"He would have killed me," she says quietly. "Killed our children. Killed everyone in this castle who stood between him and his precious legacy."
"Yes."
"And you stopped him."
"I chose you." The words come out fierce, absolute. "Over him. Over the kingdom. Over everything. That's not a choice I had to make—it's just what I am. What I've been since the first time you looked at me like I was worth saving."
She's quiet for a moment. The bond hums between us—wide open, nothing hidden, her exhaustion and relief and something warmer underneath tangling with my own.
"Thank you," she says finally. "For choosing me. For stopping him. For—" Her voice breaks. "For not lying about it after. For letting me see what you did instead of hiding it."
"No more hiding." I press my forehead to hers, feel the slight roughness of scales beginning to form along her hairline. "Whatever happens. Whatever it costs. You get the truth. Always."
"Always," she echoes.
We kneel there in the ruins of the throne room, blood-soaked and transformed and finally, finally free.
The sun sets.
The curse is broken.
And somewhere in the wreckage, something new begins.
37
Kess
The curse settlesinto my bones like molten iron.
We're still kneeling in the ruins of the throne room, forehead to forehead, his blood-slicked hands cupping my scaled face. The transformation isn't done—I can feel it continuing, slower now, scales spreading across my collarbone, down my spine. My body remaking itself around three centuries of divine rage.
But the worst is over. The transfer is complete. The agony has faded to a deep, cellular ache that I suspect will be with me for the rest of my life.
I'm alive.
My children are alive.
Rhystan just killed his father for me, and I watched him do it, and somehow that's the thing that finally cracks something open inside my chest.
"Rhystan." His name comes out rough, strange in my transformed throat. "I need?—"
The heat hits before I can finish.
It slams into me without warning—a wave of need so overwhelming that my vision whites out. Not like my normal heats, those rage-filled blackouts that left me covered in animalblood. This is different. Sharper. Focused entirely on the man kneeling in front of me.
"Flash heat." His voice has gone dark. Rough. "The transformation triggered it. Your body's trying to stabilize."
I can smell myself. Slick soaking through what's left of my dress, the scent of arousal mixing with blood and smoke until the air is thick with it. My thighs are wet. My core is clenching around nothing and ithurts, the emptiness unbearable.
"I need you inside me." The words come out raw. Shameless. "Now. Right now. I can't?—"
He kisses me before I finish.
Not gentle. Not careful. His mouth crashes into mine with three hundred years of desperate hunger, his hands fisting in my hair, his body pressing me back against the stone floor. The silver dust of the broken ritual circle smears beneath us. I don't care. Can't care about anything except the inferno building between us.
His claws shred my dress. I hear fabric tearing, feel cool air on skin that's half-scale now, on the heavy swell of my pregnant belly where our children shift and dream. He pulls back just long enough to look at me—scales and claws and gold eyes and the five-month curve of our twins—and his pupils blow wide.
"Beautiful." He breathes it like a prayer. "You're so fucking beautiful."
