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I looked at my mate, taking in his dazed expression, the bite marks trailing down his neck, caked with spots of dried blood.
She had touched him. Tasted him.
I had to fight the urge to vomit all over the throne room floor.
“Hello, Vela. It’s been a long time,” I said.
She smiled and traced a line down Draven’s golden brown throat, making sure to hover her fingertips over the marks. “So good to have you finally home again.”
“Do you mean me?” I said calmly. “Or my mate who sits beside you?”
Vela laughed, but I could see the fury in her eyes. “Your mate?” She turned to look up at my father. “Your daughter has no respect.”
“Perhaps that’s why the bold little thing has always been my favorite,” he said, looking past Vela at me. “She entertains me the way no one else ever could.”
“I survived when no one else could, you mean,” I retorted. “After all you sent against me.”
My father simply smiled.
Vela’s eyes narrowed. “Do you even know who you are?” She gestured to Draven. “Who he is? Have the scales finally fallen from your ignorant little eyes?”
“I figured it out long ago,” I answered.
She hissed at me with pleasure. “Then you know who he truly belongs to. Who he gave himself to long ago.”
“I know the truth. What you say is only your version of it.” I looked at Draven’s glazed emerald eyes. “You cannot keep one who wishes to be free. No matter how much you may wish to.” I forced myself to smile very calmly at Vela. “He is my mate. He doesn’t want you. He hasn’t wanted you in a very, very long time.”
She hissed again and raised her hand as if to strike me, but my father made a warning gesture and she lowered it again, shooting daggers from her beautiful viper’s eyes instead.
“He’s mine,” she snarled. “He is Khor.”
Vela rose to her feet. My skin crawled as she leaned down to run her fingers through Draven’s black hair—as if he were no more than a pet. She kept her eyes on me all the while, making sure I was watching every touch, every caress.
My hands had tightened into fists. I forced them open, trying to exude a calm I didn’t feel.
“Your Draven, my Khor,” Vela crooned, “has fought by my side and your father’s countless times against the Three. You and your aunts, Perun’s rebellious sisters and his headstrong daughter, all with their weak spots for mortals.”
“You see weakness. I see strength. I’ve gotten this far,” I said.
Vela laughed and turned to look at my father again. “Even now, she tells her own twisted version of the story.”
“There are many stories,” I said. “Most are twisted. Most are untrue.”
“Where may one find the truth? It is a question as old as time itself,” my father mused. He did not seem particularly invested in what was happening between Vela and me. He watched, half-bored, as if simply waiting for what would come next.
Had he even really expected me to get this far? How much of what had occurred in the Black Mountain had he been able to see?
“Have you forgotten, stupid girl?” Vela snarled. “Have you forgotten that we killed you?”
I looked at her steadily. “I remember.”
I remembered it all.
Mortal stories said that Vela and Perun had been rivals. That they had battled against one another.
These stories were all lies.
“You killed us both,” I said softly, meeting Vela’s eyes, then my father’s.
