Stone vanished under my step, and I was weightless. And then—
I was falling.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Verena
ARUSH OF WIND TORE AT MY FACE as my body fell. And fell.
And fell.
Ronan—His name scraped up my throat, though no sound came with it. A plea I hadn’t meant to make.
Why him? Why expect rescue from the very man I swore to loathe?
My arms thrashed at empty air. And I kept falling. He wasn’t coming.
So, I reached for the only savior I had left.
Viper. The word slithered from my lips, not a scream this time either but a low summons, steadier, desperate in another way.I need you.
It rose, power drawing wild around the puncture in my heart, sealing what it could, cold tendrils licking into my blood.
How many more times could I summon it before it stole me whole? Each call was another chain tightened, another piece of myself offered. And still, what could it do against gravity, against the certainty of stone waiting below?
Darkness swept over me. A vast shadow swallowing the world, blocking out the pale sun. I forced my eyes open, one last look before the end—
I laughed through the blur of windblown tears. Because it wasn’t the trees, or fate coming to claim me.
But wings.
Spanning the horizon until it broke.
The force of them rippled the air, sending dust, smoke, even awe tumbling.
And there, diving from the mountain, his ancient flame redefining the sky, was Ronan D’Vyre—Selvarra’s Harrowed Prince coming to save me.
If I thought he was dangerous in his Fae skin, his dragon form was the inhale before oblivion. Lethal in every line, every glint of obsidian scale, all built for war, for fear.
And gods, he was beautiful.
Electricity moved between us, a tether I could neither see nor sever, crackling through my chest as my arms reached toward him. His wings tucked tight as he dove, the air bending for him, the mountain trembling at his descent.
In the blink of a breath, his form filled the sky above me, one claw flexing, impossibly careful as it reached—
And caught me.
The fall ended in a violent jolt, pain spearing through my core. The distance between land and sky grew again as he lifted me higher toward the clouds.
Ronan had come. He had shiftedhere, in Ryuu. The realm now claiming its heir. A truth he had fought to outrun. A crown he had sworn to refuse.
And he broke it.
For me.
Roughness scraped against my hand, something solid pressing into my back. Stone. I was on the ground.
The sky above wasn’t dusky anymore, but bright, brighter than it had any right to be. It beckoned, as if I belonged more to it than to the vessel below.
