Chapter 35

Iam not ignorant to the giant target plastered on my forehead. The Black Art does not trust me, as he shouldn't, and I now possess information that has the potential to incite riots unlike ones Aegidale has ever seen.

I am not safe. Not that I ever have been, but I certainly find myself peering over my shoulder a lot more since learning of Sin's secret. I've spent the past few days training from the burning red sky at dawn to the pink tourmaline clouds at dusk, with only one of those days spent with Aldred. The Black Art's commander has taken to integrating the Langston troops with the kingdom's armies, ensuring every soldier has a placement.

I've caught glimpses of Sin as he makes his rounds through the courtyards each day, and while we've never made direct eye contact, as soon as my back is turned, I feel him watching me. Perhaps he's debating if the strength I add to his army outweighs the risk of keeping a bloodwitch's lungs filling with air. Sin promised my freedom in exchange for my alliance—a temporary truce that would hold until Legion was eradicated. But now that I'm in possession of such sensitive knowledge, I would be a fool to not be on my guard. Will the Black Art really let me leave his castle and risk me exposing his truth?

After dinner and a bath, I head to my quarters for the night. I haven't been sleeping well, unable to turn off the thoughts that pick at my brain like some kind of incurable blight. I've been so furious with him. Angry at him for shoving my title down my throat as if the word bloodwitch was some sort of poison, and angry at myself for letting it bother me so much. Why do I even care what he thinks?

I clutch the bed sheets to my chin, and in the privacy of my room, I let the tears spill without restraint. The scarred over wound my parents left behind splits open inside me, and it feels like a thousand tiny fragments of shattered glass embed into my heart. They could not love what I am—and they will never know how that influenced who I became.

The balcony doors fly open.

I kick my legs over the bed and grab my athame from beneath my pillow. There's no roar of a storm outside, no howling of wind that could have blown open the doors. Gripping my dagger, I step onto the balcony and dare a glance over the ledge. I scan the gardens beneath me, but the flowered hedges and ivy terraces stare back at me with the stillness of a mural. Just as I wipe the wetness from my cheeks, movement from the tree line jerks my attention.

Peering out from the dark woods like lanterns above the nighttime sea, are two glowing yellow-green eyes.

Heblew open the balcony doors, apparently still able to manipulate the collective while in his other skin. I can barely make out the form of his dark, feline body against the night, but I watch as Sin dips his large head in a subtle summons—no, a request. If he insisted on speaking with me, he'd have simply forced himself into my room. He is giving me the choice.

I hold his stare for an extended beat, then rush to pull on a robe over my black nightgown and quickly fluff my unbound hair with my hands. I hurry from my room, down the spiral staircase, and to the part of the woods where I had seen him. My lower belly tingles as I draw near, the tether sensing his presence, even though he's slipped back into the trees by the time I reach them.

Goddess above, don't let this be a trap.

Sin stands in his human form—tall and bronzed and shirtless. His sculpted shoulders and chest a giveaway to years of backbreaking work, his defined obliques peeking out from the pale linen trousers slung low on his waist, a nod to his years of swordsmanship. He says nothing as I approach, and I note the primal stillness of his stance. I've seen it on Eldridge enough times over the years that I'm surprised I didn't make the connection with Sin sooner. I should have known, and I didn't.

I stop a few feet away from him and clasp my hands behind my back. "I suppose I neglected to thank you for intervening that night," I say. Despite his demeanor when we spoke after, he had protected me in the moment, risking everything to do so.

"You don't need to thank me," he murmurs. "Besides, you seemed to have it handled."

"Were you following us?"

"I overheard my father and Bennett talking about you before the dinner—talking about… things. I knew if he tried to put hands on you, you wouldn't have it, and I worried what would happen when you didn't. Bennett carried a reputation for being aggressive with women he deemed entitled to him. I knew him for almost my entire life. You kept fighting him every step, and I knew he would see it as a game, a chase. And if I know anything about you, it's that you would never let yourself be caught.

"So, I tailed you both after you left. I was following just close enough to hear you, in case he was stupid enough to try anything. I was planning on intervening so you wouldn't reveal the extent of your power and risk him learning what you were. Not shifting back before getting to you… that wasn't planned." He folds his arms across his bare, coppered chest, his slivered eyes narrowing farther as he relives the event from his own memories.

"Why didn't you shift back?"

His hands slowly curl at his side, and he closes his eyes for a brief moment, as if he needs to keep his wrath in check. When he reopens them, he says, "I heard what he said to you. I was trying to get to you as fast as I could and was going to change at the last minute, but then he… he hit you, and it was like I couldn't think clearly anymore. In that moment, when he put his hands on you, I didn't want to change back. I wanted to feel him die in my jaws."

He steps towards me, close enough I feel the heat coming off his body and filling mine with his warmth. I drop my eyes to my feet and hope the moon's light isn't bright enough for him to see the flush in my cheeks.

"Wren, you can't tell anyone about this."

"I need some answers, Sin. You can't be talking of war on shifters in one breath, then telling me you are one in the next."

