“Since the day I saved you from Michael and tasted your blood. That’s when the cordistella bond snapped into place.”
“But I never felt your emotions. And the tingles…” I trailed off, thinking back. Sometimes I had felt vibrations when I touched his skin, but I always thought that was a result of how powerful he was.
Based on the slight tightening of his jaw, I was wrong.
“I’ve been blocking everything from you.”
So he punished and berated me for not telling him the truth aboutAspen after I begged for his help, only to admit he’d hidden our bond from me for two months.
“The council told me I’d never have a cordistella. I didn’t know what to do, Lucille.”
That was his excuse for acting like I was the scum of the earth?
Heavenly Hell, I remembered sneaking my mother’s forbidden books to read all about the cordistella bond. I imagined what it’d be like to find someone who was created by the heavens to be half my soul. The wholeness, tingles, emotional exchange, and mind-to-mind connection thrilled me. More so, after the abuse my mother and I suffered under my stepfather Michael’s hands, the fact that my cordistella couldn’t hurt me stirred a profound longing in me.
“You’re a fucking hypocrite,” I breathed, swiping at my stupid tears.
“You hid the bond from her?” Aspen asked in disbelief. He almost sounded outraged for me. But that couldn’t be. That would be as confusing as the way my body both leaned into his heat and jolted away, rejecting his touch.
Shadows eclipsed Ronen’s eyes as he shot a glare at Aspen. “As if you have any ground to stand on with all you’ve done,” he bit out, death-gripping his sword. “And the secrets you still hide.”
Aspen tensed behind me, the hostility in the room balancing on the edge of a well-sharpened blade.
“Would you like me to tell her?—”
“Stop!” I cried, clutching my throbbing head. “I can’t take anything else. Not today.”
The confessions. The bonds. The posturing, heated males. It was all too much.
“Lucille,” they said simultaneously. Aspen touched my hand, and Ronen grazed my chin. Their tingling touches shocked me with the truth and sent a wave of vicious heat coursing through my body. I ripped away from them.
“This day isn’t about you two!” I screamed. “I don’t care that I’m your cordistella!” I spat at Ronen, watching him flinch. “Or your guardian and whatever manipulative secrets you continue to keep from me,” I shot at Aspen, feeling his guilt deepen.
At least I wished I didn’t. I wished they both meant nothing to me.It hurt. Every reveal was a slice. Every memory, a stab. Until I was a throbbing, bleeding mess clawing toward a breath of air, only for the memory of my mother’s energy infusing my body to suck it away.
“My mom is dead! She’s dead.” My hysterics bounced off the dungeon’s dull walls. “I killed her!”For you two, I almost added. “And today is her funeral,” I finished in a whisper, aching with my words. I couldn’t believe this was real, that the person who loved me the most was gone.
My knees buckled. They both reached for me. Before they could play tug-of-war, Alexei and MJ luscelered between them. Alexei caught me, cradling me to his chest, while MJ blocked Ronen and Aspen’s advances.
“I think you two have done enough,” MJ warned.
Alexei nodded. “I’m taking our beautiful girl to rest. MJ will be staying to make sure you two don’t rip each other’s throats out.”
That diffused the tension minutely. Aspen’s concerned acceptance hummed through me, warm and gentle. He wouldn’t hurt Ronen. But he wasn’t the one I was worried about—not when I could still feel the bitter hatred he held toward himself and a suffocating regret. He no longer had the Hell Rune to numb him from the consequences of what he’d done under its influence. All those females he had captured and helped Lilith drain and kill. All his lies. I could feel how it ate at him. And if given the chance, I had a sinking feeling he might egg Ronen on to put him out of his misery.
“Don’t kill him,” I whispered to Ronen as Alexei turned us.
“I won’t,” they both replied, one softly, the other grating with a definite undertone offor now.
Alexei walked us down the long line of cells. The damp, cool air slithered across my cheeks and snaked down the back of my neck. It would’ve chilled me. Or maybe it did. My fingers looked cold, all white and lifeless, like the air leeched away my warmth and my grief leeched away my ability to care.
At the last cell, near the stairs, a voice murmured, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
I raised my gaze to a female with long black hair and a pale complexion.The shadows of her cell hid the details of her face. For a heartbeat, Lilith’s face flickered to mind, and I froze.
“Anya, I’d spend more time staring at your walls than eavesdropping,” Alexei said dryly, angling me away from her view.
“Who says I need to eavesdrop, brute,” she snapped, her words losing their bite beneath her somber tone.
