I cry out as my broken bones are jostled.

Est amage!

In response, Juliana’s screams intensify, like Memnon worsened the curse he struck her with.

My body is still trying to pick itself up, broken bones and all. Beyond the pain, there is a different sort of anguish. Horror crawls along my skin at the thought of killing Memnon. I have loathed the man and wished for his demise more than once, but…but somewhere along the way, things between us have changed.

No. I fight the compulsion. I will not do this.

Sweat begins to bead on my brow as I battle the magic.

I will not harm my soul mate.

Just when I’m sure I’ll be forced to comply anyway, the command’s power over me dissipates, washing away like blood in the rain.

I breathe hard as I lie there on the ground, sweat dripping down my face. Or maybe they’re tears.

Some bonds are stronger than others. Not even a forced bond can overpower a fated one.

I stare up at the ceiling. “That foolish woman doesn’t know who we are,” I say in Sarmatian, my voice shaky. King, queen. Husband, wife. Ancient lovers, recent enemies. Soul mates.

Beneath his rage, I feel Memnon’s violent pleasure at this acknowledgment.

He reels the writhing sorceress in close. “You made enemies of the wrong people, sorceress.” I see his grip visibly tighten.

Juliana’s screams have turned into choked sobs. “Please, please,” she says hoarsely. She doesn’t say what she’s begging for. Mercy of some sort. I think she knows she’s not going to get it. Not given the circumstances of the evening.

With his free hand, Memnon withdraws his dagger. “I made a promise to my mate,” he says softly, “that the moment I found who had hurt her, I would make their deaths slow.”

He releases Juliana’s throat, and the sorceress falls to her knees. No sooner is she kneeling than Memnon grabs her hair, tilts her head back, and drags his blade across the sorceress’s throat.

A line of blood blooms like a crimson necklace, and I startle at the sudden violence.

Juliana cries out, her power flaring, but Memnon’s own power snaps out in response, forcing hers back into her body.

She’s not dying, I realize. The cut, though it looked wicked, was simply a flesh wound.

Memnon releases her hair and brings the tip of the dagger to his other hand. Swiftly he draws it down his palm. My stomach bottoms out when I begin to suspect what he intends.

He wraps his bloody hand around the sorceress’s wounded neck.

“With blood I bind⁠—”

“No!” she screams. “No, no! Selene Bowers, I command you to stop him.”

I clench my teeth as another compulsion takes root and I have to fight it off all over again.

“With bone I break.” Memnon begins to smile now, unholy menace in his glowing eyes. “Only through death shall I at last forsake.”

What Memnon is doing shouldn’t be possible. The amount of magic needed for a forced bond is so massive it requires a spell circle. That’s why Lia called in those supernaturals earlier when she bonded me, and it’s why she hosted spell circles beneath Henbane Coven. But I can sense the sorcerer’s magic relentlessly building anyway.

“What I command, you shall obey. Your will is mine till your dying day.”

She screams again, only this time, it’s more out of anguish than physical pain.

Holy Goddess. Memnon did it. He bound Juliana’s will to his own.

“You will not give Selene Bowers another order, ever,” he says. “You will not hurt Selene ever again. You will not hurt me ever. You will not use magic ever. You will stay here on your knees, and you won’t speak, and you won’t move. You will wait patiently for me.” Roughly, he releases the sorceress.

Memnon crosses the room to me, his hair stirring and his eyes burning. His power billows about him as he crunches over the remains of the sorceress’s creature. If I were anyone else, I would be terrified.

When he gets to me, he kneels. So much of him is consumed by his power at the moment. I can’t see any softness to him. But then his hand presses to my cheek.

Beneath Memnon’s touch, his power floods my body, reaching for my broken bones. The healing spell warms me as it moves through my system and mends my injuries.

His thumb strokes my cheek as he gazes down at me.

I’m sorry, he says. For your pain. For not healing you sooner. For coming so late.

I don’t know how I have any more tears in me, but a few more squeeze out.

I lean into his hand. You came. That’s all I can seem to say.

I will always come, he vows.

Gradually, my pain ebbs away. I sense it the moment I’m fully healed.

With a sob, I lunge for Memnon, wrapping my arms around him and burying my face in his shoulder. My whole body is shaking violently. Even though my body is healed, it still has some memory of all that’s been done to it.

I still sense Memnon’s otherness—he’s more magic than man at the moment—but his arms close around me, and he holds me tight to him.

Fierce queen, enduring mate, I’ve got you. I am yours, forever.

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CHAPTER 37

“You don’t understand,” Juliana says angrily once Memnon has returned to her and allowed the sorceress to speak once more. “I am the daughter of Luca Fortuna. He will make you pay for what you’ve done.”

I sit amid the rubble, my body weary, my clothes in tatters, my mind aching to leave this room where so many horrors have happened.

My mate stares down at Juliana where she still kneels, studying her with those burning eyes.

“I felt it when you snapped Selene’s bones one by one,” he says. “I felt her pain, and I heard her screams. They will haunt me for all my days. I am not a nice man. I am an evil one—even more so than you and your siblings. Even more than your father. You think you understand pain? Torture? I want you to know that I can be even more creative than you. If you fail to cooperate with me, I will make you break your own bones, one by one.”

She looks afraid now.

He crouches in front of her. “Do you want to hear the rest of what I’ll do to you? How I will order you to skin yourself alive, how I will make you draw out your own intestines⁠—”

“Stop! Stop!”

“Then you will truthfully tell me everything you know about the murders of witches.”

“I don’t know much about the murders,” Juliana begins. “I didn’t kill them.” She pauses, like that’s enough to fulfill Memnon’s magical command.

However, after a couple tense seconds, her throat works and more spills out.

“My father and my brother are the ones who know more. I don’t know if they killed the witches themselves or why. I don’t want to know so I’ve never asked.”

She stops again, and I see the muscles in her throat strain as Memnon’s command still rides her.

Tell me everything, he said.

“Each month on the night of the new moon, my sister and I deliver one or two of our bonded supernaturals to my dad and my brother. They’re the ones that die.”

I don’t know what is more shocking: that all the murder victims were previously bonded or that we now know exactly who the killers are.

“This happens every new moon?”

Juliana clenches her jaw, then nods. “At midnight sharp.”

“And your father and brother are the only ones who would know what happens to these supernaturals?”

She hesitates. “No,” she eventually admits.

“Explain yourself—again, truthfully,” Memnon says.

“My father and brother—they get paid for the… the deaths. Whoever pays them probably also knows what’s going on.”

“Yet you don’t?” Memnon says, looking unconvinced.

“It’s the truth,” she hisses out.

“How do I get into the Equinox on the night of the new moon?” Memnon asks.