The girl I tore through realms for, the one whose blood sings to mine like we were carved from the same brutal stone, she thinks she has a chance. Bless her black heart.
She’s doing nothing but waking the beast and leading him right to her.
Literally.
I can feel him, my Ethos, a gift from the gods given only to those with royal blood in their veins. He lives deep beneath mybones, buried in my chest—a prisoner locked away behind my ribs, only to be set free once a fated mating bond is completed.
He stirs, waking, clawing at my insides in a way I have never felt before. The pain so sharp my temples start to ache as my chest vibrates with a roar that isn’t mine. But is.
This must be what my brother felt after he met his mate, London, the girl who led my little Haide to me, as fate so clearly arranged.
Haide’s scent steamrolls behind her, whirling like a vortex, right into my nostrils—leather and lilac.
Wild and wicked.
Mine.
I growl, the sharp points of my teeth breaking free and puncturing my lower lip.
I don’t chase her because I’m angry, though I am.
I chase her because she’s mine. Because every breath she takes away from me tastes like a fucking betrayal, and everything in me says I have to.
Find her, take her,claimher.
That shit is on repeat in my head and I’m not sure if it’s me or my Ethos who screams it. It’s annoying.
Sheis fucking annoying. A bratty little outsider who has a lot to learn.
How dare she leave my kingdom, leaveRathe, the realm where magic was born, after only just storming her way into it like a demon out of hell.
Huffing, I shake my head.
Enough is enough.
My feet slam against rock, the cliffside brittle beneath years of lava rot and sea wind, but I don’t slow. She’s fast in a way that tells me she’s made for this, for the edge of the world and the edge of a blade.
But I’m getting bored.
Her silhouette flashes between jagged rock and storm-thick mist, all wild black hair and lean muscle, untamed and unpredictable as the worthless gifted trapped on this island with her.
The stories about those who roam these grounds are true: they are completely and totally ruthless. Liars. Killers.
And not the good kind we Stygian, those born of dark magic, take part in.
But the kind that led them to the fate they dealt themselves: in Exile Island.
It’s no wonder my Haide is such a fucking terror. She was born here.
Chaos is all she knows.
I watched her the day I met her.
The day my brothers and I, along with London, took the throne that was rightfully ours. She slit a man’s throat with his own teeth, then tilted her head back andsmiled.
The beast in me wanted her and he wanted her bad. He had never been so loud. So close to the surface.
Until now.
