“What are you?” I say. When he does nothing but raise a brow at me, I press the blade deeper, and he hisses. “Are you a Siphon? Were you always?”
“No, Meryn,” he says, with a smirk. “Not always.”
I used to love hearing my name from his lips. Now all I can see are the fangs.
“When it was clear that you were onto my father,” he continues, “Alistair demanded to be transferred. He’s passed this way for the last five hundred years. Each new king in our line serves as his vessel.”
My shock makes my grip momentarily slip on the sword and I scramble to push it back against his throat. “How is that even possible?” I demand. I’ve never heard of anything like this before, ever.
“Transference magic,” he says, “a particularly complicated type of Siphon blood magic. Only someone with the great power of Alistair Brightbane could pull this off.”
The usurper king—never gone, after all. He’s been here this whole time, hiding in plain sight. My mind is spinning and I blink, trying to bring myself back into the plush room.
I need to keep asking questions. I need more answers.
“So your father was a Siphon?” I say.
Killian’s smile grows. “Yes, and he turned me into one, the day of the graduation ceremony. Thanks for killing that commoner Phylax, by the way. I was very thirsty after I’d transformed.”
Henrey. Ugh. So that’s what happened to his body—Killian drained him. That’s why the servants took him beneath the arena.
Killian’s eyes flash with that eerie blue color—the same color of his father’s—and I realize now it must be related to the transference magic.
A monster, hundreds of years old, is inhabiting Killian’s body with him. And the entire time we were together—his entire life—he knew this would be his fate.
“And the kids? My sister?” I ask. “Was your father drainingthem?”
“Yes, love.” His tongue touches his fang. His voice continues to echo and crawl, violating, into my ears. “Transference magic is tough to hold, particularly during Bonding Trials when we also need to control so many wolves. Only the strong blood of children could give us the power we need.”
It’s enough. That’senough.
“It stops here,” I breathe, lifting the blade to put force behind the blow. I can already picture it. Just like his father died, his head will roll from his shoulders. Blood will spill over the sheets.
What we once had between us could never stop me.
But the moment my blade is in the air, strength saps from my muscles. Killian laughs again, the sound vibrating through the room.
The shadows all around us start to twist and writhe like serpents. They warp away from the legs of the furniture, from the corners of the room. They move like they’re alive and hungry.
Then, somehow, the shadowsgrabme, wrapping around my wrists and ankles. I’m yanked off of Killian with jarring force, thrown to the ground and pinned there.
He stands from the bed and brushes his suit off, then walks slowly toward me as I lay trapped.
“Surely you must know I wouldn’t let you kill me. After all, I’m your future husband.”
I kick my legs toward him, trying to keep him away from me. “Likefuckyou are! What are you doing to me?!”
Fear courses through me for the first time since we’ve been alone together, and I reach out desperately to Anassa. “Now. You and Stark need to comeNOW!”
Killian kneels down on the floor next to me and strokes my cheek. “Kitten, I’m serious. I love you. You’re not in your right mind right now—” Oh, not this shit again. “—but once you have some time to think about this, I’m sure you’ll see how good we are together. I can rule the entire world with you at my side.”
NOW, I shout over the bond.
The door slams open with a thundering crack.
Stark bursts in with both of our wolves, whipping his body with precision. He unleashes a blast of Daemos power. It picks Killian up and slams him against the wall. The shadows dissipate and my body is freed.
I scramble to my feet as quickly as I can muster.
