Ronyn lets it happen. Lets them fall into it. Because that’s all this ever was. Temporary. Fragile.Enough.
Even Calira no longer looks ready to slit everyone’s throats on sight. Ronyn decides to count that as progress.
His gaze drifts to the only place he’s been dying to reach.
He finds her.
Jax.
Still apart. Still untouched by whatever just shifted in the rest of them. Like she’s already somewhere else.
His jaw ticks once.
There you are.
He pushes off the wall.
“Try not to kill each other,” he mutters as he moves past Teddy.
Teddy snorts. “No promises.”
Ronyn doesn’t look back.
“At least wait until I’m done so I can start taking bets.”
A few quiet reactions follow him. But he’s not listening anymore.
Because all he sees isher.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
The bravest thing a heart can do
Is trust another with its truth
Jax doesn’t remember decidingto leave.
One moment she is standing in the circle, the air thick with tension and voices scraping against one another, and the next she is beyond the lanternlight, the noise fading behind her until it becomes distant and indistinct.
The quiet out here is different. Colder. Cleaner. Less full of shit, nothing to blame, and no one to insult.
She leans her shoulder against the stone, folding her arms tightly across her chest as if she can contain the agitation still moving through her body. It doesn’t work. It never does. The words follow her anyway, settling under her skin where they’re hardest to ignore.
Your head hits the pillow and it never knows peace.
Jax exhales through her nose, slow and controlled, dragging a hand across her mouth as if she can physically remove the thought.
“She talks too much,” she mutters. “Always has.”
The defense is automatic.So is the lie.
Because vulnerability is leverage, and Jax refuses to give it. Not like she did with Maldrak.
Under the touch of his calloused hands that fed her softness and affection. The kind of touch that loosened her lips and had her spilling secrets she swore to the depths of herself.The kind of secrets that ended a kingdom, lives, and her honor in one fell swoop.
So she makes the world hate her as much as she hates herself. It’s what she deserves.
Nothing more.
