Yazmin had only just tamed the Vrees. She was using dark magic and forcing him to kill another beast. A creature so powerful, so revered even by the goddess herself, wouldn’t want to be in tamed by someone like our Crown.
Then the mist around us suddenly evaporated, and a gentle warmth rushed through me. All threats of electricity disappeared. A soft humming filled the Vrees’s throat, and suddenly he began to diminish in size. He stopped when his back reached my midthigh, and the electric ball inside his rib cage pulsed like a heartbeat. When he glanced up at me, his tongue lolled out the side of his mouth. Bond broken.
And a new one forged in its place.
The beast realm groaned open, and the Vrees rubbed his head along the back of my knees before disappearing in a flux of rosewood light. Finally deeming it safe, Lola followed him into the realm to heal.
Yazmin’s lips were parted, and she stared at me with unveiled rage. “How?” Behind her, Gaige lay motionless in a heap, beast gone—presumably back to the realm—and I stilled. I stared at him until I glimpsed the shaky rise and fall of his chest. Alive. I let out a tight breath.
Glowering, I turned on Yazmin. I didn’t know exactly how I broke the Vrees’s bond with her, but the reason shone clear. “Not all beasts want to kill.”
She snarled, and her gaze flicked behind me before returning to my face. “No matter. Your time is up.”
I made a move toward her, but Noc appeared before me in a vortex of shadows. He caught me by the throat and lifted me into the air. My hands jerked to his wrists, fingers digging into cold flesh. He stared without seeing me. The whites of his eyes had shifted to an enflamed red, heightening the ice-blue of his irises.
Myanam-carawas gone.
Just like he had outside of Wilheim, he locked us away in an unbreakable, snarling mess of shadows. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the muffled shouts of Calem, Oz, and Kost. They’d never be able to break through, but maybe I could. Channeling power into my hand, I tried to douse the space in rosewood light. To break the spell that held my love captive, just like before. But the man standing before me, the one with his fingers wrapped tight around my neck, wasn’t my lover anymore. He was someone else entirely. And the air in my lungs was rapidly decreasing, and there wasn’t enough time to try to bring Noc back.
I was going to break my promise after all.
My extremities started to tingle, and numbness tracked into my arms and legs. My rosewood light went out like a flame. I vaguely registered that I was kicking him, and that each swing was less and less effective. The heaviness of it all was suffocating. Darkness flared in my peripheral vision, and my hands went slack. Painful pressure around my neck squeezed the last bit of air from my lungs, and I sputtered.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. Thick and absolute darkness, so unlike the shadows he commanded, burned around me until he was the only thing left in view. Until it was just his shock-white hair and then nothing but his eyes. My heart gave one last pitiful thud.
And then everything went silent.
Thirty-Two
Noc
The red haze that had dominated my senses for so long lifted just as a surge of heat stung my inner wrist. Gone. The oath was absolved in an instant. I glanced down at my wrist in time to see the black scythe burn away like a scrap of parchment over a flame. As I did that, something else came into focus: a lifeless body at my feet. Slowly, I blinked. And then realization slammed into me with so much force that I lost my breath.
Leena.Leena.
Her unmoving form dominated my vision, and the world around me blurred. I’d killed myanam-cara. Time slowed. Memories collided in a riotous mess. Amira and Bowen’s twisted words. Yazmin’s control. How I’d battled my brothers just for the chance to murder my love. And then succeeded. A splintering scream ruptured from my chest, and I went to cradle her head.
I never made it. Calem crashed into me, a snarling mess of scales and elongated fangs. His beast had broken through my compulsion. Half-feral, half-human, he tossed me to the side with otherworldly strength and then dropped on all fours defensively over Leena. In the flurry of movement, one of his paws had swiped her body. Blood flowed outward from the deep gashes, spreading across the stone floor and momentarily pulling his attention. Confusion raced through his pupil-less, mercury eyes. Then, horror. He recoiled, and the action forced his scales to recede.
“Oh gods,” he croaked. He scooted away, eyes locked on the blood creeping across the floor. Ozias and Kost rushed over, their forms trembling.
“Give me some room,” Kost commanded, dropping to his knees. A thick gash ran the length of his jaw. Disheveled hair was flecked with blood. He straddled Leena and began pressing his hands rhythmically against her chest. Her head jostled, and unseeing hazel eyes tore through my soul.
I scrambled toward them, but Ozias intervened, caging me in his arms. “Let him work!”
Rational thought escaped me. All I could do was scream and snarl and tear against Ozias’s grip. He never wavered, and I was forced to simply look at what I’d done. At her lifeless face. Parted lips unmoving. Pink flush quickly fading from her cheeks. Limp hands. I’d murdered the love of my life. Again.
Raw pain scoured through me and set fire to everything I knew. She couldn’t be dead. I couldn’t live without her.
“If it’s my time, then you have to let me go.”
“No!” I yelled at the memory of her words. It wasn’t her time. I wouldn’t let her go. Not now. Not ever.
Calem was sobbing as Kost worked, each one of his compressions forcing more blood out of her wound. Kost tried to stop most of it by pressing his thigh against the laceration, but there was only so much he could do. His compressions were timed but forceful, as if he could barely restrain the raging emotions inside him. He paused to tilt her head back and open her airway. Pressing his lips to hers, he breathed life into her lungs. And I willed her body to accept it. To freely take what he was offering so she could breathe on her own again. But after two breaths her lungs still weren’t moving on their own, and Kost was back to compressing.
“Noc.” Kost spoke as he worked. “Will you raise her?”
Ozias grunted, and wet tears stung my shoulder from where his cheek rested. Goodbye wasn’t an option. It shouldn’t have been. And yet, that’s what she would’ve wanted. She’d made that clear. To rob her of that choice… I broke free of Ozias’s arms and slid to the floor by her head. My hands fluttered around her temples.
