XXII

Wrapped tight in the red silk sheets of the rex’s bed, Laila slumbered. It was a most unguarded sleep, peaceful as a babe’s, with tender sounds expelled between restless shifts across the mattress. She looked so delicate, so serene, a pristine porcelain beauty you purchased to place on your most visible shelf.

Only the blackest of hearts would have wanted to disturb it. Unfortunately for Laila, that was just the sort of creature whose shadow now fell across her sleeping form, silver filigreed claws at the ready to peel away the cocoon of silk and lay bare the pale negligee covering what she sought.

Serafina traced a claw across the flimsy gauze shielding Laila’s core. Her star sat insulated from external harm, all that power compressed in one tiny ball of flame just waiting to be snatched. On the bedside, a bottle of white birch sap remained open with the dried cork rolled slightly to one side. Serafina picked it up, examining it, sniffing at the contents with the critical refinement of a wine connoisseur. Then she began to laugh and laugh low, which was enough to startle the sleeping princess awake.

“What are you doing here?” Laila asked, her eyes soft and heavy-lidded, but her body glowed with an infinite amount of heat and light that threatened to erase all in its path.

Serafina only smiled and brandished the bottle towards her with faint amusement. “You didn’t think you’d gotten rid of me that easily, did you?” She lashed out with armoured talons, embedding them in Laila’s stomach.

Laila let out a scream as her skin was shredded with the ease of tearing tissue paper, leaving behind four newly dug trenches of her golden blood.

She awoke gasping, stomach damp with sweat, her negligee untarnished upon inspection. Her chest fluttered in relief, the claws of her nightmare slowly retracting as her senses burned through the fogginess of half-sleep.

Beside her, the bottle of tree sap sat uncapped, and she anointed herself three times with the same symbols Darius used before. At the thought of him, her hand slid across the mattress and found it disappointingly empty of his warmth. She clutched the sheets to her now exposed body, cold without the furnace-heat of his arms, which she had fallen asleep in.

Since the night of the masquerade, Darius had flaunted their relationship openly—an action that had not gone unnoticed or unremarked upon at court. But in his absence, she’d been unable to adjust to the funereal surroundings, the sense that she was sitting in the mouth of an old tomb.

Even his bed was like a sepulchre—built into an alcove and dressed with heavy drapes of velvet, bordered with dark polished wood and grotesques hacked into the frame. Permeating the room was a heavy incense that smelled subtly of myrrh and the residue left on your hands from touching autumn leaves.

A creak at the door stopped her pulse, and she turned with a whirlwind of curls to find that, instead of Serafina, the infiltrator slinking into bed was Darius himself.

“Hey now,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and pressing a kiss to her shoulder. “What’s gotten you so alert?”

Laila relaxed into his embrace and leaned her head on his chest. She didn’t realise how much she longed for his presence to feel secure. “Nothing. Where did you go?”

He pressed another kiss to the corner of her neck. “To speak with my mother.”

Laila grimaced. “I don’t like that you’re keeping her here.”

“We struck an agreement that you would no longer be harmed by her. And I’ll ensure she’ll respect it.”

“Still…”

“Laila, trust me,” Darius said. “She claims she desires to be closer to me out of some… maternal obligation. I don’t believe it for a moment, but sometimes it’s better to keep a dangerous opponent right under your nose. Your safety will always be of the utmost priority. I promise.”

Laila huffed in response, uneasy, but his words provided a soothing balm.

Sensing her disgruntlement, he attempted to counter it. “I want to take you somewhere today. Somewhere nice.”

“Where?” Laila eyed him in suspicion.

“It’s a secret.” He smirked against her neck as his lips trailed up the long column of it.

She didn’t trust that look on his face no matter how nice his kisses felt. She brought him up to look at her, palming his cheek. “Don’t I deserve a little hint?”

His smile only grew more sly.

“Well now you’re making me alarmed.”

