I hesitate.
“The crystal,” I finally say after a long moment of silence. “If she is me, I do not know her. I do not know how long we’ve been separated. But I do know it washeranger,herdemanding rage I felt when I grazed the crystal. And these veilflowers… they’re not me. Yesterday proves that. They’reher.”
Shehasto be why I cannot control this innate.
I’ve been severed from the ability.
Ryc studies my face, his eyes searching mine. “I look forward to learning who you truly are, little love.”
“And if I’m worse?”
He laughs. “Impossible.” He leans close, brushing his nose against mine. “I think you hold the reins too tightly to ever let that happen.”
My flat glare has him laughing again.
“If you’re trying to scare me off,” he says, his embrace growing tighter—gods, the way I could curl into his warmth and never leave is pure nonsense—“You’ll need to try harder.” He flashes a dazzling smile.
I scoff a dry, bitter laugh and push at his chest, but his arms keep me locked firmly against him.
There’s yet another truth.
Perhaps one he doesn’t quite realize.
Like all gifts from demons, my heart comes with strings. I can’t give him his gift without beingexplicit. He deserves to know.
“Then let me warn you, nyraphim,” I say, my voice low. “Should you accept this gift, know I will tear your heart out before I let you shatter mine.”
Lifting a hand, he tilts my face as he lowers his lips to mine, brushing them ever so lightly.
“I expect no less,” he murmurs, teasing a flutter of a kiss upon the corner of my mouth. The urge to claim his lips and taste his tongue sears through my veins. “Hearts are fragile things.”
He flattens a palm on the center of my chest. Beneath the flesh and bone my heart beats in a slow, steady rhythm, calmed by his presence, by his touch.
“Mine lies here,” he says, lifting his gilded gaze to meet my stare. “Should it shatter, should it cease, it will be because you deem it. I gave you the power to destroy me long ago, little love.”
“You damn fool,” I say, my voice breaking. “You hang your heart upon a demon.”
“Mydemon,” he corrects, and I laugh despite my tears. “Now, show me,” he encourages, clasping my hands and the ring box between his.
With a deep breath, I nod and open the box.
If this is what he chooses, so be it.
He was warned.
His golden eyes fall to our hands and grow wide.
“You went to Gladir,” he says.
“Fate,” I laugh weakly. “I didn’t know until I asked him to forge it.”
Ryc’s eyes narrow as he studies the ring. Blue-silver shimmers across the surface of the silver.
“Spelled?” he asks.
“I won’t lie,” I say, the sound of the words surprising me. “It was forged using the necklace Celesta left me. Without it I would have never escaped the hells.”
The expression upon Ryc’s face softens. “It brought you to me.”
