“This makes so much more sense,” he says, cutting his stare across my scars, hovering over one high up on my throat. His gaze turns pensive—I think. Hard to tell anymore. “Rhordyn’s always had a soft spot for the lesser beings of our world.”
My heart smashes against my spine as he runs the tip of his finger over a bite mark on my neck—so small it’s always served me an extra scoop ofdisturbed with my daily ration.
I don’t remember getting it, or any of the other small ones.
I don’twantto either.
He studies me like a three-course meal with a goblet of sparkly blood to wash it down. “I remember you,” he purrs, the words silk, binding me up into a sticky cocoon that makes it hard to breathe.
This sinking feeling spears me through the guts.
He cocks his head to the side. “Father used to let me feed on you when you were doped. He said your blood was hisfavorite.”
Bile rushes up and chokes me. Forces me to swallow.
Nobody bleeds for me like you do.
Old wounds bite deeper, a low growl bubbling in the back of my throat …
My pretty boy. My favorite.
I drop my chin, looking at Cainon from beneath my brows.
He frowns, and another thread of blood weaves between his eyes, down his nose where it drips onto my bent knee. “I believe he secretly thought it might awaken some sentient part of me, though he never voiced it.”
His words are a buzz in my ears, barely breaking through the deep drone of centuries of pent-upragedesperate for release.
I crunch my hands into balls. Picture them tightening around his neck.
“I thought the Gods gave me Orlaith … That she would be everything Mother was for Father.” He shrugs. “Now I realize they’ve just given me a chance to prove how worthy I am of their special treatment. Jakar tried to strike her today andmissed.” He waves a hand at his fucked-up face. “I won’t.”
My fangs slide down so fast I barely feel the sting.
“Rhordyn will fuck you up,” I say, deadly calm. “He will push a talon through your chest real slow, right there.” I point to the scar sitting just above his heart—just.“But a little farther down.”
“Impossible. Orlaith made sure of that. Like a fuckingpuppet,she put the beast down for good.”He chuffs out a mangled sound that curdles my blood. “Didn’t you know?”
Orlaith told him she killed Rhordyn …
“I played her, Baze. And she danced for me. Oh, how she danced for me. You should have seen the way she arched that pretty neck—a fuckingwhorefor my bite.”
Even my bones vibrate with rage, and I rip my stare away, looking through the bars to the boy huddled in the corner of the opposite cell, my heart slamming to a stop when I realize he’swatching. Peeking over the top of his cloak, his eyes visible between tangles of floppy hair.
Taking it all in.
Fuck.
I wish he’d plug his ears. Close his eyes.
I wish he’d have made it to that fucking ship.
“Shadow’s Hand, right beneath my nose,” Cainon muses, shaking his head, laughing.
My heart stops.
Did he see her true self?
Her fuckingmark?
