“You shouldn’t have had to,” I snap.

“They wanted to make sure I understood my place. That being your Chosen doesn’t erase what my family did during the war.” A bitter laugh. “And you know what? They’re not wrong. It doesn’t.”

“Don’t care,” I say. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to give me any identifying details you remember. Then I’m going hunting. Someone fucks with what’s mine, they answer to me.”

“You’d only make it worse.” She drags a hand through her hair, frustration bleeding into the bond. “You can’t just threaten people into accepting me.”

“The fuck I can’t. That mark on your wrist means you’re under my protection. Choosing you means you’re mine. An Eternal not doing anything to defend his mate shows weakness—”

“And it shows weakness in me to let you,” she says sharply. “Do you have any idea how I’d look to them if I did that? I’m not a demi Chosen who already earned their respect by virtue of being born with wings. I don’t get to skip the part where I earn my place here. What I need is for you to give me room to figure this out on my own and let me choose my own battles. Your love can’t be another cage that denies me the right to fight for myself, Wolf.”

I swallow around the sudden thickness in my throat. “I just want to spare you pain. Because no one in your life ever bothered to.”

Bryony’s expression gentles. “I know. But you can’t. Pain is part of living. You think I don’t know that by now?”

Her finger absently traces the scar on her throat—that silvery line that makes me want to burn the realms to ash every time I see it. Every time I remember how close I came to losing her before I ever had her.

“I never told you,” she says, soft like a secret, “how much I wanted to die after this happened.”

The words are a knife to the gut. I go still, barely breathing.

“My guards carried me everywhere when I was recovering. Not because I couldn’t walk, but because they were protecting me. And I was so fucked up that I didn’t even care. I was just a body to them, anyway. Why not let them treat me like one? But one day, Theo snapped. She commanded the guards to put me down and told me to walk. It had been weeks, and I was so frail that I collapsed over and over. I was just… I was so angry. But that anger made me want…”

She trails off, dragging in a deep, uneven breath.

“Want what?” I breathe.

When she meets my stare again, her eyes are blazing. Defiant. Beautiful. “It made me want the world to bleed at my feet. I can’t tell you how many times people in my life have expected me to just… endure. The Oracles, my people, Alexios—I wasn’t a person to them. Being an Anchor was like being buried alive in my own skin. When you came to my room in Hellevig and let me cut into you, I felt like an animal chewing off its leg to escape a trap. Anger was something I could hold on to, something that made me feel like I could be more.”

Slowly, she reaches out and settles her hands on my chest, right over my heart. “You can’t deprive me of my anger, Wolf,” she tells me, calm and implacable. “So you’re going to let me fall, and then you’re going to let me get back up and do it again. Today, tomorrow, a century from now.” Her fingers flex against my skin. “I’m going to be pregnant with our child one day, and you’ll have to keep your promises. You’ll have to watch me hurt and scream, even if some of it ends up being directed at you, because I’ll be scared out of my fucking mind. I’ll say awful, unfair things to you that I don’t mean because this”—a rueful twist of her lips—“is a process. Us being together is going to be messy and ugly and so damn hard sometimes. Because humans and gods are enemies, and everyone will want to see us fail and tear each other apart.” She wipes away a tear from her cheek. “We’re both fucked up, and we’ve got more jagged edges than smooth, but anything worth fighting for is like that. You have to mix the bad in with the good.”

Her hands flatten more firmly against my chest, and I feel her certainty down the shimmering tether of our bond. “I can’t hide behind your wings forever,” she tells me. “You can’t shield me from every hurt. That’s not who I am. It’s not who we are.”

I love her. I love her so damn much I can’t breathe around it.

“Then be angry,” I tell her, voice rough with emotion. “Scream. Rage. Break shit. Fall and claw your way back up as many times as it takes.” I lift my head, catching her lips in a gentle kiss. “Have my babies. Burn this place to the ground. Just promise you’ll leave room for me to offer a hand when you need it.”

A wondering sort of smile touches her mouth. “I promise.”

“Good.” I kiss her again. “You belong with me, Bryony Devaliant.”

“I belong with you,” she breathes.

“Shout it, nemesis. My queen doesn’t need anyone’s permission to take up space. She owns it. She takes what’s hers.”

Bryony inhales sharply. “I belong with you!”

A fierce sort of pride explodes in my chest. “That’s my Chosen. Never let anyone make you feel small and shut you up. Not those courtiers. Not Alexios. And sure as fuck not me.”

OceanofPDF.com

49

BASTIEN

MIST CLINGS TO the spires of Hellevig tonight. I suppose some might call this city beautiful, if they were inclined to ignore the fact that every new building erected since the war was built on the bones of slaughtered gods. One day, I’m going to raze this whole festering shithole to the ground.

But not tonight.

My mind breaks down each variable as I near the palace—velocity, trajectory, altitude. The immutable mathematics of motion, as fixed and unchanging as the stars.

There’s a certain purity to it. A peace in the way everything reduces down to its component parts, neatly labeled and filed away. Logical. Orderly. Untainted by emotions that turn people erratic and unpredictable.

I land on the balcony. A flick of my fingers, and the latch for the door crumples.

The bedchamber reeks of perfume. Gilt and ornamentation crowd every surface, garish to the point of vulgarity. But I’m only here for one thing: my knives. My blood sings in every molecule of Turpori steel, and every second they’re here makes me want to raze this entire realm.

I slip into the darkened halls, each footfall soundless. The palace slumbers around me, and—

A scream rips through the hush.

I pause. Not my problem. Not my business. Godkillers first, and everything else in this shithole can burn for all I care.

But against my better judgment, I turn down the corridor, casting out my senses, and—

Collide with a wall. Not stone or steel, but a diamond-hard blockade of pure will, as implacable as the woman it belongs to. It shoves against my mind with brutal force.

I know that psychic signature. I’ve tasted it before, in a blood-soaked village heaped with Vartenan dead.

Theodora Devaliant.

When I reach the door, I don’t bother with the handle. I just slam my boot into the wood and send it crashing inward.

She’s pinned between two males. One is locking down her arms, and the other is forcing something around her neck—a collar. Theodora claws at the metal as a flush crawls up her face.

Intervention just slid from “optional” to “non-negotiable.”

My shadows burst free and yank Theodora out of their grasp. She hits the floor. Her assailants don’t even manage a word before I slide my knife from its sheath and bury it in the side of the first male’s neck.

The second one tries to run. Mistake. My shadows catch him before he makes it two steps, the inky tendrils wrapping around his limbs, his torso, his throat, and wrenching. Every bone in his body snaps simultaneously—crack-crack-crack—spattering blood across the walls. The tendrils drop him to the carpet with a wet thump.