Verena stepped closer, brushing soot from her fingertips, never looking away. “And if the gods offered you a way out?”
For a moment, the burden of the world seemed to fall away, leaving just the two of them in the wreckage. He could taste her breath, sweet, threaded with the trace of vanilla still warm from the firelight.
“I’ve tried every way the gods allow,” he said. Then quieter, “Except one.” He flexed his marked hand, watching the skin strain. “But don’t repeat it. Not to anyone. It’s not a secret—" He hesitated, something bitter and tired in his voice. “But it would still feel like betrayal.”
She didn’t know that betrayal was already written between them. That one day, that hand would rise against her.
For once, she didn’t have a reply. Only the whistle of the dying wind, and the quiet, unfortunate truth that maybe, for the first time, Ronan wasn’t running at all.
He was standing exactly where fate promised he would.
By a stroke of luck, the path Ronan took carrying Verena had spat them out the mountain’s far side, toward their destination.
After Ronan had ascended the mountain again to lead out the others, they had all agreed the Nyctom heir couldn’t be hiding there.
No one was surprised, though Callum seemed visibly irritated.
Another week of relentless travel after Druin Mountain had already pushed some past their limits. No sleep. Little food. No safe place to rest.
Torrential rain hammered down, the river they followed rising too high, threatening to drag them deeper in the domain of stone and further from their path.
They had all decided, after seeing what was left of that village, moving onward in such blind sheets was reckless.
Ronan sat within his tent, the steady drumming above weakening his heavy lids. Another month, give or take, of this journey and already, the spirited fire of the group had dulled.
He felt a sudden tug against his mind, a summons made of oil and polished bone. He ignored it, letting himself surrender to sleep. His eyes finally settled, his breathing steady.
Thenshecame.
A vision of fawn-colored hair spilling in soft curls and eyes a strike of lethal azure. Her lips, so damn tempting, curved into a smirk as she crawled over him, straddling his legs, pressing down just enough for him to feel the heat through the barrier of his pants.
He sank into familiar sheets, dark and butter-soft, as black-tipped nails traced the line of his stubbled jaw. He gritted his teeth, fists knotting in the fabric, knuckles white as her hips began their slow, merciless roll.
Every part of him responded. No matter how he fought it, no part could deny the effect she had.
“Do it.” Her lips grazed his ear, teeth nipping. Her hand slid from his jaw, tightening around his throat. “Kill me.”
His breath fractured, each inhale shallower than the last. “Verena—” he rasped her name, fought for it. But her dreadful laugh smothered the word.
He tried to move, arms straining, but serpents of shadow coiled down, binding his wrists.
“You can’t, can you?” Her smile was venom sweet as her grip on his throat closed tighter. The air was gone, his vision blurring. She moaned at the cruel pleasure, chuckling as both sounds drowned the pounding panic of his slowing heart.
Still, he forced her name through the fray. “Verena —”
His chest locked as she leaned closed enough until his exhale trembled across her mouth. His hands begged to reach for her, begged to touch her.
“Whether in devotion or in death,” she eased her grip, only enough for her tongue to drag slowly down the thrum of his pulse, “your grave is already marked.” Her voice lowered, a hymn spun of her own variation. “For me. Because of me. By me.” Each word struck like a nail in his coffin. “It makes no difference, prince. The end is the same.”
The words seared through him until he couldn’t breathe, until the swirls of blue in her eyes churned to endless black, her pupils slicing to slits before she lunged—
“Verena!”
Ronan jolted awake.
Sweat drenched his body, slick under his leathers. He clawed at his own chest, at the emptiness beside him, searching for the woman who wasn’t there. Breath by breath the vision unraveled and his face fell into his hands.
Just a damned dream.
