“You have misjudged, Palomides,” Veyka yelled across the plain. “Arran’s blood flows in my veins.”
From the rage contracting on his face, I knew he’d heard every word. “You—”
“The mating bond is deeper than anything you can conceive of in your feeble mind. I am every breath he takes and he is every beat of my heart. We cannot be separated—not by foolish bargains, not by realms, not even by death.”
My wolf moved, without my will or intention. To stand beside her, to snarl.
“We are one.” Then she sliced off the Black Knight’s head.
I lifted my head to the dark sky and howled.
When I shifted back to my fae form, Veyka’s blades were already sheathed. She stomped across the sodden ground to where the Black Knight’s head had rolled and landed in a puddle. She ripped off the glittering black helm.
“Who is it?” I heard myself ask.
Veyka stared at the face. Male. Unremarkable. She did not answer, stood there in silence until Lyrena reached her side. The knight, her golden hair dark with rain, studied the face for several long moments. Then she shook her head.
“No one,” Veyka said hollowly.
She disappeared, leaving the anonymous elemental male to rot in the mud.
But she was not gone for long. Kay and Vera reached my side. We were halfway across the plain when Veyka reappeared in the mud before Palomides. She was not alone.
She dumped the succubus—the only one we’d left alive—on the ground at Palomides’ feet.
“We found your pets.”
She did not wait to see if or how Palomides would fight it off before disappearing into the void once again.
The rain had stopped.
65
VEYKA
“What the hell was that?”
Arran wrenched his arm away from me. “It was nothing.”
I had meant to take us to the privacy of the bedchamber, but we landed on the battlements instead. One look at the Brutal Prince, and the guards scattered into the falling darkness.
I grabbed him back, my fingernails digging into the leather tunic and the steel muscles beneath. He was wet—sweat, rain, all Arran. My core began to pound. But my desire was no match for my anger.
He tried to shake me off, using what remained of his brutally superior strength. But I would not give him the satisfaction of watching me fall on my ass. I caught myself easily, planting one hand on each hip.
“It is notnothing,” I seethed, my voice silky in its threat. Made for battlefields and bedrooms. “You said you were healed. I let you walk into that duel under the belief that you were at full strength.”
“You do notletme do anything,” he bit back, canines flashing. Even after nearly being defeated, the exhaustion lininghis eyes, he was so ruggedly beautiful. I was so completely gone for him, that brutal slash of a mouth as he snarled— “I am fine.”
My hands curled into fists. “None of this is fuckingfine.”
I spun away from him—had to get away. If I stared at him for too long, I’d start tracing the lines of his face. Cataloguing the curved lines of his muscles to reassure myself that he was alive and safe. The little indent in his chin where I liked to catch my teeth—
Fuck!
I started running along the battlements, desperate to get away. Night was falling quickly. So were Palomides’ guards, jumping out of my way. At least something had come from the disaster on the plain.
Arran did not follow.
