Page 58 of Claimed

Her voice is a silken blade in the dark and I reach for it.

But Morrighan moves between us without moving at all. ‘When the next collapse comes,’ she whispers, ‘perhaps you will remain long enough to kneel.’

I bare my fangs. ‘I kneel to no one.’

‘Yes,’ she says, almost fondly. ‘That is why breaking you has been such a pleasure.’

The river surges.

Hands seize my legs, arms and throat. I tear through them, but more rise. Hundreds, thousands. The dead of my wars, my enemies, my mistakes, all wearing the same wet, open-mouthed need.

Eira’s voice comes again, farther now.

Valentin. Come back to me. Right fucking now.

The mark burns white as Morrighan leans close, her mouth at my ear. ‘I will join you soon.’

The world splits, and I claw upwards through blood, shadow and the sound of Morrighan’s cruel laughter, fighting for the single warm thread that smells of defiance, terror, sex and sunlight on steel.

Eira.

The name is my poisoned salvation.

The dark recoils, but before Netheris releases me, I see the Blood Chrysalis suspended above the river like a second moon, crystallised red and black, pulsing from within.

A crack runs through it.

Thin. Bright. Fresh.

Then I am falling upwards, and Morrighan’s final whisper follows me into the dark. ‘Count them carefully, beautiful king. These returns of yours are nearly spent.’

10

EIRA

When I come back to myself, it’s with Valentin’s name in my throat and cold sweat drying on my skin.

I don’t know where I am.

There’s black water in my head, a sky split by red wounds and a woman’s laugh soft enough to be mistaken for silk until it slides between the ribs.

Then it’s gone.

I jackknife upright, gasping. ‘What the fucking fuck was that?’

My voice scrapes through a familiar space, small and sharp in the dark. The nasty end of surprise moving through me, I realise I’m… no longer in the Vault suite, in Valentin’s bed.

I’m in my apartment beneath Valentin’s penthouse.

The lights are low. The wards hum. My weapons are exactly where I left them, which should comfort me and doesn’t, because apparently the scariest thing in my life is no longer being unarmed. It’s being connected.

I press both hands to my face and drag in a slow breath. How the hell did I get here? And…

Valentin?

I send the probe carefully, like touching a bruise.

He doesn’t answer, but the thread is there, though. Faint. Warm in places. Dark in others. He feels distant and heavy, sunk somewhere too deep for me to reach, but alive. Definitely alive. And since the Twelve aren’t thundering through the Tower, he’s safe.