He chuckled, leaning in to kiss her. “It’s nothing wicked, I promise. Just wait for it. It’ll be worth the suspense.”

The morning bestowed her with a rejuvenated purpose as a maid arrived to deliver her mail. Laila sat at her rosewood writing desk and broke the wax seal to find mostly positive correspondence in response to her ball. Then she checked the total sums received from the auction.

“What is it, madame?” Marta asked as she caught sight of Laila’s stunned face.

“Well, we received a number of generous donations during the auction, my mother included. I’m certain we can consider this a roaring success!” Laila said as she sorted her letters into a pile. “Were there any other messages?”

“Delanus Levitis wishes to schedule a meeting,” Marta said. “I can get him to come by this afternoon if you’d like.”

“Make it a brunch appointment. I’d rather get that out of the way.” Laila sighed, feeling a twitch of dread in her stomach. “I shall have to wear something… decorous. My blue silk dress should do. The one with the blonde lace.”

Marta assisted her in picking out the appropriate frock and sent a servant to relay the message to Delanus, as well as to the kitchen to prepare a menu of her choosing. Laila opted to leave her hair loose in wheat-gold spirals, half pinned back by the ivory hair comb Darius gifted to her during her stay.

“Well, how do I look?” she asks, doing a slow turn to ensure she got the best of each view.

“Like a princess,” Marta replied.

“That’s the idea.” Laila smiled in amusement, always seeking her reflection in the mirror of others’ sensory acknowledgement of her. Every detail of her appearance was meticulous in choice, so that through every look of desire and scowl of jealousy, she could combat the feeling she was not quite real.

Hearing a knock at the door, she pivoted quickly before turning back. “Wish me luck.”

She bid the knocker enter, and a servant escorted Delanus Levitis into her quarters.

“Thank you for agreeing to see me, Your Radiance,” he said while unclipping the brooch securing his cloak at the shoulders. The engraving of his family crest glinted in her field of vision, some form of sea monster with a long pit of a mouth.

“It is not a problem at all, Prime Delanus,” Laila said, bright and peppy, with buoyancy in her step. “Please make yourself comfortable. We have plenty of lunch for two.”

Delanus paused with his cloak neatly slung and smoothed over his forearm. “That wasn’t necessary.”

“Nonsense,” she admonished, but her tone was whimsical, paired with a swish of her hand. “You don’t think I’d let you talk on an empty stomach, do you?”

Delanus remained cautious and uncertain, not losing his harried expression until a servant came and had to practically wrestle his outerwear away. “I didn’t mean for this to be more than a quick visit.”

“Oh, come now,” Laila insisted. “You’ll make me feel simply rotten eating alone. It’s about time we talk since the… incident.”

She could see this has the intended effect, as he shifted even more uncomfortably and his chest deflated. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”

Her smile beamed bright enough to scald.

“Excellent,” she said, pirouetting into the room, where the table had already been set for two. White bobbin lace shawled the mahogany, with a fragrant rose runner reclining across the middle, tumbling petals across the ornate rug. She had used her own gold-rimmed porcelain with a scalloped edge and a chiselled frieze of plump-cheeked starlets set in the lip.

“Please sit,” she said, drawing out a seat for him.

Suspended beneath glass domes was the first course: a strawberry gazpacho garnished with cornflowers, served with fresh steaming flatbread garnished with rosemary. Sliced bread was folded neatly in a handwoven basket with a small bowl of olive oil for dip.

Delanus did as she said and reached for the folded napkin, fanning it out and tucking it within his collar.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I am starving.” Laila slid into her seat and spread her napkin across her lap. “Can I offer you something to drink? I have rose cordial at hand, but I do know how you occassi like that fancy wine from rotted grapes so I have plenty of it stocked up, if that’s what your palate desires.”

He piped up a little too eagerly. “I’ll take the graviji wine, if you’d please.”

She turned to the servants applying the finishing touches to the table. “You heard the fellow, and it’ll be cordial for me, thank you.”

