She is mine. She was mine first and foremost. I had looked after her first. I had cared for her, pined over her,fedher first. And as she follows me now, her eagle eyes fixed on my shifting mass of dark power, she finally knows it. I lead her to the place where it began, where her soul shone to me first through the natural shadows of the cottage behind Charlotte Naga’s house. I re-materialise under the eaves of the double story, quiet in its vacant state.
Charlotte Naga, her remaining mate and their three children have long since been evacuated from this property, and the adults now reside at the Naga mansion for their own protection. The hatchlings live separately, but that is less for their protection and more for Mace’s convenience. I lean against the brick, simply watching her, simply enjoying her attention. This night, this space is one only we share.
She appears from between the acacias that line the fence in her human form. And on a night with no moon, there is no light to touch her skin, only me and my covetous, crimson gaze. Bare olive skin, long dark hair, and…fangs that poke out under her plump upper lip. My body stiffens to attention then, my spine bouncing off the wall as my attention hones in on her blessed mouth. She walks with languid perfection, like a serpent in human form, smoothly across the grass. There is a new grace to her, seeded and then grown by the adversaries she’s crushed. By accepting her own power.
How long I’ve waited.
She turns toward the cottage, looking at it contemplatively. I am drawn to her side, though my limbs hardly know how theyget there. Her scent on the breeze sobers me instantly. “It looked a lot better when you lived in it,” she muses, her eyes fixed not on me, but the house.
“My presence has always been a corrupting force,” I say, my gaze only for her.
She inhales through her nose, and I allow my shadows to fall back, to let her see the man beneath. Hardly a man. I’ve earned the nameGhoultime and time again, but I crave for her to see me as I am.
“There’s still something missing, isn’t there?” she says. “Even after the memories you’ve shown me, I feel like I’m missing something crucial.”
Her soul senses it. What is about to come. The horror that will come to pass by my hand. “You can’t tell me,” she sighs. “The blood bond—I know, I know.”
“Look at me,” I hiss.
Her lips press together in agitation, but she complies, albeit narrow-eyed. A scarlet sheen crosses her pupils, and I blink, stunned for a moment. “They tell me you’ll betray me,” she says. “That you’ll hurt me.”
Betrayal. Pain. Torment. These things are mere words in the face of what it is we must do. Here, where it all began, in the dark outside our cottage window with my heart trying to bite out of my chest, I finally demand of her what I’ve always wanted.
“Let me claim you publicly.”
She stares at me, her heart beating with desire, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why do you want this?” she asks. “You’ve never wanted to claim me before.”
“Oh, the things you don’t know.”
“Then tell—” She scowls at herself. Aurelia swallows, and I can see the accusation in her eyes.You would be with me if it weren’t for a blood oath, I know it.
“You don’t know what the shadows know, snakelet.” She doesn’t know my destiny.
But my snakelet is a stubborn regina. “I’m not doing it. I did what you asked. I repaid the favour. You’ll need to take someone else as your pretend pregnant wife.”
I see the gleam in her eyes, the set in her jaw. “I don’t want to take anyone else, snakelet. Not a pretend Jade Brown but as you are. You are my regina.”
Her pupils flare as I say it, her hair billowing out under her own brutal power. “You’re baiting me,” she hisses, dark and low. “Don’t youdare.”
I lean back, sucking air through my teeth. “I didn’t want it to come to this, but you’ve forced my hand.” I let that sink in between us before— “I have Raquel.”
She frowns. “Raquel has always been at Animus Academy.”
“Their body has, yes,” I say smugly.
“Minnie and her packfreedRaquel’s mind.”
“And then I found the little wolf anim’s consciousness wandering around the halls of the medical ward. They were screaming, you know. I imagine it’s frightening and painful to be separated from your body for that long. It was easy to bring them with me. Tortured souls are drawn to the shadows.”
“Don’t you dare lie to me, basilisk.”
I bare my fangs. “If you want Raquel to wake, do as I ask.”
Aurelia leans away from me as if disgusted. “So this is what it’s come to.”
I grin with my teeth. “This is what it’s always been.”
“You selfish bastard.”
