My canines ache as they lengthen. My voice is a low growl. “This is your fault. If you had not stolen her from me…”
His head lifts. His gaze cuts like a blade. “There is no one to blame butyou. She is here because ofyou.Youput her in danger.Youput the noose around her neck.”
“I love her!” The words thunder out of me, and my vision blurs. I feel the tears fall, streaking down my face, but when they touch Amara’s skin, they drip black as ink.
“You cannot love,” the Golden Son says, pushing himself to his feet, squaring his shoulders. “You do not know how. So put her in the ground and go find your next plaything, your next innocent soul to corrupt and destroy.”
My jaw locks. In my mind, I carve him apart piece by piece, imagining the thousand ways to make him suffer. Which limbs to take, what to leave, how to keep him breathing so I can begin again and again. For years if I wish.
But before I can rise, my daughter cries out.
Solena rocks her gently. “I… I think she’s hungry.”
I nod. “Yes. Amara will feed her. She just needs to heal.” I turn back to my wife, smoothing a hand over her head, ignoring the strands that come away in my palm. “Amara. My love. You need to heal. Our daughter needs you.I need you.”
Reon edges closer, his steps slow and cautious, like he’s approaching an unchained beast. He lowers himself to one knee, exchanging a sharp, worried glance with Solena.
“Rook,” he says, quiet, careful. “Come, my friend. We need to leave her.”
“To heal?” I demand.
He nods once. “Yes. To heal. Will you come with me?”
The words scrape against my skull, senseless. Leave her? Why would I leave her? Why would I be anywhere but at her side?
Movement catches my eye. The Golden Son. He shakes his head, a mocking grunt slipping from his mouth. I don’t hear the words. Don’t need to. I know the tone. I know the loathing, the accusation. I know they doubt my love. Blame me for her death, and that alone is enough.
The void tears open for me, and in the next heartbeat, I am at his side. My hand clamps around his throat, lifting him from the ground as I slam him into the wall hard enough to rattle the stone. Solena gasps, stumbling back. The Golden Son claws at my grip, kicks against my legs, but it’s useless. I will not release him. Not until I’ve wrung every last breath from his lungs.
I lock onto those bright blue eyes and watch the light dim. He gasps, spits broken words that barely register. I watch only until the flicker fades.
“Rook!”
Reon’s voice cuts through, sharp, but I don’t turn.
“Rook!” Louder this time. Harder. “She lives!”
My head snaps toward him.
The Golden Son drops from my grasp, crumpling to the ground in a choking heap. My focus is already gone from him, fixed on Reon where he crouches over Amara.
“But only barely, my friend,” Reon says. “She does not have much time.”
“She needs a healer,” Solena blurts. Her brow furrows, lips trembling, then her eyes flare wide. “The Grove.”
Reon’s head shakes immediately. “We will never reach it before she…” He stops when my glare finds him, his jaw clenching. “It is too far. Unless…”
His gaze falls to his fingertips, where golden sparks crackle and dance. “I can slow time. Just for her. It could be enough.”
“Can you do that?” Solena asks.
A shrug. “We’re about to find out.”
The void swallows me again, and I reappear at Amara’s side, sweeping her into my arms.
“Then let’s not waste anymore time.”
I rise, but the moment I’m fully upright, the ground quakes beneath us. Stone groans. My back arches as my canines lengthen, every muscle coiled for attack. Ready to face whatever comes next.