She took a demure sip of soup as the sweet cordial tinkled into her glass.

“So if we might return, Your Radiance, to why I am here,” Delanus said, setting his glass of wine at the table.

She picked up a slice of warm bread and dipped it in olive oil. “By all means.”

“Let us not mince our words,” Delanus said, then took a spoonful of soup—for politeness or courage, she could not yet tell. “I’d like to ask that you stop bedding the rex.”

Her piece of bread paused before its journey’s end, and she let herself take a bite to stall for thought. She hadn’t expected him to be so direct, but she could see this was simply the way of the country. “I’m afraid what I do with my spare time isn’t any of your business, Prime Delanus.”

“Now on that, you are incorrect.” He sounded irritable as he pinched the bridge of his nose and took a long drink. “If what you are doing in your spare time puts my country at risk, then it happens to be very much my business.”

The suggestion within those words sent a ripple of dread through her. Several unwanted scenarios flashed through her mind about how he was willing to enforce this request, instead she decided to settle for pridefulness.

“With all due respect, Prime Delanus, if me sleeping with the rex is enough to destabilise your nation, then I fear it may have far greater issues to contend with.”

“And Darius Rex is in the midst of sorting them. Hence he can’t afford any diversions from his goals. He is the most logical person I have ever known, and yet when it comes to you, he appears to cease on that. Now he is all but cohabiting with a solarite. You cannot imagine how this looks.”

Her fingers bristled with static. She suppressed it by clutching the handle of her spoon and soothing the swell in her throat with soup. “I don’t see what this has to do with me.”

“It has everything to do with you. Before you, Darius was somewhat sensible about how to maintain his position here, which has been a delicate thing since his father was overthrown. He needs to secure his line and produce an heir for the nation. A full-blooded occasso. You can offer him neither of these things.”

She dropped her spoon. “I may not be a fitting candidate for the much-desired role of broodmare, but it appears that hasn’t stopped him from desiring me.”

Delanus’s expression settled into one of cautious resignation. “No, it hasn’t. Hence the problem.”

Now she was furious and insulted. A surge of power sparked at her fingertips. She closed her hands into fists. “And suppose I reject your request? What then?”

He shifted a little in his seat, crossing his legs, curling his fingers. She wondered how much effort it was taking him not to reveal his fangs, to succumb to his ancestral plea to dominate and threaten. Such was the nature of the beast, the master of the food chain.

“Your Radiance.” Delanus exhaled with an exasperated chuckle as the capillaries in his eyes began to blacken. He ran a hand down to his chin. “I was hoping you wouldn’t make this difficult.”

But she was numb and impassive, a carved glass figurine. Delanus found himself wanting to seize her and shake her—put a scuff on that perfect composure.

“Perhaps you and I can come to some other arrangement.” A lecherous scrawl of a smirk came as Delanus reached for her knee. “Darius always seemed idiotically happy after a night in your presence. You ought to let me have a dip between your thighs and see if I’ll become a fool too.”

Laila primly clipped her knees together and secreted her disgust behind a smile, unwilling to let him get a rise out of her like he intended. “I think the rex might have some objections.”

“Well, you wouldn’t be the first lover we’ve shared.”

That had given her pause, a weakness he was quick to scent.

“Ah, you didn’t know about that, did you? Our history? Yes, I’ve had quite a bit of him myself in the past. It’s how he lures you. Keeps you enthralled. I’m afraid you’re just another in a long line of pretty butterflies he’s seduced into his net.” His sneer grew pronounced, a drop of pure venom clinging to the edge of his words. “You think you’re special? I can assure you, you’re not. He’ll have you believe you’re the sole subject of his fascination for a time—he always does. But once the novelty has passed and he finds another whose utility surpasses your own… well. Then you’ll be pinned to a mount and shoved in a drawer with the rest of us.”