He blows out a long breath, then runs a hand through his long hair and moves to lean against a nearby tree.

"One might say I am quite good at keeping secrets," I say, gesturing towards my body to summarize my point.

He rubs a large hand across his jaw, then drops them both to the waist of his trousers, hooking his thumbs into the band. "My mother was a transcendent. My father… he loved her despite what she was. He loved her so much that he kept her identity hidden from everyone, especially Ephraim who was obsessed with plotting how to exterminate their kind altogether. She left when I was young—a boy still. She wished to see her family, so my father arranged for her to meet with them in secret. He told Ephraim he was sending her to scout out locations for healing temples in Baregrove," he says, his eyes not quite meeting mine as he speaks. "She never returned. They killed her. Murdered her for treason against their kind. They couldn't accept that she married the Black Hand who was assisting Ephraim in his plans to eradicate transcendents. It did not matter to them that she loved him. My father went mad when he discovered what they had done. He became worse than Ephraim. Escalated action against their kind, hence the restrictions that later became law."

"Sin…" I trail off, thoughts eluding me as I make sense of his words.

He shifts his weight and kicks one foot up to rest on the trunk behind him. "I didn't develop it until a few years after she was gone. My father was sure I didn't inherit the ability because even at a young age, I was wielding destruction magic better than most transcendents ever can. I was terrified to tell him the first time I shifted. He was… so angry. Ashamed that his son was carrying the blood of their kind in his veins. I thought he was going to kill me. And I think maybe the only reason he didn't was because of her. He loved her too much to do that to her only child.

"So, he forced me to keep it a secret, and we told no one. Neither of us ever anticipated I would perform the Rite. When Ephraim died, everyone was certain Adelphia would bless my father, and when she denied him, I know it gutted him—way more than he ever showed to the public eye. The council suggested I perform it next, and it would have been suspicious if he tried to refuse that. I thought for sure Adelphia would have denied me as soon as she sensed I held both the magics in my blood, but she bound a fraction of her power to mine instead. Everyone was thrilled I was chosen—except him, of course. I knew instantly he hated me even more for it, furious that the goddess would have chosen a transcendent over him.

"I inherited the responsibility of defeating Legion, and I already held a reputation on the battlefield. They knew me to be ruthless, cold—I killed many of them during the war with Baelliarah, and even more in Legion strikes. I suppose I can't blame him for hating me, not after what transcendents did to my mother."

Tiny cracks split my heart as I listen to Sin's truth. In all the times I read his collective, I never detected this secret. In hindsight, the overwhelming shame and loneliness I felt each time I peeked in must have been pointing to this all along.

Sin isn't a monster—he is a transcendent oppressed by his own father, taught to hate his body for the magic that flows through it, and conditioned to despise his own people that reacted to the crimes of his father. Sin's wickedness doesn't stem from some royal blooded corruptness; it comes from a lifetime of abuse.

"I'm so sorry about your mother. But never, never suggest again that your father had any right to do what he did to you. No one deserves to feel they are not worthy of love simply for being as you were created to be."

"I killed Bennett right in front of you," he blurts out. "I ripped his throat out with my own teeth, and you just looked at me standing over his body and asked if I was alright," he says, chuckling once without humor.

"Because I don't distrust your kind, Sin. Transcendents took me in when I had no one. When my own mother threw me from my home, they were the ones to take me in. Protected me. Taught me how to fight, how to hunt, how to take care of myself. And Cosmina… while she isn't a transcendent, I trust her judgment more than anyone's, and she trusted them. That was good enough for me. I know what it's like to live with the fear that if the world knew what you really were, they'd kill you in the same breath they accused you with. They don't understand that just because we have the power to hurt others, that doesn't mean we will."

"I killed Thatcher," he whispers, closing his eyes and resting his head against the tree. Regret casts his face in shadow.

"Nothing can be done to bring him back now, but you can revert the laws that threaten them, and you can work to clear the prejudices. Adelphia chose you. Maybe it's time to start considering why."

Sin opens his eyes and cocks his head to the side, his hair fanning out across the tree like black vines. "Aegidale will riot against me if they know what I really am."

"You can convince them otherwise. Show them it is possible for us all to coexist in peace." I step up to him and square my shoulders to his, forcing him to level with my gaze. "I will keep your secret, Sin. So long as you don't start a war with them afterwards."

An ultimatum. I will safeguard his secret on the condition he does not declare war on transcendent-kind. He says nothing, but nods slowly.

He clears his throat. "I never apologized for my behavior when I found you with Cathal. I shouldn't have lost my temper, and I should have never," his eyes drop to my neck, "… touched you. Forgive me."

"I know how strong a caster's high can be. I almost bit your throat out after you let my magic pummel you like a godsdamned fool."

He chuckles softly and slips his hands into his trouser pockets. "And I shouldn't have said what I did the other night. I didn't mean it," he adds.

"I shouldn't have slapped you."

"You're right—you should have done a lot worse." He shoots me a half-hearted wink, and my stomach does a somersault in response.

He is dangerously attractive.

I throw up my hand. "Wait a second."

He furrows his brows.

