“What truth is that?” I whispered, my voice failing me.
“I will fucking slaughter anyone you think to play with until youcome to me. We are either celibate or we own one another, no other option exists,” he said, releasing his hold on my hair and stepping back from me finally. He left me panting there, driven to the point of near madness even though he’d barely touched me.
“You don’t fucking own me.”
Etan only grinned. “I think you’ll find that I do actually,wife,” he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his trousers and leaving me to gape at him as he went to join in on whatever festivities had occurred since we’d left.
Motherfucker.
SEVENFALLON
Estrella screamed, the sound shattering something within me. I took a step forward to reach her, grimacing as Etan grabbed my forearm with a vise grip that prevented me from moving.
A blade protruded from Caldris’s heart, Mab’s iron dagger making him sputter and cling to the last vestiges of life. “Let me go!” I screamed, desperate to make my way to Estrella. She needed me, needed the bond that swayed between us as her bond with her mate prepared to sever.
She couldn’t be alone if he left this world—couldn’t be alone when she followed after him.
“Stay out of the way,” Etan murmured, leaning close so that the words hung between us. “I won’t let you risk yourself for her. Estrella made her bed with every moment she chose to defy Mab. There isnothingyou can do to change her fate now,” he said, casting his gaze toward his King. Rheaghan lingered at the edge, his mouth tight andhands fisted at his side. As if he wanted to step in to interfere with his sister’s violence but knew better than to defy her.
But like so many of us, something in Estrella’s pain drew us closer. Something in thatlovemade her striking ability to pull us into her orbit even stronger.
Mab pulled back the blade with her good hand as she cradled her injured one as protectively as she could, and I watched in stunned horror as a surge of blood rose to the surface and dribbled down Caldris’s chest in tune with the beating of his heart. I pulled at Etan’s grip, trying to get free to no avail.
He simply pulled me into his chest, tucking my back against him and holding steady. His arms wrapped around my chest, entrapping me in a cage I had no hope of freeing myself from no matter how I writhed against him. “Settle, Fallon,” he said, keeping his breathing slow and even. It was such a contrast to mine, so in opposition to the racing of my heart. My finger throbbed where the teardrop marked Estrella and me as bonded, the need to intervene coursing through me.
Estrella dropped to her knees at Caldris’s side, pressing her hands to his wound as he toppled to his side. She caught him, pulling him into her lap as tears splashed down her face.
“There’s been a change of plans,” Mab said, her voice calm. It was the perfect display of just how little she cared for anything living—anything breathing.
Caldris was her stepson, the son of her husband, and she’d known him since he was a boy. Her cruelty knew no bounds, to only finally kill him when he was so close to being mated, so close to reaching his euphoria.
Mab wiped her knife on the fabric of her dress, staining it with Caldris’s blood.
“I love you,” Caldris whispered, the words meant only for his mate. I screamed, knowing about the bond Estrella and Caldris had sworn.
Where one went, the other would follow.
“You don’t understand,” I whimpered, the sound as broken as I felt inside. Etan shushed me quietly, intending to soothe me as it made his chest vibrate at my spine.
I felt like my heart might tear in two, and Etan held me tight as Mab’s curious gaze swung toward me. She studied me as if she couldn’t comprehend my heartache, as if love were a weakness thatmade no sense in this instant. I couldn’t even blame her, because she didn’t yet understand what she’d done.
She didn’t understand that she’d ripped Estrella from me. I felt as if I were waiting for a piece of my soul to be torn from my chest, for the inexplicable bond that I felt with Estrella to vanish and take me with it.
She was the only person in this world who could understand. Who knew what it had been like living in Nothrek and belonging in Alfheimr. She may not have known it in her mind, but she’d felt that call coming from the other side of the Veil.
She was the only one capable of offering me the freedom that could only come when Mab was dead. She was my onlyhope.
“Caldris will be the Godly sacrifice. Consider yourself fortunate, Ilaria,” she said, the implication of that statement making something in Estrella go blank. Her expression dropped from her face, her anguish vanishing in a moment as she settled inside.
I knew her well enough to know the moment that creature within her rose up to comfort her, wrapping her in an embrace that was so cold that nothing could live within it. This was the Estrella that Mab did not know to fear, the one who made her ramblings about power seem like child’s play. The day that Estrella learned to control that part of her would be the day she conquered the world, plunging us into chaos and darkness.
Caldris turned pale, his eyes beginning to glaze over as Estrella’s claws extended into talons. She dragged one over her wrist, making a sharp slice across her skin. The scent of blood was metallic in the air, turning my stomach with the strength of it.
“Please don’t leave me,” she begged, silent tears tracking down her cheeks as she pressed her bleeding wrist to her mate’s mouth.
Caldris’s eyes drifted closed, and I watched in dawning horror as Estrella’sviniculumpulsed with shadows. The black seemed to writhe on her skin in agitation, the shadows stretching and twirling as they threatened to consume her. Her eyes were wide, a manic energy I’d never seen on her face. The white of her Fae Mark spread, shimmering with golden light as it shifted and pushed back the dark.
Her blood vanished into Caldris’s mouth, the stain of it sparkling with gold where it touched his lips.
