“A stranger to you.” Isolde’s smile stretched. “But maybe not quite to herself.” Her brow lifted, as she crouched between us, skirts pooling in a black tide. “Does he know?” she asked me quietly. “Does he know the blood running in your veins? Does he know why the curse chose you? Why destiny bent around your existence the moment you drew breath?”
My mouth wouldn’t work, lungs forgetting to move.
Ronan snapped his chains rigid, smoke leaking from his spine. “Enough with the games, Isolde. Verena owes menothing. Don’t pretend you hold fate by the throat just to further your delusions.”
“Delusions?” Isolde echoed lightly, tasting the word as though it amused her. She rose from her crouch, pacing a lazy half circle around him. “No, darling. I think the delusion here is your own.”
His jaw locked, the only sign he was fighting the urge to tear free and rip her throat out.
Isolde tapped a thoughtful finger against her lip. “Let me guess…all this anger,” she gestured at him with a sweep of her hand, “all this snapping and snarling. It must come from somewhere.”
She pretended to think, actuallypausedfor effect, then her eyes lit with a wicked kind of glee. “Ah. You feel it, don’t you? The cadence of something else beneath your skin. All that unclaimed power gifted from a woman you’ve never even met. A legacy you can feel…but never touch.”
Ronan went very still.
Her stare caught on the puncture marks against his neck, the ones I had given him. “The same element that spared you from her venom.”
Oh gods.
Obrann sneered. “Your mother—” A muscle ticked in Ronan’s temple. “She was quite beautiful, actually. A rare, winged breed.” Each of his steps clicked against the stone. “A Valkara. Well, before she likely died screaming.”
A tremor ripped down the bond before he could mask it.
Obrann smiled wider. “They say the Primal Goddess herself changed her, altered her blood, made her near immortal, so she might stand against Deimos if he ever rose again. A soldier turned shield. A mother reborn in god-blood.”A brittle, mocking sound slipped from him as he strode closer. “But even divinity wasn’t enough to save her from fate, was it? Even betrayal.”
Ronan’s knuckles whitened where the chains held him.
I could see her in his eyes now. The Valkara from Nezra’s memory. The same dark hair, the same eyes—green fire flamed in gold. But Vivianna gave the woman something else, a gift she didn’t mean for her to pass down to her son…
Isolde’s voice slithered back, colder now. “Do you want to know what she died for, prince? After all, our bargain might still be fulfilled.”
Ronan didn’t answer. But she told him anyway.
“Your blood,” she drifted around him in a slow ring. “It’s been harvested forcenturies. Taken. Sold. Bottled and bartered by Rhydan himself to the highest bidder.” Her smile sharpened. “Even Luamis paid dearly for a taste. You are a God’s currency, Ronan the Wraith. Divine blood diluted through dragon flesh.”
He exhaled through his nose. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” she crooned, running a finger along his back, his chest. Where hundreds of scars lay when his father would bleed him dry.
The scent of Ronan’s blood hit me—spice, flame, all that impossible warmth leaking through the iron. My breath stalled as he tried to flex his palm, catching the blood leaking from the cut she gave him on his wrist. That smell—memory came without permission, bringing me back to that same scent but in Gemma’s kitchen.
Gemma.
The name cracked like a curse. She had bought Ronan’s blood. Not to poison, but to heal. That’s what she’d been using to keep Wells alive.
Fates fucking curse me.
Ronan’s mother’s blood had been altered to resist death by anyone but herself. That was why the venom hadn’t killed Wells that day. Ronan’s blood…had been curing him.
And when I had bitten Ronan…it hadn’t been mercy or chance that he had survived with nothing but scars—
Before the thought could finish forming, Isolde was in front of me, sliding in swift as a blade unsheathed, her nails catching the light. One talon pressed beneath my chin, the point kissing the curve of my neck, where my pulse fluttered like a trapped bird.
“Tell her,” she said to Ronan, pulling curls behind my shoulders, exposing my neck. “Or I’ll do it myself while I open her throat. So, the last thing she feels is your betrayal.”
I swallowed. “What?”
“Verena…” My name wasn’t a warning this time. It was a confession already bleeding.
