Thiswas the true predator, the true reason for an Empyreal’s power.
‘Try as you might, dear boy, it will not work.’ Elatha smiled. ‘The oath was quite thorough. So relish that hit. It’s the last you’ll ever get.’
His scar was blinding with pain, like a new burn. But it wasn’t just the brand itself. It laced through his every vein andyankedhim into subservience.
So he yankedback.
He called on the Empyrean power within, the deep, goddess-given urge to protect. That, surely, knew he was failing his true mission if his body allowed thisgeisto prevent him from what he knew to be right.
But he also felt Nicole.
That golden connection between them grew taut, searing him with love and drive and purpose. She had become his home, his truth, and it spiralled deep down into him like the twisted wires of a torc, from the mark that bound them into the very core of what he was, and the heart that beat above that immortal power.
It cracked through the oath, just a splinter.
As Kyan pushed off the broken marble and got to one knee, pressing his wounded side, he saw his bright blood spattered in the sculpture’s dust.
And he promised himself that he would never kneel before the Wake again.
‘Perhaps,’ Kyan said, spitting more blood onto the floor. ‘But it’s not the only binding I’ve ever done.’
A flicker of confusion caused the god’s eyes to narrow slightly and flit to the dotted binding scar on Kyan’s forearm that glowed through his shirtsleeve like a piece of the Empyrean itself.
Kyan called for that slumbering part of him, for any spit of divine power that might have come from his true heritage.
He thought of Nicole and her family.
Callum and his eternal friendship.
Yes, Kyan was a protector; a hound. But he was also a man who loved, a boy who would avenge his mother, and a person ready to live a life unbound and unoathed.
And if it meant he had to embrace his history to do so, then he’d let the heritage take him over; he’d face the past he thought was long dead.
He’d become whatever he needed to be.
Teeth and love and burning fury.
When he launched up, the room imploded.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
Dylan
DYLAN’S SENSES AWAKENED IN PIECES.
His mouth tasted of ash and ruin. The tendons in his neck throbbed, electric with pain. His skull vibrated like a tuning fork, worsening the ringing in his ears.
He stirred slowly to find himself in a damp, dark cell. Fragments came back to him: his body ripping into something else, the gush of strange blood into his mouth, his sister’s scream.
His first transformation.
He wasn’t supposed to be awake yet, had been too deep in the healing sleep after a first transformation. He could barely open his eyes. But they focused on the four other Empyreals in the room.
‘Where’s my family?’ Dylan managed, struggling to rise, discovering his arms had been tied behind him and shackled to the wall, and someone had dressed him in unfamiliar dark gear.
‘You’re not leaving till you’re oathed,’ they said.
Then he heard a scream.
