CHAPTER SIXTY #3
“When I become your nightmare, remember—” I raised my dagger, its edge catching the light as I leveled it toward Ronan. “I tried to be your light,” I reminded them. “And instead, you let me burn in it.” My stare left Ronan, moving to the others, to Callum. “All of you.”
Elysian moved instantly, fangs bared, rage flashing behind feline eyes. Killian stepped between us before Elysian could reach me, his wings twitching, daring anyone to cross.
Ronan dragged himself toward me, slow, smoke failing to curl off his knuckles, the realization striking him weeks too late. His fingers flexed as he debated whether to reach for me or not.
I didn’t shift toward him. “Thank you for your fire.” My voice had changed, too calm for what I felt. “But I won’t carry your chain any longer.” The color in my eyes bled, the blue burned away, devoured by an endless black. They didn’t shift; they aligned, locking into place. “Now, free me of you.”
The bond convulsed as my fangs slid down, final this time, no return, no reprieve. Veins lit in fractures of dark beneath my skin.
“Verena—” Ronan’s voice, a prayer and a wound both. He went to tread closer—
Until Killian shot between us, his wings developed fully now, obsidian feathers stretching in an eclipse that swallowed the stars as his eyes burned radiant gold.
He didn’t speak. Not when the air shivered with his promise: Touch her, and I will end you.
Ronan staggered back in awe, fists shaking at his sides, fury bleeding off him so heavily I didn’t need the bond to feel it.
Ford stood frozen. Nezra inched forward, her hands shaking. “This is spiraling—”
But I was already unraveling, panting as replenished magic lit my skin in waves. “I reject our bond.” The words came out rough, almost unrecognizable. “Break it. Now.”
Ronan’s jaw locked. “Please,” he begged. “Don’t do this.”
“Fucking break it.” I tore my walls down, let him feel everything—rage, grief, the gaping hole where love used to live. The darkness and corruption in all its sovereign hunger.
A whisper fought its way down the tether. Fight for this. Fight for us.
I almost didn’t answer. Almost let silence be the final kindness. But the last sliver of me, whatever was left of the woman he loved, answered first. Maybe in another lifetime.
No, this one—
The bond splintered.
I lifted the dagger to my arm, to the mark that still willed beneath my skin. I was ready to carve, ready to bleed.
“Don’t do this.” Ronan’s voice was barely sane now, raw enough to shake the stones.
Elysian moved behind me, a blur of ivory, but Killian flared his wings wide, blocking him with a snarl. The blade’s tip dug into my flesh, a bead of red flowing to the surface.
“Lie to me, then,” Ronan said. “Tell me it wasn’t real.” His eyes searched mine for any place where I might still be Verena. “Tell me you didn’t feel it, that you didn’t choose me back.”
The bond shivered between us, gold and shadow and misery.
“I felt it,” he whispered. “Felt you. You loved me.” A verdict. A memory. “So go on, Verena. Lie to me.”
My throat tightened. “You thought I forgave you, that I forgot?” The smile that ghosted my lips was not kind. “I told you I’d unmake you. I promised you’d beg before the end.” Space surrendered as I advanced toward him. “This was never love, Ronan. It was vengeance.”
“No,” he said. “You don’t get to twist this into vengeance just to make it easier.
You think you fooled me? That all that fire in you was rage?
” A bitter laugh broke from his lips. “Please. I’ve been burned by you enough to know the difference.
” He took a slow breath, voice dropping to something that almost sounded like home.
“You can fake hate all you want. But you never could fake love. Not with me.”
My lips curved, barely, almost nothing. “You almost had me. You almost made me believe it could be real.” A beat. A breath that trembled. “But now you’ll never have me again.”
A devotion inside of him broke. Not loud or notably. Just...quietly, before it hardened into something deadly. His shoulders lowered a fraction, his stance shifting, not back or away, but inward, like he was bracing. “Then understand, whoever, whatever I become after this...he won’t be a good man.”
I could have faltered. Once, I would have. But that part of me was already gone. And I did the only thing left I knew how to do—I poisoned us.
The rejection ruptured like splitting glass, shattering everything sacred between us. Venom met dragon-fire and the air screamed, the tether convulsing with us.
Ronan’s magic clung to mine, trying to hold on, slick and thick with sorrow. But I didn’t let it. Didn’t let him. Our pain tangled together until I couldn’t tell where his ended and mine began. When it broke it didn’t come gently, not even mercifully. It shattered. A black, still detonation.
I am resilient.
The sound left my lungs with it, a scream that wasn’t natural, wasn’t divine. Just a wound given voice. Ronan fell, his knees hitting the stone, his breath ragged, hand tearing at his chest as though he could hold what was gone.
I almost reached for him. Almost. But the tether was gone. Reduced to smoke. To ash. To nothing. He had been my last anchor. And now I was untethered.
I am fearless.
I turned from him, from all of them, as devastation caged the room whole.
My voice cut through it, one final time.
“Watch for me in the dark.” One glance back, my hair tangled, blood gleaming, death laced across my skin, Killian a shadow at my side.
“When the nightmare comes crawling, it’ll be wearing my face. ”
Not a promise. A prophecy.
Maybe they were right all along. I wasn’t misunderstood. I was inevitable. The reckoning they tried to cage. The monster they made. And when the last of the light bled from the room, I understood—
I had become the force no one anticipated.