Page 94 of Claimed

His eyes narrow.

I stop laughing. Because suddenly I know. The truth sits in my throat, huge and burning and impossible.

I can end this.

Or try.

I can tell him what he has been hunting. Give him Lyra Hannigan and damn whatever is left of the life I built over her grave.

My chest tightens. ‘Valentin,’ I whisper.

Something in his expression shifts at my tone. It’s not softer, probably because it’s more dangerous because it wants to be softer and refuses. ‘What is it, Eira?’

My tongue presses to the back of my teeth. And I feel Bride’s Mercy waking.

Gods. Oh, fucking Gods.

‘Speak,’ he growls.

Cold floods my mouth. I grit my teeth and push through it. I have to. ‘I… need to tell you s-something.’

His grip loosens, and then his face softens by another fraction.

The thread between us, sealed and battered and furious, trembles open enough for me to feel the force of his attention.

‘Then speak,’ he insists.

I drag in one painful breath. And for the first time since I became Eira Cross, I stop running from the name buried behind my teeth. ‘I’m— I’m⁠—’

Pain explodes through my throat. Blood fills my mouth.

Valentin’s eyes go wide, then he roars as the dungeon tilts around me.

And the word I have spent six years trying to keep dead tears me open from the inside.

16

VALENTIN

Blood, vivid and crimson, fills her mouth.

And watching, for one impossible second, I cannot move as Eira’s hand flies to her throat, her fingers clawing at skin as if she can rip out whatever has taken hold inside her.

Her eyes widen, furious first, then shocked, then frightened in a way that dissolves something essential inside me.

The dungeon tilts.

No.

The word tears through me without sound.

Crimson blood spills over her lower lip, human and wrong. It runs down her chin, stains the hollow of her throat, and every part of me built from power, age and violence shatters into one raw command.

Keep her alive.

I catch her before her head strikes stone. ‘Eira.’

Her head falls back against my arm, pulse hammering too fast, too fragile under my hand as her lips part around a wet, broken breath.