Aroar built up my chest and into my throat, my skin vibrating with my dragon thrashing inside of me.
My rage was consuming. Devouring. Chewing through me like acid, a molten river flowing against my ribs.
Scarven.
I ached with the control it took not to shift then and there. The world blurred in and out of focus—all I could see were the crude, bloody letters cleaved onto her thigh, shredding through her skin.
He wasclaimingher.
My sorrow spilled into this monstrous, red-hot fury until it boiled over, begging to be unleashed. What last night had hollowed out of me now filled with pure, blinding hate.
Tears tracked down Devora’s perfect cheeks. Her hand trembled as she pressed on the wound, blood seeping through her fingers. “I’ll never get away from him,” she whispered, her voice soft and broken. “H-how did he do this?”
Hatewasn’t a strong enough word for the way I felt. I didn’t know how it was possible, but Iknewit was Scarven. He’d made her feel unsafe while in his house and locked in his chains, and now he’d takenthis. Her safety in her own body.
I would kill him for this. I wouldburn the worldfor what he did to her.
I shifted so I was on my knees in front of her. Her hand still covered the word, and I slowly circled my fingers around her wrist to pull it away. Blood smeared across the jagged edges of the letters and dripped onto the ground.
Mine
Seeing it again lit something feral inside of me.
When I lowered my head to the cut, she gasped. Starting from the edge of the word, I traced my tongue until the coppery tang of her blood burst in my mouth. I wanted it off of her skin. Every drop of blood, every trace of the pain he caused her.
“Nox, what are you?—”
“You willneverbe his, Devora,” I growled against her. “No word will ever claim you. No mark will ever control you.” My tongue dragged across the cut as if I could make the word disappear.
Her breaths stuttered as her tears subsided, and the tremors faded from her body. Her blood was rich and salty on my lips, as powerful and tempting as the woman sitting before me. She deserved to feel that power. She deserved to know thatno onecould put her under their thumb, much less my bastard of a brother.
I placed one last kiss on the mark, then pushed off from the ground and met her eyes.
“You belong tono one, darling. Don’t ever let him convince you otherwise.”
She closed her eyes, and a soft inhale shuddered through her.
“Do you believe me?” I pushed, remembering the same words she spoke to me when I was at my lowest.
She blinked slowly, eyelashes still wet with tears. “I believe you.” There was a pause as she held my stare, then she swallowed. “But that means he’s still alive. We have to figure out how he did this.”
“I’ll talk to Sil—Milo.” My fiery anger dimmed as the loss of our head Alchemist swept over me again. Fates, so much had happened in the last two days. My mind was spinning, grappling for purchase as it began sifting through the next course of action.
“Are you healed enough to travel?” I asked.
She flexed her left arm, then peeled back one of the bandages, exposing bright pink, nearly healed skin. “Those tonics worked wonders. I think I can ride.”
I nodded. “We need to get back to the Keep as quickly as possible.”
Her forehead pinched. “What are we going to do?”
The guard at the forge said they had more caches to deliverthis week. I knew what came next. What this had all been leading up to. Scarven had his plans, his armies, his tricks up his sleeve. But he wasn’t the only one.
We were at a tipping point. The moment before the leap. The weight of everything we’d lost and everything we couldstilllose coiled inside me, tight and electric. There was no turning back. No more hesitation, no more mercy.
“We’re going to find out what he did to you.” My gaze lingered on the letters on her thigh, and anger crawled back up my throat. “And then we’re going to end this once and for all.”
65
