Page 95 of Haunted Crowns
He looked past her, as if the memory itself burned. “When I saw the marks—your marks—something broke loose inside me. I wanted him gone.” His jaw tightened, fury laced with something far more dangerous.
Eris’s breath faltered. Not only from the shock of his rage, but from the cold spike of fear piercing through her.
Kareon.
She didn’t say it, but dread bloomed anyway. What if he was hurt? What if this war between them had already gone too far? She wanted to ask. Gods, she needed to. But Stephan’s face—tight, barely held together—stopped her. This was not the moment to speak of another man. Not while he stood in the ruins of trust.
So she said nothing. She pushed down the unbearable guilt that this was all her doing, and clung to the silence, because if Kareon were truly gone, Stephan would have told her.
His gaze returned to hers, and it burned. “Tell me,” he said. “Was it instinct…or did you bite him because you could not stop yourself?”
The pain in the question nearly brought her to her knees.
Her voice came out as a thread. “No.”
“Then why?”
“Because I had nothing left.”
That stopped him.
She stepped toward him with measured grace, neither in defense nor apology, only truth.
“I had just crossed back from the spirit realm. I was not whole. My strength was gone. I could barely stand.” A moment passed. “He offered me his blood. Not for dominance or desire. He laid it before me like an oath.
And I took it. Not for pleasure, but to survive.” Her gaze lifted to his, unflinching. “Without him anchoring me…I would never have made it back to you.”
Stephan’s breath caught as the truth landed with quiet devastation. He could have lost her, but Kareon had saved her. And though it shattered something inside him to know it wasn’t his hands that saved her, he was grateful she had lived. Even if that return might never belong to him.
Stephan’s throat worked around a word that never came.
Her fingers lifted, trembling as they brushed his cheek. His eyes closed, and for a moment, he simply breathed.
“I believe you,” he said, his voice frayed. “But gods…it still wrecks me.” He stepped back, just enough to see her clearly, exposed in a way only she had ever drawn from him. “Do you know what it did to me? Seeing his blood carry your mark?”
Her breath stuttered. He was unraveling before her, and gods help her, she felt every thread come loose.
He inhaled, ragged. “He speaks of you like you were carved from prophecy.” His voice thinned. “And sometimes I wonder if he’s right…if you were never meant for someone like me.”
“Don’t.” She shook her head, aching. But he held her gaze, eyes burning with a love that hurt. “You are becoming something vast, Eris. Something divine. And I am just a man trying not to lose you to a future where I cannot follow.”
The confession struck like lightning, searing through her soul. She stepped into him, into the fire of his fear, and cradled his face with both trembling hands.
“Look at me,” she whispered, her voice unsteady. “I do not want a throne if it costs your touch. I do not want power if it means silence where your voice once lived.” Her tears fell freely now, unstoppable. “There is no prophecy I will fulfill without your hand in mine. No destiny worth walking that does not echo your name beside me.”
She grabbed his collar, desperate, and pulled him down until their foreheads touched. Their breath mingled in that sacred space between heartbreak and vow.
“I do not care what fate wrote before I was born.” Her voice broke, then turned fierce. “I choose you. I will always choose you. And I would burn heaven to keep you.”
Whatever fate had forged between her and Kareon, none of it mattered. Not if it meant losing Stephan.
He was not only the man she loved. He was the reason her heart had learned to beat. She could not remember a time when his name was not part of her soul. There was no version of herself without him. He was her gravity, her breath. Without him, she would be a wound that would never heal. A soul with no home.
And she would not live unwhole. Not for fate. Not for prophecy. Not even for the gods.
Stephan’s heart roared in his chest. His lips parted, words rising, fractured, desperate to reach her. He wanted to tell her everything: how she undid him, how losing her to fate felt like a blade to the chest. But the words never left him, because Eris moved first.
She rose onto her toes, fisted the front of his uniform, and pulled him down. Her mouth crushed onto his fiercely, burning with defiance. It was a kiss both feral and sacred, as if her lips could quiet his storms and brand her truth into him. Her grip twisted in his uniform, grounding them in a gravity that belonged only to them.