His words shook her confidence, but she refused to let on how much, choosing instead to steer the direction of the conversation to something more her speed. “We’re not on opposing sides, you and I, Delanus. I am probably one of the only true allies that you have in Soleterea. I have invested a lot of my time and energy to keep you all in the good graces of my mother and advocate on your behalf. Brokering treaties, speaking up on your immigration grievances, sending you aid throughout your harshest winters. Part of that is out of fondness for Darius, I’ll admit, but also out of affection to your land despite how it feels about me in turn. It’d be a shame to squander such a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

She lifted another spoonful of soup to her mouth and sipped daintily at the edge, her lashes sweeping low. An innocent display for one not quite so altruistic as she might seem.

“Are you making a threat?” he asked. And there it was, the fine point of a canine poised to descend. Not that she could blame him too much. After all, she knew what came of backing a feral animal into a corner, but she didn’t arrive without an arsenal.

“Not a threat, no,” she said, and she polished it with a smile. “Just a… polite suggestion.”

He leaned back in his chair. “You know, for a moment I thought the rumours about you were true and you were nothing more than a feather-headed socialite,” he said. “It appears I was wrong.”

“Stay for the entree, won’t you?” Her chilled veneer unsheathed as the roseate warmth returned to her voice. If he was going to challenge her, let it be under full illumination of what he was taking on.

He grunted, a beast humbled, and took up his soup spoon. “Of course.”

They dined on doves in hibiscus sauce, presented on a bed of couscous and toasted pistachios. For dessert, there was a sweet pastry of candied raspberries, white chocolate, and flakes of gold leaf filled with rosewater mousse.

A light summer meal for the one who emitted the season—who would thaw through the ancient permafrost of tradition with her scorching equatorial heart.

From the shores of his black sand beach, Laila and Darius took a boat out onto the pale waters, bringing with them cherry wine and midsummer fruit dipped in white chocolate, which they took turns feeding each other as Darius rowed.

Laila leaned back against the myriad of cushions, a bouncing cascade of ribbon curls against her shoulders. The ocean air was smooth and saline, the glum sky cotton-soft with overcast until streaks of pure sunlight bled through the gauze of clouds and struck her glittering skin. She was radiant as always; she had never not been.

When he had rowed them out far enough, Darius paused and helped himself to a drink of wine. “We should hear back from my chimera soon and learn if she was successful in her mission.”

Laila deliberated on this as she stuck out her hand and let her fingers skate across the water. “Let’s hope it’s good news.” She moved forward and framed the hollow crevice of his cheek with a hand, and then sought the other. “How are you feeling?”

“Resolute, mostly. To be perfectly honest, I just want this over with.” He took her by her hips and pulled her to lie on his chest. “And you?”

“I don’t know how I feel about seeing him again but… I don’t think Dominus should die. I didn’t then, and I don’t now. Like you, I want this to be over with. No more violence. No more conflict. No more death.”

Her sweet perfume intermingled with the warmth of her body, and Darius could think of no place he’d rather expire than this one.

“Death is for lesser creatures, Laila, not for us,” he assured her, sealing it with a kiss pressed to her forehead. “What else is troubling you? You’ve been quiet on the entire journey here.”

She withdrew from him and moved to sit back on the other end of the boat. “I was paid a visit by Delanus today. He seemed to be under the impression he could threaten me to stay away from you.”

He exhaled in irritation and traced his fingers down the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry he did that.”

“You should be. It was humiliating. Not to mention ineffective. Tell me, just how many of your old lovers will attempt to intimidate me?”

“He will not do something like that again, you have my word,” he said, taking a buoyant curl from her abundant mane and tracing his thumb over the soft, feathered texture. “I can kill him if you want me to.”

She knew he would do it if she asked it of him. He would be the hunter with the bloody maw dragging his fresh catch between his teeth. He would be the woodcutter with the rusted axe ready to fell forests to feed her fire.

There was a little self-satisfied twitch in her lips she was quick to mask as she gave an inquisitive tilt of her head. “Wouldn’t that be an awful inconvenience?”

