He’s two steps away with the ring in his hand.
He holds the ring up in the morning light. Turns it. The heavy gold. The stylized M. He works it off the chain and tosses the chain at my feet without looking at me. Then he slides the ring onto his finger.
I go for it.
I’m across the clearing before I finish the thought, hand out, power surging. He turns his wrist just enough. The ring catches the light and my fingers close on air.
His gaze settles on me.
“Sunwalker.” A pause. “I wasn’t certain the modification would fully express itself.” He turns the ring against the light, then back to me. “Any of those six mornings, I could have taken you. I want you to understand that. As a fact, not a threat.” He tilts his head. “I chose to watch instead. I find I learn more that way.”
I think about Maximus waking. The ring gone. Me the reason.
My stomach turns.
“Give it back.”
“No.” He says it pleasantly, like I’ve asked him to return a pen. He turns toward the woods. “Six mornings. I wonder how many more it would have taken before you told him what you were doing.”
“The next time I see you,” I say, “I’ll kill you.”
He walks into the woods. “You’ll try,” he calls, without looking back. “And I’ll look forward to it.” He waves the hand with the ring before disappearing at vampire speed.
I stand in the clearing.
I crouch down and pick up the necklace from the grass.
I have a broken chain and a clearing full of proof that I couldn’t stop Konstantin from taking Maximus’s ring.
Okay.
My stomach drops. Deeper than anything I felt when I was human. Like something inside my chest just fell through the floor and kept going.
I have to go back in there and tell him his father’s ring is gone. On Konstantin’s finger. And I know exactly how it gotthere. Every decision that put it there, starting with the first time I slipped out of bed.
My hands are shaking.
I look at them like they belong to someone else.
The ring. On Konstantin’s finger.
He’s going to look at me like… He’s going to…
I don’t know what he’s going to do. I know his control. I know the stillness that settles over him when everything behind his eyes goes flat. I know his silence.
I don’t know what it looks like when I’m the one who did it.
Holy. Shit. What am I supposed to do now?
I close my fingers around the broken chain. Go. My knees unlock. I run.
Service entrance. Panel gap. Back stairs, storage corridor, our room.
He’s dormant. Still. Arm outstretched toward the empty space.
I lie down beside him with the chain in my pocket and Konstantin’s last words still turning in my head and I wait.
His hand closesaround mine in the dark. His grip tightens. Just holds on.
