He sits up, examining himself, and I trace one of the slices on his chest with my finger. “You cut yourself on some broken porcelain. There was quite a lot of blood.”
“Blood?” His rich, olive skin fades to ash.
“Yes—surprisingly, it was blue. Kieran, why didn’t you tell me you’re a blueblood? How is that even possible?”
He looks stricken and turns his back to me, placing his feet on the ground. “I’m not a blueblood. Not really, anyway. My blood was poisoned in the mines, and when I got this”—he turns toward me, tracing the faint scar on his face—“when I was sliced by a falling chunk of ore, I woke up with a fucking gift.”
My heart thrashes in my chest as I move to his side, slipping my hand onto his shoulder. He doesn’t jerk away, though I expect him to.
“You have a gift? How is that possible?”
He shakes his head. “I was young enough, I suppose. Most who are forced into becoming bluebloods don’t receive gifts. Most just perish, and those who survive are too injured to work. Your people call it a gift, but it’s an abomination. Thereshouldn’tbe bluebloods. The sooner we reduce exposure, the sooner they’ll disappear completely. Look at Gabe and Mari—they carry the blueblood strain from their exposed ancestors, but it’s so weakened now they don’t have gifts. It’s better that way, anyway. Look what it’s done to you.”
I stroke his arm—and feel nothing. None of my curse flows into him. In fact, if I think about it, he hasn’t been affected by my touch at all. He’s always just shown his own emotions, his own reactions to our contact. Every time we’ve touched, I’ve been too lost in my own feelings to notice. Even yesterday, when I was baffled by his restraint—it wasn’t because he had more control than other men. He was restrained because he chose to give me pleasure instead of seeking his own. Hechose to give rather than take, and felt no overwhelming urges from my curse.
“You nullify others’ gifts, don’t you?”
He gives me a sardonic smile. “You’ve finally realized it, Princess.”
Heat rises to my cheeks. “I did. I’m embarrassed to admit I thought it was something special between us—that it was us, not your gift, that made our physical connection feel different.”
His eyes darken, and he looks at me with such intensity I fear I’ve insulted him.
“Never again, Gen. Never. Promise me I’m the only one who will touch you from now on. I don’t want to know what happened to you because of that curse. I’m afraid I’d kill every bastard who’s ever laid hands on you—and your family, for allowing you to think it was acceptable. But from now on, promise me it will only be me.”
I press my hand to his cheek, drawing him close until our foreheads touch. “There will be no other man but you, Kieran Greenbluff. Morris Blackwell—whatever you wish me to call you.”
“Good,” he growls before kissing me with a fierce hunger. Does he truly believe me? Does he realize that even my mother can’t object to him now? I’m determined to make him understand nothing will stop me from finally making him mine.
He pulls back, all business once more. “We have work to do. It won’t be easy for you, but if you’re going to change this country, you need to see what’s been done.”
“Yes, of course,” I say, rising to stand beside him. “I’m ready.”
35
Genevieve
The stench of rot is so overpowering that my eyes burn and my nostrils sting. I want to tell Kieran this is too much, that I can’t possibly inspect anything under these conditions. But then I think of how he fought through the night—the blue blood in his body still causing him agony from all those years of working in these mines—and I swallow my dismay, following him through the underground entrance.
“We can’t go far here. I’ve closed this section, but I wanted you to see the conditions. Since mining ended, the rot has slowed its progress, but the helachite is still unstable.”
I don’t know how he can speak so calmly in the stifling, foul air with a heaviness that clings to the narrow tunnel. He doesn’t even cover his face as he talks, reaching for a vein of exposed ore and chipping it off with his hand. It crumbles under his touch, releasing a sharp, gaseous odor.
“Helachite is naturally a sturdy mineral—difficult to extract and work with—but once it’s pried out and exposed to the oils on our hands and the air around us, it begins to deteriorate. The more it’s exposed, the more rot forms. It’s useless to me now. The structure that gives helachite its power is so far gone it’s essentially waste. It’s well known that helachite isn’t valuable in this state, but the former owner continued to force miners to work in these conditions. When people come in contact with the rot, they get very ill. You’ve seen that firsthand, from your sister and the death in the palace.”
He guides me toward the exit, and I feel sick inside, thinking about the people who labored for next to nothing in these conditions. “Did you have to work down here?”
He shakes his head quickly, but his eyes linger too long on the space before he closes the door. “I was deemed too valuable early on. It was only the weaker workers who were sent into this mine. It was a death sentence—a quick way to rid the business of people no longer useful. But we all knew what was down here. I closed it as soon as I was able to take ownership.”
Outside, under a heavy grey sky, I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with cleaner air before asking the question that’s been on my mind for weeks. “How did you manage to rise to where you are today?”
“You know me—I have a way of making things work to my advantage. I started as a miner, like anyone else. I lost my father to this mine, and something in me snapped. I wanted to right the wrongs that had been done to us, so I fought in the only way I knew how. I moved up to supervisor, then began taking courses in the evenings to become an engineer. After that, I was promoted. Unlike my colleagues, I invested every coin I earned, choosing to remain in the bachelor barracks withthe other miners. Turns out, I’m good at investing, and I made a significant profit.”
He glances toward the horizon, the wind catching the loose strands of his hair. The haunted look in his eyes tells me every word costs him something to say.
“Then I was promoted over the mine, and that’s when I made my move. I offered the former owner a deal he couldn’t refuse and bought the place. After that, I secured a loan and purchased a mine in Icelantica. I knew there was potential to operate helachite mines in a more humane—and more profitable—way by reducing exposure and smelting the mineral into a stable form. I’d been experimenting in the evenings for years and knew my process would work. Once I got things running, I kept expanding, determined to reinvent the industry.”
This man. How could he have the drive, the sheer determination, to make such sweeping changes after so much suffering? I know I wouldn’t have that kind of resolve. He amazes me, and I try to slip my hand into his, but he pulls away.
