Instead of bristling, his expression shifted. Sadness replacing what should have been scorn. His broad shoulders folded in,actually folded, as he let out an exhausted sigh. “I didn’t pick it.”
I’d always wondered if his title came from his own cruel choice, or if it’d been born under rumor and blood, the way terror often grew.
I shrugged, forcing lightness into my tone as I slid my hand through the coil of haze. “It does seem rather gloomy for such an arrogant beast who swears he isn’t grumpy.”
My wink went unseen. His stare was fixated on the way his power intertwined with the fire, smothering the flames until they burst back up in an onyx funnel.
“It was shouted at me,” he confessed. “By a mother after I executed her son.”
The way he said it, like it wasn’t only the crown that bent his shoulders, but the ghosts of every sin, every echo of choice that scarred.
“My father was not an evil king, but he knew order required fear. Authority.” He tried to hide the way his hands tightened into fists. “And I was his blade. His enforcer. He thought the name sharpened the terror, but I’ve always despised it. It’s nothing but a bad omen that I’ve been forced to carry.”
A fate he had not chosen but was demanded to carry out.
That mask slipped then, unintentional or not, and for the first time, I saw him, who he was buried beneath the shackled scales.
And gods, it mirrored too closely to the thing that lived below my own skin.
It was the same ache. The same exile. The curse of being seen only for the terror you inspired. Not the soul that had been silenced beneath it.
And in that moment, I realized, if I could see him,trulysee him, then he could see me. And that was the most dangerous thing of all.
I let my fingers move across his hand, the heat of his skin mingling with the cold I knew he felt back. He didn’t pull away. Just let me linger and trace.
The hush of sunrise touched him gently, hesitating before settling into his skin. It softened his heir mark, lingering over the ink he had chosen himself. As though the light alone dared to see both truths, his inheritance, and his defiance, without judgment.
His fingers twitched, retreating from mine, rising to rub the hair from his forehead.
“I kind of like it,” I said, desperate to secure myself in anything but the urge to memorize the patterns of light and shadows scribed into his skin.
His laugh rumbled out, rough and addictive as flame. “And you?” His gaze went to me. “Any childhood trauma nicknames you’d care to share?”
Just one. Words etched into my bones long before I understood them. And I couldn’t even remember who gave them to me.
Little bird, little bird...
I shook my head. “No.”
But the stutter of my heart, the stone in my throat, it all betrayed me. His eyes caught it, held it, even as I dropped my stare.
Even with the terror, Ronan was still someone. He still had his place in our world, was still needed. Even ifhecouldn’t see it.
But me? Who was I without my curse, without the venom?
What came from my mouth next was an admission so dangerous I wasn’t even sure what inside me let it free. It could have been the urge to see if he’d react to the wound.
Or because some traitorous part of me knew he would understand.
“You know,” I cleared my throat, tracing the faded burn on my wrist. “When I was first marked, I used to dream of the day I would be free of it.” My lips parted, closed, then I let the confession free. “And then I attacked Wells...” My tongue went dry, breath catching on his name. “I thought it was the worst moment of my life. I begged the Viper to just end me, to rip me apart, crawl into someone else. As if it was that easy.” A bitter laugh cracked up my throat. “I just couldn’t live with what I had done. Ever since that day I’ve woken up praying it would be my last. That death would finally remember me. But the truth is,” I forced my eyes up, not expecting to see his already locked in, “death had been by my side long before I hurt Wells. I think it's only been waiting for me to greet it.”
The words poured from me, secrets I’d buried so deep even I had forgotten where I’d hidden them. Secrets meant to rot along with me.
Ronan’s gaze held mine, and something in me knew he would not turn away. That he would see me. So, I let it all free...
“I didn’t know it was temporary at the time, but in the dungeon, the shackles...” The memory dragged a shudder through me and the creature in me hissed at its return. “They didn’t just dull the curse. It vanished. I couldn’t feel the Viper at all. I wasfinallyfree from it. And it was the most terrified I had ever been. Worse than that day with Wells.” The admission scalded, leaving nothing behind but raw and blistering shame. “I had grown so used to its company, I forgot how to live, how tofeel,without it. I forgot who I was before it.”
I dragged my knees to my chest, folding myself small enough to take the words back. To bury them again where no one could ever reach.
