In front of her, he morphed. No longer the young sentinel, no longer that initial taste of rebellion that made her believe life was larger than the role her family wanted her to play. She remembered the thrill of the first time he’d kissed her, theintensity of doing something deeply forbidden. And yet when she looked at him now, all that enchanted romanticism was just… gone.
What remained of their young love was cold and silent. A dead thing that he was pounding upon the chest of. He was yet another power-starved man who wanted to sacrifice her at the altar of his ambitions. He did not love her; he loved the idea of winning the Asteryan heiress.
Cruelty clawed at her throat, begging to be let out, begging to steal the air from him the way he’d stolen it from her. And suddenly, she didn’t care if she broke his heart. Shewantedhim to break.
“You are a coward,” she snapped.
Anger twisted his features into that unrecognizable enemy. “I’m the coward, am I?” Roman stepped into her space.
Vaasa recoiled, her body remembering what had happened to her upon a table like this. What those chains were capable of doing to a witch. Roman didn’t drop her gaze. His hand settled upon her waist, ignoring the way her body tensed.
“Stop,” Vaasa managed.
Roman’s voice came low. “I spentyearsinfatuated with you, and when I finally earned a place in your bed, I was willing to be anything you needed in order to keep just a taste of you.That’swhen I was a coward. Because I’m not who you chose, am I? That was a brutal, ruthless man who takes what he wants without an apology. And you can’t even say that you didn’t love him.”
Desire, harsh and cutting, painted his features, and Vaasa didn’t care to look at it. She almost wanted to let her magic out to play and watch what her wolf could do to a man like this. Here, in this moment, backed against a table, violence bloomed in the dead of winter. “Stop, Roman,” she whispered.
“Tell me that’s what you truly want,” Roman said. His hands tightened on her waist. “Because I don’t think it is.”
Vaasa held her chin high. She refused to tremble in the face of him, refused to show an ounce of her fear. Roman leaned in, his lips just inches from hers, and Vaasa’s heart pounded painfully in her chest. Panic soared in her veins. She swallowed, doing anything she could to keep it down.
“I can offer you anything Karev can, anything thatwolfcan,” he said so quietly, his words and breath coasting between what little space separated them. “I can be a weapon, you just aren’t wielding me.”
Her hand against the table behind her slid a fraction until her fingertips brushed the chains. Her magic winked out, and relief came cold and sweet. Rationality broke through the haze of her anger, a stark reminder of where she stood and what she had to lose.
She couldn’t alienate Roman. Not now. Not yet. He could turn on her at any moment, and it was only through his mechanisms that she would travel freely within the city. He could clear the way to the mausoleum, to her mother’s sarcophagus. He had access to Amalie and Sachia’s brother. He was a stress point for Lord Karev, one worth keeping.
Every step forward had to be intentional. This, above all else, was critical.
I can be a weapon, you just aren’t wielding me.
With a small breath, Vaasa released the chains, her magic flooding her stomach. She stifled it. Instead, she lifted her hands to his chest, her fingers curling in the lapels of his jacket, hiding the tips in case any magic leaked out. “I understand why you did it,” she whispered. “If I had been given a way back to you, I would have taken it, too. No matter how sinister.”
He looked between where she touched him and up into her eyes.
“I didn’t know you were alive, Roman. If I had known…” She closed her eyes for a moment, honestly remembering what it feltlike to believe he was dead. The guilt she had carried, the self-loathing that had festered because her love for him had been the final nail in his coffin.
“I should have told you sooner. For that, I’m sorry.”
Vaasa opened her eyes. Tilted her head. “No, you’re right. I want someone who’s going to fight. Someone who’s going to claw their way to the throne and slaughter anyone who tries to take it. Since I cannot earn it myself, I was willing to let Reid of Mireh be the person who claimed it for me. Perhaps Karev, if that’s what it took. But…” She shook her head. “I didn’t know you wanted it, Roman. You never told me that you did.”
“I want it,” he said with such satisfaction it made Vaasa sick. He lifted a hand to push back a tendril of her hair, fingers lingering on the side of her throat. “I wantyou.”
She curled her hands tighter against his chest. “I can’t touch you. Not yet.”
“And why is that?” he demanded.
“Because when I touch you,” she whispered, pushing his chest so he ceded space, forcing him backward until her arms were entirely extended. She breathed easier. The part she had to play came freely now. She looked him square in his eyes. “There will be no lord or advisor in my way. There will be you and me and a throne and nothing else.”
She lifted her hands from him then, an ugly darkness curling in her stomach. She hated herself. She hated the words she had just spoken. In many ways, she was no different from Ozik. But Vaasa could only see one future, and it wasn’t here in Asterya.
She wouldneverforgive him.
At her small display of willingness, Roman closed his eyes and his body relaxed. A starving man who had just been offered a crumb, yet confused it with a feast.
“Tell me what you saw tonight,” he said. “Complete honesty, Vaasa. I’m tired of being left out of your plans.”
Vaasa spoke instinctually, careful with her phrasing. “My friend showed me a weapon. Something my brother put inside my mother’s sarcophagus. Something I think he hid in hopes I wouldn’t be able to protect myself against him or Ozik.”
