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“Lonan,” I breathe, because all I can think is his name. Like it is a creed, a one-word poem, a sacred curse.

He lifts his eyebrows, teasing as his shadows swirl around us. “Fontaine.”

Oh, he is evil, every inch the Nightmare that his reputation promises.

“Can’t even call me by my first name? Even now?”

The smile broadens, revealing those Saints-forsaken dimples. In this moment, he is completely in control, and I feel like a tongue of flame, whipping in all directions, pulled between the urge to run and the urge to sink into him. But then his hands are on my ankles. They skim lightly over sore scars, both old and new, tracing every wicked line I’ve carved over years. They trail up my legs beneath my ball gown, and Saints help me, I close my eyes, unable to suppress a shiver as his hands glance over my thighs.

It makes no sense to be doing this now. The school is in ruins, its students turned to siphons. There are two hours till dawn, two hours left to survive, to endure whatever the Ridding has in store. But perhaps that’s why we steal this moment. Our last claim on our fates before the night takes us.

Lonan lifts the skirt of my dress, his lips tracing the scar-lined skin of my thighs. “Vesper,” he whispers as his lips trace the verses on my skin that have brought so much death. “Vesper,” he prays as his hands trail upward, claiming what is not rightfully his, what stars and Saints have declared belongs to another. “Vesper,” he says, finally taking me, finally calling me his own. And I let him. I choose him. Saints, fates, and blood-mates be damned.

The stars incline us. They do not bind us.

Lonan sinks his fingers into the flesh of my hips, and he does every wicked thing he’s capable of.

Chapter Fifty-One

H e’s going to be the death of me. I’m certain of it.

He was on his knees, but it was me who was handled like a puppet on strings. It was me at his mercy, head thrown back against the wall of that little room. In the end, it was me begging.

He can pretend he’s the worshipper all he wants. I’m the one following him, pathetic and lovesick, unable to tear my eyes away from his muscled shoulders, from the way his dark hair curls at the nape of his neck, from those branches of dark that trail over his torso, as we leave that room. He sacrificed his shirt to stop the bleeding from my abdomen, but it is a strange irony that as a result he now bears that birthmark openly for the first time—the Dark lightning that caused his father to reject him, that earned him the scar on his neck.

He leans back against the door and pushes a hand through his hair.

I swallow, watching him. It’s now that I realize his charm, that trait that has had me rolling my eyes and sneering in his direction, was never false—he’s just effortlessly elegant, enchanting, likable. I so wanted to believe it was contrived. Saints, he’s gorgeous. And I am in such deep, deep shit.

Nothing has changed. I know how this is going to go. Whatever just happened between us in that room, the siphon in me still prowls and thirsts. And it doesn’t change what we have to do—how this night has to end.

“You have to let me go.” The words are the barest whisper.

He pauses a moment before smiling and then breaking out in a dark chuckle, hiding his face in his hand. “Would that I could, sweetheart.” He lowers his hand and shakes his head as he looks at me. “You have no idea.”

“What does that mean?”

I stand up straight, and he walks toward me, his pace slow and deliberate. Something about it has me backing into the table behind me. He stops just a foot away.

“I could no more give you up,” he says carefully, “than I could surrender my own life.”

There’s a deep pang of longing in my chest, to have time with him, to trace the lines of that birthmark when we’re both not just trying to survive the night.

“I have spent my whole life protecting you. It’s why I’m here, not in Imaelhain—to train in the Light and Dark, to stay close to the king . . .” I’ll never get used to him calling my godfather that. He glances down at the sword still in his hand. “But mostly, I’m here for you.”

“Me?”

“You’re special, remember? Van Asten ordered me to protect you.”

I lean against the edge of the table, massaging my temples. “I don’t know why.” It’s one of several questions troubling me. My godfather didn’t want me to participate in the Ridding either. I no longer believe it was out of love. My godfather might have some level of affection for me, but he is a deeply conniving man. I have no doubt he has other schemes. I just wish I understood them.

For Saints’ sake, what is so special about me?

Lonan frowns. “I wish he’d told me. But Van Asten keeps many things close to the vest. Perhaps he values you because you can wield Light and Dark magic.”

“You’re here because my godfather wants me to have a guard dog to keep me out of trouble?”

“Can you blame him? You have a habit of finding it.”