Ourgeneral.
Last I checked, you were married to a Faerie not to me.
Not by choice!I shout, before realizing how that sounds—like I actually believe I’m lawfully wed. Which I don’t.
I understood it wasn’t your choice. It’s the reason I’ve taken Justus aside to have words.
You call towing him into the airtaking him aside?
He fucking married you off to—
I know, Lore. I know! I was there. Dante said he’d cut off Antoni’s tongue if I didn’t go through with the blood-bind.My throat closes and opens like the fingers balled at my sides.So I fucking went through with it.
Lore’s pupils narrow to pinpricks at my tone, or is it my curse word? He so loathes them. The dark sky flashes with a netting of bright white lightning that paints the marketplace gray, Justus, white, and Lore, pitch-black.
Lore, put Justus down! I beg you.He must not hear my desperation over the thunderous peals of his tempest because he doesn’t land. When his steel talons clamp harder around Justus’s arms, I scream,Do NOT kill him or else—or else—My chest lifts and falls with harsh breaths.
Or elsewhat?His voice sounds wrong—cold, punitive. It’s the tone he uses with his enemies, not with me.You’ll run back into the arms of your new husband?
He drifts back to the ground, unhooking Justus before my grandfather can get his boots beneath him. The poor man, who’s already in a world of pain, tumbles onto his knees.
I glower at Lore’s pettiness, not dignifying him with an answer.
“Don’t you dare manhandle me again, Ríhbiadh!” Justus is red in the face, as though the sun has beaten down on his fair skin for days on end. “I went against my people to help yours!”
“Here I was hoping we’d finally get some peace and sun,” Phoebus mumbles as the rain pelts the warded ceiling. “My face is as pasty as my ass, and my ass could be used as a torchlight.”
I sense Phoebus is attempting to alleviate the ambient mood, but I’m so fucking pissed off that his quip doesn’t even dent the darkness swarming my head and heart.
I start toward Justus, but my father steps into my path.
“What is going on, ínon?”
I raise my marked palm and stamp the air in front of his weary eyes.
He grips my wrist and peers closer, eyebrows slanting. “This is about a tattoo?”
Lorcan must share that it isn’t a simple tattoo because my father rears his head back. “You bound my daughter to a fucking imbecile, Rossi!” His complexion has grown as violet as the day he found out about Lore’s and my mating bond. Before my next breath, he strides toward Justus, his nails lengthening into iron talons.
I run and tackle his enormous arm, putting every last gram of my weight into my heels to stop him from eviscerating the general. “Dádhi, stop.” I will his nails to pinken and recede. “Cathal Báeinach, STOP!”
I’m not sure if it’s my use of his full name or my tone, but he finally quits stomping toward Justus who stands tall in spite of being ringed by ferocious shifters. “Zendaya told me that the Cauldron forbade blood-binds!”
“The Cauldron probably does but it’s temporarily out of sorts,” I say.
“I’m sorry, butwhat?” Phoebus and Sybille ask at the very same time.
“When Meriam spelled Costa’s bloodline, the Cauldron became so angry that it sealed itself off. According to Meriam and Justus, it will only reopen for business once a descendent of Meriam snuffs out the Regio bloodline. Which is why it must beme—the curse-breaker.”
“Bronwen?” My father whips his face in the direction of his sister-in-law, locks of damp black hair falling into his feral eyes.
“The Cauldron communicates with me, Cathal, so it mustn’t have sealed itself off entirely.”
“What I still fail to understand is what the Cauldron’s sullenness has to do with my daughter blood-binding herself to that pointy-eared buffoon!”
“Dante has blood magic, Dádhi.”
His dark eyes jerk to my violet ones. “He’s Shabbin?”
