“Savla…”
Her magic brushed me, gentle but trembling as if she was reaching out in the dark.It took everything in me not to pull her onto my lap and never let go.
Outside the broken doorway, voices rose. I could barely tell them apart but I heard Dristan, Zara and Tasia. I wasn’t sure who else was there, but I was certain there were more. I was too focused on where my mate was resting to care.
“…Illicit glamor spells—”
“…full guild investigation—”
“…they lied about the inheritance—”
“…soul-binding coercion—”
“…arrest warrants—”
“…that estate is a crime scene—”
Hanna flinched, waking up slowly from where she’d been drifting to sleep next to me.
“What inheritance?” she asked in a low voice.
I tensed but Tabitha stepped into the room, face falling with sympathy.
“Darling… your grandmother left everything to you. The apothecary business. The patents. The estate funds. All of it,” she whispered, running her fingers through Hanna’s hair.
Hanna went still. “What?” she whispered.
Her magick fluttered like a bird slamming into glass.
Tasia crossed her arms. “Your parents hid it. They tried to force you into a marriage contract so the assets would transfer to Corwin’s family.”
Hanna’s eyes filled, wide and wet, as she croaked out, “She left it… tome? Not them?”
Tabitha nodded, voice firm. “Of course she did.”
The grief on Hanna’s face nearly broke me.
“She loved you,” Tabitha said gently. “She wanted you to have a life of choices.”
Hanna bowed her head.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I thought… I thought... they always said that I was nothing in the business.”
My chest cracked open like a wound.
“You areeverything,” I said softly.
She looked at me then—really looked—and in her gaze was the kind of devastation that only came from realizing you’d spent your whole life believing lies.
It was long minutes later, after the coven had left and Hanna had had time to come to terms with the fact that she was the sole benefactor of the apothecary, that she reached for my hand again.
“Savla… back at the manor… I felt you. I felt everything. The bond—” Her voice trembled. “Are we…?”
I stopped her with a tiny shake of my head. I wasn’t dismissing or denying anything but I was just too terrified to do anything else.
“It’s not—” I rasped. “You’re not thinking clearly. You’re still glamor-sick and the bond reacts to vulnerability. It doesn’t mean—”
Her fingers tightened painfully around mine.