“Delanus is replaceable,” he said with a shrug. “It is not a contest as to which of you I value more, Laila.”

She gave him a look soft-edged with intimacy before she shook her head. “No, I think Delanus and I have come to an understanding. The last thing I need in this country is more enemies.”

“As you wish,” he granted, lowering his hand to her shoulder. “But he will still require punishment. I can’t have anyone else in the ranks thinking they can treat you with anything but the respect you deserve.”

Her spine prickled in remembrance of his earlier words when he had promised her that he would destroy anyone who got between them. It didn’t scare her or disgust her the way she felt it should. The relentless torch of his affections and the monstrous devotion that inflamed it. She’d be dead in this country several times over without it. Perhaps that made her something of a monster too.

Singing beckoned in the distance, the eerie and enigmatic vocals of a siren. It snuck upon Darius’s shoulders with insidious allure and evoked a chill on his neck that seeped down to his spine. “It’s started.”

Laila sat up so suddenly that the boat swerved.

He steadied it with ease, a rise of laughter warming his chest as he watched her, eyes shining with intrigue when the first cluster of sirens swooped near them.

They circulated in elegant formation, their wings and scales bioluminescent with fluctuations of colour, unified in a harmony that was as devastatingly beautiful as it was cruel. For this was their mating call, the song they sang to lure the travel-wearied sailor to his early grave. Even now Darius could feel the inescapable tug of it, surpassed only by his fixation on Laila’s unearthly joy.

“Oh, it’s beautiful,” she sighed with longing, head coming to rest against her arms on the edge of the boat.

“There’s nothing quite like it,” he said, saluting to her with his wine glass. “I’m glad I was able to show it to you before the season’s end.”

He watched the sunlight filter through the clouds, ordaining her with its halo, and something stirred in him, more refined than carnal hunger: true aspiration.

An ideal to reach for.

He saw in her a freedom he couldn’t embody. So close to him he could almost grasp it. The freedom to be benevolent, gentle, incorruptible. How thirstily he scuttled to the sweetness of this newborn blossom at the cusp of spring. For if he could have no absolution, never feel the cleansing waters of redemption purify him of the centuries of blood caked beneath his fingernails, then at least he could have this—a guiding light in the sunless forest of his depraved mind.

“I want you to marry me.”

How quickly her smile froze on her lips in surprise. “What?”

He realised the severity of his words once he’d said them, but he couldn’t bring himself to pull back. “I once offered you a country and a crown. That offer still holds if you’d take it.”

She paused, but there was a small glint of a challenge in her eyes. “Regina is a large step down from impératrice.”

“Then why stop there? Let us be insatiable gluttons who will unite a realm in our vision. Together we could be unconquerable. If you choose to be by my side now, I cannot promise that it will be without trial or dissent. Only that I will love you as much as it is possible for something like me to love, that I will shelter and support you, that I will fight and kill for you. Always and everlasting.” He took her hands and bowed his head, as though it were the most natural position he could take. Let him be the first of the land she conquered. Let her pitch her flag on the arch of his spine. “Do you accept?”

She thought of every trial they’d faced together thus far and knew, whatever path she took, there was not a single one she’d want to walk without his constancy at her side. As long as he was near, nothing seemed insurmountable. Not even the doubts plaguing her heart. “I accept.”

He united their mouths as behind them the sun was consumed by a cloud, leaving them cross-hatched in light and shadow.

“We shall have to tell my mother, someday,” Laila mentioned as they travelled back towards his quarters through the Portrait Hall. She had her arm slung through his elbow, and as they walked, he stole a glance at the empty space across from his likeness, the place where her own portrait would soon hang.

“Don’t suppose you might… soften her up before the news?”

Laila slowed to a pause. “You’re not afraid of my mother, are you, Darius?”

“Afraid? No,” he said with a soft chuckle. “Petrified? Only a little bit.”

