OFFERING TO TAKE ELYSIAN AND TRACK WILLA down was exactly the excuse Ronan needed.
A noble quest. A prince doing what kings ought to do. Retrieve the stolen, protect the young, shield the weak.
It sounded honorable enough to avoid questions, to keep Callum and the others digging through their research while he slipped away unnoticed.
But the verity was sharper than that polished lie.
And he needed the distraction.
Not from Verena, never from her, but from the suspicion following him around like a misplaced shadow. The more he felt Verena through that tether, the harder it became to pretend he had a single ounce of control left.
Every pulse of her power, every flicker of her distrust, every fragment of desire—the bond sent each one straight into him like a branding she couldn’t control.
He had to think, had to breathe. He needed to interrogate the only person who might have answers.
Isolde.
That poison-tongued witch always knew more than she said. If Obrann had taken Willa to weaponize his visions, then Isolde either helped orchestrate it or she’d flay Obrann alive for the challenge.
Either way, she was leverage. The kind dragons like him rarely had.
The witches’ cave was still, save for the slow drip of water resounding through the hollow dark. Shadows pulsed against the stone, wavering in time with the torches guttering along the walls.
Ronan arrived like a soundless rupture.
Before Isolde could speak, his hand was clamped around her throat, slamming her against the wall, her spine cracking against the rock with a sound sharp enough to break bone.
She only gasped, low and sultry. Like she enjoyed it.
Ronan snarled, “Why thefuckam I hearing that you’re in alliance with Obrann?”
Her smirk uncoiled like a snake, amused at the pressure on her throat. “Careful,” she chuckled. “We both want the same outcome for Selvarra.”
“Enlighten me,” Ronan suggested, his grip unyielding.
Iron nails dragged across the scars on his wrist, carving thin red lines that shimmered in the torchlight. “To see it thrive, of course. Under its true rulers.”
Ronan’s jaw flexed, power pulsing off him as it waited for release. “You’re still convinced Selvarra was meant to be yours.”
Her eyes burned, fangs flashing in the dark. “Your father and his vermin were never meant to inherit this continent.Iwas promised its glory. It was always mine.”
Ronan leaned in, tightening his hold until her breath finally stuttered. “Until you betrayed the very beings you swore to protect.”
He released her, dropping her like dust to stone. She cradled her throat, coughing as she swept strands of hair from her face.
“They would have brought Selvarra to a different collapse,” she hissed, finally looking up at him. “I protected it when no one else dared.”
“By eradicating an entire civilization.” He stepped back, smoke curling up and around him now as shadows folded like wings.
Isolde rose slowly, her gown dragging across the stone as she circled him. “Do you mourn them, dragon prince?” Her fingers skimmed along his arm, his chest, lingering where his scars burned like old brands. “Let’s not forget what that civilization did to you before their demise.”
Movement stirred from the corner of the cave. Something crept, too many legs or none at all, Ronan couldn’t tell, couldn’t see. It was only a ripple of darkness crawling across the wall, swelling, shrinking.
“No,” he answered.
“All we are doing,” she breathed, circling closer, “is ensuring the strongest survive. The witches. The dragons. Obrann is merely a tool to see it through. A loose end. If we letherlive, we will watch all we’ve built perish—"
Ronan’s jaw clenched. “Say her name.”
