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Brand rose and carried a ring of the land with him, enclosing the three of them.

There would be no witnesses for what happened next. He refused to endanger Luna in such a way.

He used the pebbles and dirt to gently shift her body as far off as possible within the new confines. The thready beat beside his own hammering heart was just enough to keep him sane and steady. To keep him from reaching down and tearing the treacherous head from Okthana’s shoulders.

Damn the bloody fucking politics that prevented it.

Okthana blinked up at him in a daze, so changed it stole the breath from his lungs. There was almost no way she could be more different from the creature of before. This version of her was soft and familiar—a perfect picture of his beloved people.

The ivory horns astonished him most.

A tink sound echoed from the sky, and Brand looked up just in time to see it fracture like a crystal glass, the iridescent line spiderwebbing out before freezing there.

Brand shoved the implications aside and called on his power. One clawed hand scooped upwards, sharp fingers of marbled stone rising from Thodelebor’s depths to cage Okthana in his eternal hold. The other reached for his lifeless mate, a plea in his palm, and he plucked Illamiata from her bleeding chest.

The gem hovered before him, so trusting as it slowly spun, and he returned the favor.

You know what to do, I think.

Illamiata swelled like diamond fruit until it was the size of his fist, and five barbs fell from its immaculate cut to rest open at the base. Beautiful and wicked at once. A tear drop flower with razored teeth. It turned faster and faster, whirring, and he felt the moment it remembered its purpose like a grin.

It shot like a comet for the peak of the prison. At his urging, the rock points closed like fingertips around it, particles shifting until Brand felt the silent click of the lock, and a shield of iridescent light spilled from the connection to fill the empty spaces between.

When Okthana scrambled up in a panic, beating against the shimmering walls, her sawing breaths were music to his ears. “Please, Brandir,” she begged on a sob, the grating husk gone from her voice entirely. “Don’t do this to me, my dar⁠—”

“I am not your fucking anything!” he roared, drowning out the rest of that contemptible word.

She jolted back like he’d struck her, a new wash of tears tumbling down her sun-kissed cheeks.

“Speak again, and you die.” Seething, Brand gestured around him to the towering enclosure he’d erected around them. “Your life rests solely upon my own honor. I swear to you, it only goes so far.”

He turned his back on her and released the rage, falling to his knees beside Luna. Just like when she healed the creature Dauwyn, blood beaded on every pore, staining her in shades of crimson.

His beautiful mess.

The first thing Brand did was make it worse, gathering a handful of mud and smearing it across her front to hide the empty spot where Illamiata should have been—the whole reason for the impenetrable barrier around them. He planned to make damn sure no one ever knew she was without it.

“This better be the last time I have to do this,” he whispered, cradling her body as gently as he could. “Freely given, now and always.”

As ever, her fangs pierced the meat of his hand, and he coaxed the gift down her throat. The words were unnecessary after the Rite, but he liked reminding her of his utter devotion. Wanted her to hear it, even from so far away.

“It’s time to wake up now, little moon. Open those sea glass eyes for me.”

Each second was its own eternity, and Brand aged entire lifetimes as he waited.

And waited.

“This heart is yours, remember?” He kissed her brow, her jaw, bumping his nose against her ear. “I can feel your life shimmering there, waiting. For what? Stop being so bloody stubborn and come back to me.”

Brand was on the brink of panic when she twitched, lids fluttering.

Luna grimaced, squinting up at him. “Please, Brand, why? It’s too early.”

He blinked once, twice…then threw his head back and laughed, so free a sound he hardly recognized it as coming from himself.

“Why are you⁠—”

Delighted, Brand watched realization dawn on her face, Luna’s mind finally catching up. She scrambled to kneeling and froze, gaze locked over his shoulder.