I tried to ignore the reassurance he was forcing down the bond, that it wasgoodthings mattered. It was good I was scared to lose them. It meant, as Gemma once said to me, I was still here. Me. Though, I wasn’t so sure.
He finally said, “You decide your fate in the end. If you want to live, live. Fight for it. And if, by some cruel twist, you’re destined for something beyond this, then I will follow you. But don’t you dare surrender who you are. Don’t you dare give up.”
A thin streak of shadow trailed across my collarbone before I exhaled it away. “It isn’t surrender, Ronan. It’s recognizing the reality that nothing I’ve done has saved us. Every version of me ends in disaster and I’ve only dragged everyone deeper into the ruin with me.”
“Not for me.”
“You don’t know that,” I whispered.
“I do.” He forced a laugh. “I’m annoyingly difficult to kill, remember?” I attempted a smile, but it withered before it even reached my lips. His hand slid down my arm, across the veins pulsing with secrets. “It was intoxicating, you know, the taste of freedom. But it wasn’t freedom that called to me.” He angled my chin, so our eyes met. “It was you.”
He sounded so damn sure.
“So don’t rewrite the story. You didn’t drag us anywhere. They’re not following you out of obligation. Every single one of us is here because we chose you. Not the prophecy, not the curse.You. And believing in you is the only thing that’s ever felt instinctive to me.”
I pressed my lips to his, soft enough he couldn’t taste the salt streaking down my cheeks. I could tell him everything now. How loud the Viper’s voice had become over my own. How it wrapped possessively around my ribs. How the lines between us had blurred until I no longer knew where she ended and I began.
He spoke of eternity, but all I felt was time slipping through my fingers. I pulled his arm tighter around me, burying myself in the scent of him.
Tomorrow, I will tell him, when we returned to the others. Tomorrow, I would face fate.
But tonight…tonight I would live.
Tonight, I would let love eclipse the curse for the final time.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Verena
MORNING CAME TOO SOON.
The hours slipped by like grains through an hourglass, each one louder than the last. The beat never stopped; it lodged behind my skull, counting down to something inevitable.
Tick. Tick.Tick.
I knew Ronan hadn’t slept either. If his countless movements all night didn’t give him away, then the sunken look in his eyes did. We had said nothing when dawn came thin through the clouds. He was up before the first full light touched the floorboards.
I found him where the air met the edge of the world, leaning against the balcony rail, staring past where the horizon wept into gray.
At the armoire, my reflection trembled, the mirror glass warping, caught between two realms. One where I stood breathing, and one where I was already lost. Behind me, blurred and waiting, was Ronan.
My hands shook as I tried to braid my hair, strands slipping through my fingers. I cursed beneath my breath, gripping the roots until my scalp stung. Warmth moved through the bond as smoke wound up my legs, curling over my hips and waist, grazing my cheek. Then higher, until it found my hair, the tendrils twining each strand, pulling them into a single braid that spilled down my spine.
I turned to where he sat on the side of the bed, the sun brushing the black of his armor. The war-born prince had been restored, cold steel over golden warmth, the tenderness of the night sealed beneath leather and shackles.
His eyes lifted to meet mine, a hint of something unspoken there. Regret, maybe. Or the ghost of what he wouldn’t allow himself to say. And for a breath, a single, fragile heartbeat, I thought he looked at me as if he already knew.
My fingers skimmed my leathers. Not the tattered ones I had arrived in; Ronan had burned those. These were a new skin, molded to every curve, supple and dark as volcanic glass, but when the light brushed across it, threads of ruby wavered, a pulse of blood beneath black stone. At my sternum was his personal indulgence: a tiny dragon clasp, obsidian wings spread, emerald eyes gleaming. His sigil. His claim.
I crossed to him, a creature sharpening itself. With only one piece missing. He slipped from the bed before I reached him, kneeling, reaching for my boots. The bed made no sound as I sat, no give as he slid them on and over the arches of my feet with the care of a ritual.
Smoke slipped from his fingers, tucking in the laces, kissing up my calves as his lips followed. My hands found his arms, dragging him higher, his weight folding over me as our mouths met, soft, then greedy, then desperate.
A taste of what we might never have again.
When he broke away, he stayed close, forehead nearly touching mine, eyes steady and unreadable. “I’ll meet you back here when the smoke clears.”
All I could give him was a smile.
