Dyssara, with its concentration of power and its population of witches, was killing him faster than I’d dared hope.
Days. He had days left at most. Maybe less if the coven continued to amplify their work.
And when he died, I’d take his place. Lead hunter. Magistrate, probably, given the council’s preference for continuity. All that power, all that authority, perfectly positioned.
The witches would owe me their freedom. The hunters would follow my command. And I’d control both sides of a war that had raged for centuries.
Perfectly orchestrated.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said aloud, my cold tone carrying just the right amount of concern.
The man who had been following him down the street dragged an old woman into the space. She struggled weakly, terror written across every line of her face.
“Do you see, son?” Tiberius moved toward her with predatory focus, tucking his handkerchief away. “The Phoenix blood runs in only one line. Passes down through generations. But these witches are loyal to their own. They won’t betray family, even under the worst circumstances.”
He grabbed the old woman by her long white hair and dragged her toward the Erelith chalice lighting the corner of the room. “Watch.” He forced the woman’s hand toward the fire. She screamed, trying to pull away, but his grip was iron. Her fingers touched the flame.
And didn’t burn.
The fire moved around her skin like water, recognizing something in her blood that marked her as other.
The Phoenix bloodline.
“You see?” Tiberius released her, letting her collapse. “I’ve had my own Phoenix blood to experiment with for seven years.”
I stepped closer, drawn by something I couldn’t name. I knelt and looked into the old woman’s eyes. She was terrified, exhausted, but beneath it all, a bead of defiance sat in her glare.
I recognized those eyes.
Blue, but not the exact shape. The expression. The fire behind the fear. The way she looked at me like she was seeing something I couldn’t hide.
The same way Syn had looked at me in the cave when I’d promised her anything that mattered to her.
Understanding hit like a blade between my ribs.
If I asked you to see reason. Beyond the hunt. If we broke the oath without killing her... would you consider it? If I asked you to because it mattered to me.
She hadn’t been begging for Vitoria’s life.
She’d been begging for her own.
Syneca Black was the Phoenix.
And I knew my duty.
Not because my father commanded it, and not because the oath demanded it. But because it’s what was right. What the Ripper did. Who I was beneath every pretty lie I told Syn about being different.
About choosing her—about wanting something more than blood and duty.
I’d played the role so well I almost believed it myself.
Almost.
And she’d practically fallen over herself to care for the poor, conflicted hunter. Patched my wounds with gentle hands. Looked at me like I was something worth saving, instead of the weapon deep down sheknewI was.
Pathetically easy to manipulate. Such an ignorant witch.
All it had taken was a few carefully chosen moments of vulnerability. A confession here, a heated glance there. Let her see what she wanted to see, the man beneath the monster, the possibility of redemption, the hunter with a conscience.