"The Rut… that would have affected you."

A slow smile spreads across his mouth.

"That's why you bit me." I nod, more to myself than him, as I make sense of his aggressive behavior the night I made him accompany my family and me to the annual shifter event.

His lips part as he sweeps his tongue across the front of his teeth. "That was fucking torture. The Rut affects me the same as any other transcendent, whether I want it to or not. Being that pent up with the need to shift and… engage in other activities and not being able to was driving me mad. It's why I didn't hang around. I needed distance from the others. And from you," he adds darkly.

"From me?"

Sin pushes off the tree, ascending to his full height and towering over me. "You can hardly fault Eldridge for his comment at the Rut. Your scent was driving him wild with need, and he couldn't have you. He may have chosen another mate that night, but it was you he was thinking about."

"How could you possibly know that?"

"Because I almost did the same thing."

My breath catches, and his eyes flash to my mouth, his advanced hearing missing nothing.

Goddess above.

I am suddenly all too aware of him. The closeness of his bare chest nearly brushing against mine, his eyes tracking every movement of my body, the devastating smirk on his face…

Seriously. It should be a crime for something so wicked to be this beautiful.

I swallow hard, burying embarrassment in the pit of my stomach. If he's bold enough to drop a comment like that, I refuse to let it go unaddressed.

"You almost did what?" I ask.

"Take a lover," he answers, not missing a beat. "Just to be rid of my thoughts of you, even if it would have been temporary."

"Then why didn't you?"

"Because I feared it would have only made me more ravenous for what I truly crave."

I would trade away my magic for the ability to slow my pulse in a heartbeat, embarrassment rising from the depths I shoved it in and coloring my cheeks.

Tilting his head towards me, he grabs my chin and drags his nose from the base of my ear to the curvature of my jaw. "I haven't been able to get the scent of you out of my mind."

Every fiber of my being screams for me to place my hands against his chest, to feel his bare skin against mine, but I don't move. For the first time in my life, I feel powerless. As if this man, looking like darkness incarnate, has the ability to strip me of all sense of rationality and bend my will to his.

I do not like this feeling. Like I'm not in control. This is wrong. Very wrong.

But the wetness pooling between my thighs seems to disagree with me.

"Would you like to know what you smell like, little witch?" He pulls back just enough to search my face, and when I nod weakly, a soul shattering smile blooms across his. "Like the sea. When you're angry, your scent shifts sweeter, like the calm before the storm." He inhales deeply and lets go of my chin. His fingernails lengthen into claws, and his eyes brighten to a vivid green with that yellow ring around his pupils.

Standing before me, partially shifted into his other form… he's magnificent. Extraordinary.

Sin reaches towards me again and slowly drags the back of one of his long nails across my cheek and down my neck. Not deep enough to draw blood, but enough to sting. In the best way possible. When he reaches the base of my throat, he loops his nail under the bodice ties of my nightgown. "And when you're aroused," his eyes flash to mine with a smirk that is pure sinful, "you smell like fucking starlight."

That's it. I slam my palms against his chest, desperate to feel all that bare skin, and the second I reach for him, he whirls us around, pinning me between him and the tree. His arms form a prison on either side of me, and he rolls his bottom lip between his teeth as a low growl rumbles from his chest. And as quickly as he spun us around, he drops an arm to my lower back and arches me towards him, dipping his head to skim his lips across my chest.

"What are we doing? I hate you. You hate me," I choke through bated breath.

"Does it feel like I hate you?" He grinds his hips against mine, and it takes every ounce of self-control I have left to keep my eyes front and center, and not spiraling to the back of my head. Because pressed against my most sensitive place, I feel just how much he craves me.

He laughs quietly between my breasts, only the thin black silk of my nightgown separating them from his mouth. "Fucking starlight."

This time, embarrassment doesn't rush to my cheeks. Only the warm pang of desire courses through me and settles low in my stomach.

"Sin. Stop." I need him to stop. Because if his mouth drifts an inch to the side, or his hand drops any lower, I'm going to lose myself to him completely.

He smiles against my chest as if he knew I would stop him, then raises his lips to my jaw for a fleeting second before taking a step away from me and dropping his arms.

"See—I said you have more control than you give yourself credit for."

Bastard.

I give him a knowing smirk and adjust the ties of my nightgown. "Careful, Blackheart. I will rip out every last one of their hearts myself if I have to, including yours. And with that kind of power, I could bring armies to their knees."

"Then it's in your best interest to feast on my heart last, love."

"And why is that?"

"I fight much better on my feet. And if you bring me to my knees before you, little witch, I dare say you'll be in no mind to let me off them."

I can't stop the stupid grin from betraying my reaction to his words. "Goodnight, Your Grace." Clutching my robe closed, I turn my back to him and head for the castle.

"Oh, and starlight," he calls after me. Please don't let this be my new nickname. "Try to keep your moaning down when you pleasure yourself tonight, dearest. I need my beauty sleep."

Without turning around, I flash him a vulgar gesture above my head. When I'm out of the woods, I swear I still hear his dark chuckle on the wind.