Page 102 of Claimed

My chest hurts.

He lifts his wrist again, but his gaze stays locked on mine. ‘I can survive your lies long enough to understand them. But I cannot stand over you again and watch your body tear itself open because I demanded truth from a spell designed to punish you for giving it.’

The words hit too deep, in the softest places that apparently haven’t hardened over harsh years.

My eyes burn fiercer. And I hate him a little for it. But, Gods, I also want to touch his face and bite him and forgive him and never forgive him, all at once.

‘Valentin,’ I whisper.

His expression hardens, but only because something in him is breaking.

‘No, bella cacciatrice. You will not spend your strength on my name.’ His wrist brushes my lower lip. ‘Drink. I insist.’

I hesitate.

He leans closer, voice dropping into the place between command and plea. ‘Let me heal what I can, little hunter. I have made enough wounds tonight.’

There it is. The thing neither of us knows what to do with. Regret, wearing a king’s face.

I close my mouth over his wrist and his breath leaves him.

His blood spills onto my tongue, and the bond brightens between us like a struck match in a crypt.

The Heartshard Glass gives one low, terrible pulse.

In the largest broken shard, the black segment of the circle glows brighter.

Valentin’s arm tightens around me.

I drink.

And somewhere inside the Tower, every clock I cannot see moves forward.

17

EIRA

I wake in the middle of the night to the sound of pacing.

For one disoriented second, I think I’m back in the dungeon, counting stone, iron, breath, and fury. Then the scent of him reaches me.

Valentin.

Dark, rich, cold at the edges, threaded with the unmistakable metallic pull of his blood still moving through mine.

I open my eyes.

His chambers are half-lit by the city beyond the glass wall and the low crimson pulse of the broken Heartshard Glass across the room. Someone has cleaned the blood. My skin smells faintly of expensive soap, and him. I’m wearing one of his black shirts, soft and too large, the collar slipping off one shoulder.

Valentin is pacing near the window.

And holy crap, he looks terrible and beautiful, in the way a lightning storm looks terrible when it’s still deciding where to strike. His hair is loose around his shoulders, his shirt unbuttoned at the throat, exposing the mark, now an obsidian black and crawling over his neck towards his jaw. His face is cut from exhaustion and fury, his eyes too bright in the shadows.

It hurts too much to witness his suffering, so I give myself a break by glancing around the room.

There’s food on the table beside the bed.

Actual food. Fruit. Bread. Some sort of cheesy soup. Water. Something rich and warm under a silver cloche.