The water soothed his body, but it didn’t cleanse. It boiled his guilt, salted the wound raw until shame rose in his throat. She deserved to know what he had once promised, what he had almost done.
Even if she killed him for it.
There was still a chance she might never know. Not until Isolde came for her herself. Or until the witch found another collared bastard to carry out the deed Ronan had once agreed to.
No. He had to tell her. Because what was meant to heal her, might be the very thing that breaks her.
He reached for her, arms sliding around her waist, guiding her into his lap until her thighs bracketed his hips. Water lapped outward as her weight settled against him.
“You were never given a choice in who you could be,” he said. “Only told what you had to be. And that is cruelty itself.” Her elbows hooked over his shoulders, fingers threading through his curls, tugging. His palm cupped her cheek, wet with seawater and tears she thought he hadn’t noticed. “But what if there was another path, something stronger than the curse? Its counter. Its balance. One that must awaken before you decide your life is forfeit. To choose who you want to be,” he whispered, thumb stroking along her cheekbone. “To stand before the nightmare and not bow.” Her cheek leaned into his hand, her breath trembling against his skin. “We are all dark. We are all light. In one way or another. But what if life looked upon you,” his voice dropped to worship, “and saw something greater?”
“No one believes that.” Her voice had already cracked, yet her hips betrayed her, slowly grinding against the rigid steel straining between her thighs. A movement that was both defiance and confession.
Ronan’s hand caught her jaw, tilting her face up until her eyes were snared in his. “I believe it,” he rasped. “Ido.” Smoke licked from his throat, curling low around them. “Because your life? Your life has fuckingsavedme.Yousaved me. And yet you think so little of yourself that you keep offering your body to death. As though you’re disposable. As though you’renothing.” His forehead brushed hers, her pulse a wild wind crashing against his ribs. “How can you not see it?” His lips ghosted her mouth, not a kiss but a burn. “That you are everything. You are wortheverything. To me. To Elva. To Callum. Stop imagining the world would be better without you. Stop believing you were made to fade.” The tether between them shuddered, smoke and serpent twining tight. “You are enough, Verena. Not just the good. Not just the light. Every single part of you, the venom, the shadows, it is all enough.”
The silence after was charged, like the moment after a star explodes, the universe waiting to see what it will become.
A flush rose across her cheeks. Anger, shame, something sharper still. He’d struck a nerve, and it burned through her eyes.
She shoved at his chest, water crashing in protest as she tore herself back, retreating from the wicked throb pressing between them. “I liked you better when you hated me.”
He only laughed as his hand caught her waist, dragging her body flat against his again. Her whimper was swallowed as his hips rolled forward, fitting his length back against the heat of her center.
“No, you didn’t.” The tip of him slid against her, right where she pulsed for him, and her moan betrayed every wall she tried to raise. His mouth brushed the shell of her ear. “Build your walls as tall as you’d like.” Her nails dug into his shoulders as his voice broke into a notion almost feral. “But when you’re done, let me smother them to ash.”
Their lips crashed together, his fingers tangling in her hair, tugging her head back just enough to demand her mouth, to dance deep until she moaned, “Ronan.”
Gods, the sound of his name on her lips was enough to wreck him. His hands slid lower, gripping the curves of her ass, squeezing as though he could brand her to him forever. He lifted her, water spilling off their bodies.
“Not here.” He broke away only long enough to see the swollen state of her lips, begging for more. “I’ll worship every inch of you, my soulflame. But when I take you for the first time, I want the world to hear it. I want them to know who you break for. Who you fall apart for.”
Her breath hitched as he carried her through the water, placing her down against the edge of the pool where her body slid down the length of his, slick from the sea, satin from what he made her feel. Her fingers traced the corded muscle of his arms, but her eyes, they never left his.
And his? They were fused to hers, like even blinking might risk losing her to the tide.
His hands lingered at her hips, sliding lower, fingers possessive as they folded around the softness of her ass once more. He squeezed then, one sharp smack, a crack that leveled through the chamber like a spark catching flame.
Air stuttered from her lungs as her next inhale faltered, eyes deepening in raw, unashamed desire, matching the need smoldering in his own.
She reached up, fingers finding the pin that had held her curls in their coil, and with a single tug, her hair spilled free. “Well, prince—” Her grin was wicked, hips swaying as she moved toward the spiraled stairs, every step a lure. She didn’t need to look back, but she did, eyes still locked to him as she lifted her hand, beckoning. “Come unravel me.”
His chest vibrated with a caged sound, dragged straight from his craving of her as he closed the space between them, crushing their lips together. A rip broke open behind her, reality tearing at his command.
And they were gone, sifted into darkness and fire, where the world could burn for all he cared.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Verena
IHADN’T GOTTEN SICK THIS TIME, THANK THE FATES, but I still needed a moment to steady myself.
Not just from the strain begging to snap that Ronan had left, but from the toll of sifting itself.
Ithadn’tgotten easier.
The sun had risen higher, light straining to cut through the shielded windows. His room stayed stubbornly dark, like him. Not a single ounce of color except for the rug stretched across the marble. Green threaded through its intricate pattern, not bright like his eyes, but deep.
It drew my eyes forward, pulling me all the way to the wide, spherical window. But beyond it wasn’t sea, no salt spray, no crashing waves. The world outside moved in a slow drift where haze washed across the glass like a living veil. Not an entrance to water like the rest of the Sahfyre palace, but one into the clouds.
