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She was never theirs anyway. Not really. From the moment the songbird tried to appeal to a serpent, she was mine.
“So, who are you, little bird?” A rush of something dangerous hummed in my bones. “Yours, I suppose. For a little while.” My shadow made a noise, a sound deep and throaty like a growl. He leaned his masked face near mine, the heat in his strange eyes burned in desire. “Speak more words like that, and I will need to keep you longer than a little while.”
The Ever King could lick my damn ass if he thought I would stay unarmed a moment longer.
“I thought it was my father’s power calling me through, but you called to me. You are drawn to the sea; you’re drawn to the Ever, to me.” Livia visibly paled. “What are you saying?” I touched my thumb to her bottom lip, tracing the gentle lines. “I found my mantle, Songbird. It’s you.” I paused for half a breath, then I kissed her.
“Get out, love.” Erik glared at me like he might throw me to his ravenous people. Don’t break. I gritted my teeth. “Plan to make me walk through all this, Bloodsinger? See if I arrive at my prison in one piece?” “Your ability to conjure such brutal scenarios is, quite possibly, my favorite thing about you, but you won’t be doing any of it. You’ll be in the royal coach.” “Why?” A wickedness, dark and a little mad, lived in his gaze. He used a thumb to wipe some of the sour juice off my cheek. “Because you are mine.”
“I am preparing to claim you as mine, so you should know that will be the last time another man’s name is on your tongue.”
“Who is this, My King?” “Mine,” was all he said before he led us to the furthest corridor.
“You promised you would get me in your grasp, then watch me bleed. You’ve succeeded in that, and I hate you for it, Songbird.” A sharp crack carved through my chest, but before my heart fell out in shambles, Erik pulled my lips close to his. “I am in your hands, I am at your command, for you have made me love you, and you will be my destruction because of it.”
“You’ve haunted me, love. Since the end of that war, I’ve never forgotten you.” He burrowed his face in the soft space of my neck.
“Be sure before doing this, love. Do this, and I don’t go back. You’re mine.”
“I said I’m yours.” I trapped his face in my palms. “I’m waiting for you to become mine.”
“If I cry your name,” she whispered against my lips. “Then you better shout mine, you bastard.”
I knew little about love. Distant memories of a beautiful mother who told me she loved me each day, but everyone else looked at me with fear or disdain. I had a blackened heart, one driven by power and restoring a shattered kingdom, but in this moment, whatever jagged pieces I had to give, I wanted them to be Livia’s. Bring my destruction. Ruin the kingdom from my weakness, but perhaps this was the emotion Livia mentioned—where empires and worlds didn’t matter so long as she lived. Preferably in my arms.
My desire was Bloodsinger. All of him, every scar, every glimpse of his beautiful black heart, I wanted for myself.
She bloodied her hands to save me.
“We all have darkness in us.” I closed my eyes, recalling the words my mother spoke to me before she died. “But there is beauty in the darker pieces as much as there is in the light. We find it by how we use our darkness.
“You took me,” I whispered. “I should hate you for it, but you showed me your darkness. Turns out I’d cross the skies—or seas, in our case—searching for your kind of darkness, Bloodsinger.”
“I love you. Every dark, beautiful piece.”
