Page 169 of Commanding Blood And Bonds

I swallowed—audibly—as a glimpse of sparkling obsidian stone flashed in my mind. His chuckle went dark.

When it was clear I wasn’t answering, Cyrus took a hammer to the silence himself.

“So. Valora Lamb, back in the flesh—albeit with a bit of a downgrade in vessel.” His brow arched as he looked down his nose at me.

Damn tiny fucking body.

I must’ve flinched, because his cheek lifted in amusement beneath the mask.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. We can’t choose who we come back as.”

He lifted a gloved hand, slow and deliberate, to trace the faint scar across my cheekbone—mirroring the brutal line on his own face. So he had recognized me, even after all these years, even with the acceleration from my partial ascension.

I snapped at his fingers, teeth bared, but he flinched back just in time.

“Feral fucking demon creature,” he muttered, rubbing his gloved hand like he could feel the ghost of my bite. Murmurs broke out among his guards—uneasy, half-laughing. Probably his coven.

“I’ll give it to you,” he said, “the destruction you leave in your wake is…disproportionate. From what I understand, you’ve always known how to make the most of shitty circumstances. What I don’t understand is why you’re so hellbent on being a pain in my ass.”

“Unfortunate side effect of you being born to the bitch queen.”

His knife bit into my neck.

I arched away, but he followed, his snarl curling like smoke between us. “You will watch how you speak about our Queen, or you will choke on your screams as I carve your tongue from your mouth.”

Low laughter made a round through his men and Calypso perched on the back of the couch, another woman draped across her lap. Intriguing.

“Ahh, come on now, Crew,” I said softly, batting my lashes as I dropped the bomb. One of the Paladins—the one I’d stabbed, I thought—straightened from the wall. His arms fell from their cross, hands loose at his sides. Calypso did the same.

Satisfied, I turned my attention back to Cyrus.

His eyes had gone hard. Dangerous.

“You wouldn’t want to add to your karmic debt now, would you?” I asked, voice velvet-edged.

“Can’t say I know what you’re talking about. I am aligned with the balance.”

“Not. Yet.” I plucked each word like a guitar string.

His citrine-flecked eyes churned with fury as we locked gazes, the air buzzing between us.

“Has the universe told you what you’ll have to do to pay off those debts?” I asked, smiling wider. He looked ready to snap, his chest rising and falling hard with each breath.

So, I winked. Then turned to Calypso. “Hi, Cali, darling. Nice to see you. Sing anything good lately?”

She straightened. The woman lounging in her lap glanced up, tense. I dragged my eyes to the one I’d stabbed—the one who’d protected Cyrus the most.

“Carrson Landry, right? I liked you better as the runt of the litter.”

Before he could react, I looked to the uneasy one—the kidnapper—with mismatched eyes.

Tonguing my canine, I grinned. “That would make yooou…Nix Landry. Didn’t recognize you without two black eyes and your face taped back together.”

Nix moved.

His hand struck my face before I could brace, my head snapping sideways with a crack.

“Stupid bitch,” he growled.