He rose slowly.
Deliberately.
Like he was keeping his power from spilling everywhere.
When he reached me, he didn’t touch. Not at first.
He just looked through me, into me, like he was searching my soul for cracks… or others that might be occupying my body. “Come here.”
I went.
He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me in gently, cautiously, then kissed me with a careful reverence that made something inside me shatter wide open.
He kissed me as if he were afraid I would vanish. Then, as if he were afraidhewould.
When he finally broke the kiss, he rested his forehead against mine, breathing hard. “You are the center of everything I’m trying to hold together,” he whispered. “Don’t ever forget that. My family isn’t allowed to destroy that.”
My eyes stung.
He brushed his knuckles down my cheek. “And if Trent ever touches you…” His voice deepened, darkened. “…I will ruin him.”
We chose to camp at this spot, and as we all settled down, there was no pushing or crowding. Instead, they formed a circle around me—one by one, each gently pressing a kiss to my forehead, temple, hair, shoulder, and hand.
And as I drifted toward sleep, surrounded by their warmth, their breath, and their bodies draped like shields?—
I had no idea it would be the last peaceful moment before Trent’s shadow swallowed us all.
Chapter 34
Trent
The forest slept.
The Aurathions in it did not.
I could feel her pulse through the bond—wild from the dream, shaken raw and aching in a way that made something inside me turn animal.
She’d seen it.
The throne room.
The blood.
My sin.
Kratos.
The name hissed through my skull like poison.
She knew.
Sheknew.
And before she could run from me—before her men could hide her away—I moved.
Islippedbetween shadows the way Torren used to, when he was still just a mask I wore to torment her and not a fracture in my mind.
The camp came into view, fires low. Everyone is quiet. Bodies still.
