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“W-what?” I stuttered between sharp breaths, watching those amber flecks dance.

His thumbs brushed slow circles against my cheeks, soothingly. “Tell me something you can feel,” he repeated softly.

“Your… Your hands,” I gasped, anger rising to meet his stupid questions. But suddenly, his hands were all I could focus on. All I could feel. Like they were pulling me up for a fresh breath of air.

“Now something you can see,” he commanded gently, voice cutting through my panic. My gaze drifted over him despite myself. The sharp line of his jaw. His high cheekbones. The place his dimples flashed when he smiled. The dark waves of his hair brushing his brow. I hated how beautiful he was. It was a lie.

“Trees,” I said hoarsely. “Lots of trees.”

His dimples deepened, as if he knew exactly where my thoughts had strayed.

“Good. What can you smell?”

I inhaled shakily, focusing on the air filling my lungs. “Something burning,” I whispered, crinkling my nose. But it was the scent underneath it that soothed my racing heart. His scent. I drew in another breath, slower this time, letting it settle in my lungs. Letting it steady me.

My heart rate calmed, the world no longer strangling me—only to be replaced by a sharp, twisting guilt at finding comfort in the male who had ripped me away from Rythos.

“That’s it, Sunshine,” he murmured. “Breathe for me.”

Could Rythos feel it? Feel that I was no longer just his? I felt for the shadowy tether in my chest, testing that it was still there. I could almost feel him. His desperation. His heartbreak. It bled through the bond like a wound that refused to clot.

A lyrical sound weaved through the air, haunting against the oppressive air. It cut through my guilt like a blade, leaving gooseflesh in its wake.

My eyes travelled back to the eerie paintings scattered through the dense forest and the hair on the back of my neck rose.

“Time to play,” Helion whispered.

Chapter Fourteen

Slaughter

Rythos

The dream lingered like poison in my system. I needed to kill. To tear through something living and feel the life drain from it.

After coming to on the cave floor with my trousers plastered to my legs with the evidence of the dream and Caelum pointedly avoiding my gaze, I was more than ready to leave the fucking Mourning Woods behind. I should have packed spare trousers. Or a fucking shovel. Solas was one smirk away from needing a grave.

I married him, Rythos.

Her voice echoed through my mind, splintering what remained of my soul.

My grip tightened on Umbra’s reins as I drove him forward.

I hadn’t said a word. The only one stupid enough to talk was Aldric—and he’d gone quiet the moment I snarled at him like the rabid beast I was.

The curse tightened, darkness sinking through me with a sharp sting, mercilessly punishing me for loving the only soul I had ever wanted, for denying it the blood it demanded.

Get to my ship. Find the gate. Get to Lyra.

The mantra beat in time with Umbra’s hooves tearing into the earth. We had been riding for hours under the harsh sun, pushing towards the coast. Towards a hidden alcove where the last of its kind existed. A ship. My ship. To get to her, I needed to cross the Dead Sea.

I married him, Rythos.

My canines pressed painfully into my lower lip.

How could she? How could she bind herself to the male who turned me into a fucking monster, hell-bent on hunting her for over a century?

To save you, she had said. Did she not understand? I was beyond redemption. I had given up the remnants of my soul just to hold her heart—to piece it back together after I had driven my blade through it, lifetime after lifetime.