His hand hovered before finally resting against the curve of her ankles. Hesitant, but not unwilling, his thumb began tracing slow circles over the supple leather of her pants.
New pants. No blood.
Her weight was nothing across his lap, and yet it anchored him more firmly than the throne he had been bred for. He told himself not to grip tighter, not to reveal how badly he needed that simple contact. But his thumb moved anyway, circling again, slower this time, feeling her warmth through the leather.
Steady, alive,real.
He had spent centuries learning to keep himself distant from this, to bury softness beneath steel and smoke. And still, one woman, one curse-damned woman, undid it all by laying across him as though it meant nothing. As though it were natural.
As though it had always been so.
For a moment, calm held them.
Thiswas what Ronan had almost let slip into nothingness. His pulse hit a wall behind his lungs. He had almost let this die. Almost letherdie.
The thought soured in him.
She was supposed to be Selvarra’s undoing. But in a twist of rarity, Verena had gone from nothing, to something, toeverything.
“So...” Her words might have startled him if he hadn’t already felt the sorrow twisting through the bond. “You heard about Maerin?” Tears welled in her eyes and she choked them down, refusing to let them fall down the blush of her cheeks.
The last glimpse anyone had of Mae was her silhouette darting into the trees, the Bright soldiers flooding the clearing behind her. The pixies had searched until dawn blistered the sky.
There had been no trace. No trail. Just a single crushed starbloom where she’d been hiding. The roots had been disturbed. The moss had been torn. And the air stank faintly of Bright iron.
But there wasn’t a body or even a drop of blood. Sometimes that was worse.
Ronan couldn’t shake the way Maerin had looked at him before Reve and his men hunted her down. Her ivory eyes had swirled with knowing, her voice meant for him alone.
Her heart will die long before her body does,Maerin had whispered.But yours will keep beating for the both of you. That is how she survives.
The way she spoke it had felt unfinished. Like the words had cut off mid-breath. Like the rest of the prophecy had gotten left on her tongue.
He should have been furious, another chain, another twisting path. Instead, his heart had sunk, only dread living there in its place.
Because some part of him, some idiotic, treacherous part, wondered if the Veyari was only naming what he’d already begun to understand.
His hand tightened where it still rested in comfort. “I’m sorry.”
Verena gave a sad little laugh. “That’s twice you’ve said sorry in the last few minutes. You didn’t get knocked on the head during all that fighting, did you?”
He almost smiled, but he knew better. Knew her humor was armor, a fragile disguise to keep her from losing herself.
She shifted, sitting up, every muscle of his going tense when she reached for him. Pale scars ghosted against the tan of his knuckles as her hands wrapped around his.
Her scent, vanilla laced with amber, hit him like a memory he’d somehow missed.
Lifting his hand between both of hers, she guided it toward her lips, the soft press against his skin a whisper, her words barely more. “Thank you.”
Steady, his free hand rose, cradling the back of her neck, drawing her closer until their foreheads touched.
“You don’t have to thank me,” he said, inhaling the shaky breath she released. “You are worth more than the fate you think you deserve, Verena.” His voice came low, but the conviction in it was unshakable.
She didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away from the grip he held on her. The one that felt too terrifying to release. Neither of them moved to lift their gaze, their foreheads still pressed together as he felt her heartbeat pushing into his chest. As though it had always belonged there.
Her chin tilted, lips brushing against the fire of his, as she waited for gravity to do the rest.
His exhale shivered over her tongue, and he knew when she swallowed, she could taste him. His restraint, his desire. The way it was all held back by the one inch that would drag him under entirely.
