Page 124 of Between Two Kings

“I sent Leo away,” Tem insisted. “I told him to find Evelyn.”

Her father shook his head. “That does not matter, Temperance. Nothing can void the bond of the crest. You cannot circumvent the demands of fate.”

So this was it. The catch.

She’d known, somewhere deep in her gut, that something had gone wrong. It was not, as Bastian would say, an elegant solution. Cresting Leo had solved one problem but created another. She had known her inability to transition was strange, that she was not progressing as she should. Now she understood why.

Tem thought about how electric she felt every time she was around Leo, how the air itself was on fire around her. She thought of how polarizing it had felt to touch him, how incredible his skin had felt against hers. It went beyond an emotional connection. She hadn’t experienced anything like it until after she crested him. Now it was nearly impossible to be around him, and finally, Tem knew why. This explained everything—her inability to transition, her intense attraction to Leo, her need. It had all begun after she crested him. Now she understood why it was torture to be apart from him, why it felt like she was missing a limb when he wasn’t around. It wasn’t just that she loved him. There was something bigger at play here—something cosmic. The crest was drawing them together, urging her to sleep with him.

Something else occurred to her: Leo had been looking pale lately, worn. If there was a consequence for her, surely there was a consequence for him.

“Can he feel it too?” Tem whispered. “The…bond?”

Kronos tilted his head. “He can.”

“In the same way I do?”

“Yes,” Kronos said. “Most likely.”

The words were said gently, with no judgment. Despite herself, tears filled Tem’s eyes.

“You will both continue to suffer until you consummate the crest.”

Tem shook her head. “We can’t consummate it. He’s engaged to Evelyn.”

“Yes. But he is also bound to you. You cannot ignore that bond.”

“But we can’t sleep together.”

“You must.”

“But we can’t.” Leo was a man of his word. And he’d given his word to Evelyn.

Her basilisk side deemed this a minor detail. But the human side was trapped by its permanence. Leo was not available to Tem even if she chose to sleep with him. There was no appropriate situation in which they could sleep together, nor would there be for the foreseeable future. Tem would never seek to compromise his marriage, never try to seduce him when he was committed to someone else—at least, her human side wouldn’t.

Her basilisk side couldn’t care less about Evelyn. Her basilisk side felt such ownership over Leo that Tem could barely wrangle it into submission. The two parts of her were deeply at odds, forming an internal struggle that was quickly becoming insurmountable. She didn’t trust herself around him, couldn’t guarantee that she wouldn’t do something she could never take back.

Kronos leaned in. “Hear me, Temperance. You must.”

“But why? What happens if we never consummate the crest?”

If transitioning was the only thing at stake, Tem would gladly never do it again.

Her father pursed his lips.

True fear sliced through Tem as he looked her in the eye and said, “The object of the crest will die.”

A great weight pressed against Tem’s chest. Before she could even begin to process that, a deeper truth hit her.

If the blood bond is broken, a curse is put into effect.

What curse?

Whoever was betrayed must kill the betrayer. My father did not want to kill my mother. But he had to. The blood bond forced him to.

Tem was lightheaded. She needed to lie down.

It was not his choice. My father could not resist. No one could.