Fascination. Obsession.
“Reverie,” he murmured, his voice blending velvet with steel. “You really shouldn’t have been so trusting…” A dangerous smile formed. Sinfully arrogant, meant to destroy. “…then again, your naivety was quite delightful.”
My pulse roared in my ears.
Oren growled, stepping forward. “How in the hell did you disguise yourself?”
Trent tilted his head, the picture of patient wickedness. “The serum gifts… many things. Things you’ll never understand with your small mind.”
His gaze slid to me. But there—there was the betrayal—the crack in his cruelty. “You were supposed to be a game,” he said softly. “You made yourself a problem.”
Then he lifted his hand. Reality twisted.
A force slammed outward—warping the stone, bending the air, throwing my men back even as they fought against it.
He held my gaze.
Not with regret.
With an almost affectionate cruelty. Like a man admiring the bruise he left behind.
“You shouldn’t want me in your bond, Reverie,” he said. “You shouldn’t want me anywhere near you.”
My chest ached with the bond’s pull. The cracked crown burned.
“Too late,” I whispered.
For a split second—one heartbeat—his expression cracked.
Not soft or tender.
Justreal. And so very haunted.
Then he vanished in a ripple of warped light. Leaving the echo of a broken man, a lie, a monster—and a bond that refused to let him go.
Chapter 30
Trent
The warp-drop slammed me to my knees.
Polished obsidian tile met my palms first—cold, smooth, flecked with silver veins. My manor. My domain. Walls of black stone and dark walnut rose around me, lit by flickering torches that never smoked.
Home.
Or was Reverie my home now?
Reverie.
Her heartbeat pulsed once—steady, treacherous—and I snarled, pressing my fingers into the tile until it cracked.
“Silence,” I hissed at the bond that shouldn’t exist. “You don’t get to claim me.”
The bond didn’t care what I wanted. Of course it didn’t.
The doors thundered open.
Selene swept in first—like the bitch owned the place—silver silk, blond hair braided with steel rings, her expression an elegant sneer carved with cruelty. Ubel followed behind her like the wannabe ruler he was.
