Page 39 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

Orion’s brow lifted as the great brute sat beside Portia. I’d expect you to possess the intelligence necessary to comprehend the nuance of their fraught history, but you’re proving I overestimated you.

Unlike Gio, I couldn’t begrudge Orion for his role in that fiasco. He’d been forced to kneel beneath the weight of that iron bond.

Like my father.

Like Gio, I could hate him for how quickly his loyalties shifted after centuries in my family’s service.

They all stood, and my eyes slid shut in irritated resignation.

I knew what I would see when I opened them.

A feral fucking demon creature. A legend made flesh, twice as beautiful as I remembered from only moments ago. A diabolically brilliant, brutal usurper.

My mate.

The woman I couldn’t escape.

I turned as her face lit up—sincerely—the spark in her eyes igniting as she realized how many of our people had remained to watch over the witches and her aunt.

Not because they had to.

Because the queen before them raised a victorious fist, and the room erupted in celebration.

They loved her.

But not half as much as she loved them.

Orion stepped forward as Gio and Carr flanked her, offering each of them a cigar. They accepted happily.

All the while, I felt as though I hovered above them. Watching, but never again part of it.

An observer.

I watched Freya snap a spark of flame into her palm, and all four of them lit their cigars. Watched as they greeted her with hugs and glasses of scotch.

Watched as something delicate bloomed between the queen and her people for the first time in four very long months…

Hope.

As dangerous as hope was in a time like this, I couldn’t begrudge them that.

Even if I couldn’t fucking relate.

EIGHT

IDLE HANDS

MAGNOLIA

Crimson flowed down the drain in a sloshing swirl, my hands aching as I scraped beneath my nails. They never felt clean anymore. The stain was permanent. As though Death would taint everything I touched from where he sat in the corner of my mind.

Only after surgery ended did my hands begin to shake, courage and focus giving way to the terror that had rooted itself inside my heart the moment Aren’s stopped beating.

The feel of his blood on my hands, soaking my legs—mingling with Ansel’s—was permanently carved into my essence. A weighted burden I would never escape.

“Mags.”

The low concern in Tana’s voice was the only sign she’d repeated my name more than once. I snapped my eyes up to her, forced myself to swallow, then shook the water from my hands into the sink.