted only when the velvet chaise caught his stride.
Every kiss deepened as he sat, dragging me astride him, hands clamping at my hips.
Smoke licked from his fingers, sliding under my clothes, peeling each layer away until it was only me he touched. His own came undone in turn, until finally there was nothing left between us.
A groan caught like a prayer in his throat when I sank down, taking every inch of him. “Fuck, Verena…” The sound was a rasp, almost ruined.
I threw my head back, curls tumbling down my spine as he caught my nipple in his mouth, drawing it between his teeth until my hips bucked of their own accord.
My fingers clawed down his chest, hips grinding in merciless rhythm as he secured one hand around the base of my throat.
Even when blood bloomed and beaded where my nails raked his shoulders, he didn’t flinch, only gripped my waist harder, thrusting into me with every roll of his hips.
A sound broke from me, raw and heavy with ache, nothing like the gasps I’d given before.
“That’s it, love.” His lips grazed the curve of my breast, higher, where he still rested on my throat. “Let them hear you,” he praised, tongue dragging against the hammer of my pulse. “But let me feel how much you need me.”
My answer was a broken cry as I arched above him. “I need—” I shifted, rolling deeper, earning a sound from him that made me drip through the heat we shared. “I need more.”
The grin he gave was wicked before he moved his hips again, slow at first, deep enough I swore he reached into the center of me.
“Say it,” he murmured against my ear, dropping his hand so both secured me against him. “Say you’re mine while I’m inside you. Say it while you fall apart for me, while you come where I can feel it, so I know.”
The rocking shifted, sharper, faster, his fingers leaving bruises into my hips as he brought us crashing down together. The control he’d held unraveled with every thrust, darkness curling from his wrists, his breath ragged at my throat.
I tried to slow the rush climbing up my spine, but the pleasure was undeniable as I trembled on top of him.
“Good girl,” he whispered again, rougher now. “Come for me.”
My body obeyed, clenching, shuddering, breaking open. Only then did his name tear raw from me.
He didn’t stop, just drove me through it, through the tremble and his name spilling off my lips again as his pace stuttered, then returned harder.
Feral and panting, he said, “You look so godsdamned good taking me. You should see yourself, the way you glow for me.”
He slammed my hips again, restraint splintering, and with a final thrust he buried himself deep, a guttural sound ripping from his chest. I collapsed against him, skin slick with sweat and fever, my forehead resting against his jaw. He pressed a kiss above my heart, a confession against my skin.
“I could die right here,” he promised, his head falling back against the chair, eyes falling into rapture. “Inside you. With your breath still in my mouth and your nails still stained with my blood.”
A laugh escaped me, half tremor, half praise, as I threaded my fingers into his hair, tugging at the curls until his eyes fluttered open. Lips brushing his temple, I whispered, “Not tonight.”
“I almost don’t want to go back.” The confession slipped from me beneath the candlelight, flames dancing across the stone walls like restless spirits.
Aero had summoned Ronan hours ago with his sigil.
No doubt he’d caught our scent through the door and wisely chosen not to intrude.
He’d wanted to gather us all for one final dinner before we set out again.
Ronan had denied him, muttering something about food tasting better when I was naked in his sheets.
Now the air carried it all. The roasted spices and sweet pastries brought on silver trays. Along with something darker. Truth, maybe. Or the kind of hunger that tasted like it.
The sun had long since surrendered, moonlight sliding in through the curtains, broken by the passing clouds.
“If the fate of our lives didn’t rest on finding this heir,” I traced the edge of the sheet tangled around my thigh, “I’d stay here with you until death.”
Ronan curled himself against my side, arms binding me in heat. He lifted a fruit pastry to my lips; I nearly begged on my knees for it. His gaze didn’t move from me, watching me like I was the indulgence here.
“They might not even notice our absence anymore.” He licked honey from his fingers. “We can stay.”
But his words couldn’t touch the fear cinched tight in my chest. The bond hummed with it, leveling between us.
“I’m scared, Ronan.”
He dropped the pastry offering. “Of what?”
The exhale was sharp against my lips. “Of going back. Of waking up. Here I can almost pretend I’m not the Viper.
Not cursed. We’re hidden from everything beyond these walls.
But once we leave…it all becomes real again.
My fate. My name. Too many things have started to matter. Things I never used to care about.”
I tried to ignore the reassurance he was forcing down the bond, that it was good things mattered. It was good I was scared to lose them. It meant, as Gemma once said to me, I was still here. Me. Though, I wasn’t so sure.
He finally said, “You decide your fate in the end. If you want to live, live. Fight for it. And if, by some cruel twist, you’re destined for something beyond this, then I will follow you. But don’t you dare surrender who you are. Don’t you dare give up.”
A thin streak of shadow trailed across my collarbone before I exhaled it away. “It isn’t surrender, Ronan. It’s recognizing the reality that nothing I’ve done has saved us. Every version of me ends in disaster and I’ve only dragged everyone deeper into the ruin with me.”
“Not for me.”
“You don’t know that,” I whispered.
“I do.” He forced a laugh. “I’m annoyingly difficult to kill, remember?
” I attempted a smile, but it withered before it even reached my lips.
His hand slid down my arm, across the veins pulsing with secrets.
“It was intoxicating, you know, the taste of freedom. But it wasn’t freedom that called to me.
” He angled my chin, so our eyes met. “It was you.”
He sounded so damn sure.
“So don’t rewrite the story. You didn’t drag us anywhere. They’re not following you out of obligation. Every single one of us is here because we chose you. Not the prophecy, not the curse. You. And believing in you is the only thing that’s ever felt instinctive to me.”
I pressed my lips to his, soft enough he couldn’t taste the salt streaking down my cheeks.
I could tell him everything now. How loud the Viper’s voice had become over my own.
How it wrapped possessively around my ribs.
How the lines between us had blurred until I no longer knew where she ended and I began.
He spoke of eternity, but all I felt was time slipping through my fingers. I pulled his arm tighter around me, burying myself in the scent of him.
Tomorrow, I will tell him, when we returned to the others. Tomorrow, I would face fate.
But tonight…tonight I would live.
Tonight, I would let love eclipse the curse for the final time.