She laughed before leaning in to kiss him. “Don’t worry, we’ll just tell her she’ll be the impératrice of six realms rather than five. That ought to soften the blow of our marriage.”

“Well now, isn’t that something?” came Katerina’s soft, mocking croon as she obstructed the doorway to his quarters. “I suppose congratulations are in order.” She moved forward, the shadow she cast long and relentless.

“You,” Laila seethed.

“Stay away from her,” Darius said, a snarl in his voice and venom on his fangs. “Your presence is not wanted.”

Katerina tutted in disapproval. “Now, now, I’m just here on behalf of your mother. She’s been missed back at the Widowlands.”

“By all means, take her,” Laila retorted.

“Laila.” Darius stepped in front of her as if to shield the delicacy of her light. “If you don’t mind, I would like to speak with Katerina alone.” He could see that her face was set for arguing so he was quick to add, “We’ll talk later, I promise.”

Laila huffed angrily, but she nodded as she looked to Katerina with a simmering rage.

“As you wish.” She leaned in to seize his lips for an extended kiss before she looked at Katerina, the possession infused in the gesture clear. Then she clicked away in her court heels and closed the door with a whiny groan behind her.

Darius blurred towards Katerina too fast for her to comprehend, slamming her body against the wall with a crack. “Give me one good reason,” he taunted as he gripped her chin, “why I shouldn’t slay you where you stand?”

“Aw,” Katerina pouted. “Don’t tell me you’re still harbouring a grudge? Just think, if it weren’t for me, you two might have continued dancing around each other for a century!”

Darius snarled as he wrestled the urge to rip her heart out. If only to prove she had one.

Katerina arched towards him with a croon of appreciation, egging him to go further. “I guess it’s true what they say. Occassi will tell you they aren’t the marrying sort for decades and then snap up a bride in under six months.”

“Please.” Darius rolled his eyes. “You never wanted to be regina.”

“Perhaps not.” Katerina pushed herself further to ghost her lips against his. “I did rather like our arrangement. Still, it would’ve been nice to be offered.”

Darius tugged away from her. “What’s this about, Katerina?”

“We had a deal, Darius. And you’re letting her ruin everything. Do whatever you wish with the kingdom, but allow the Vidua Nocte to remain untouched. This ætherglass? You know what will happen if blood magic loses its hold. The moment that shield slips, the landmasters will hunt us for sport.” Katerina lifted a hand to strike him, but Darius caught her wrist.

“Raise your hand to me again, and I’ll break it.” His eyes smouldered in warning. “If you do what I ask, then I will make the Vidua Nocte a protected class, enshrined into law. There will be no hunt. No mass slaughter. But I’m going to need something from you.”

Katerina’s shoulders sagged from the departure of her pride, and she kept her eyes downcast to avoid facing him and the defeat she’d suffered, wondering when the scales had tipped to her needing approval from him. “Such as?”

“Perform the heartless ritual.”

“That’s Serafina’s spell and you know it. And you knew better than to ask her.”

“Perhaps I will, then.” Darius cast her a cold smile as he heard footsteps approach. “Hello, Mother.”

Serafina prowled into the room and propped a hand on her hip. “I can see I’ve been summoned.”

“Serafina…” Katerina’s entire body sagged with relief. “Thank Calante, you’re safe. We worried he was—”

“Harming me?” Serafina’s lips lifted in one corner. “And you thought you’d come to plead on my behalf? You never beg an occasso for mercy. I taught you better than that.” Her attention turned to Darius. “I heard about your betrothal through the wall. Congratulations. Though not my first choice for a daughter-in-law.”

It shouldn’t have struck him so hard that she might comment on his choice of bride, as though she had any right to. “I’d prefer if you’d refrain from making comments where my betrothed is concerned.”

“Why? Are you concerned I might offer you advice that you might actually listen to?”

“I have no interest in your advice. I’m not my father.”

“Well clearly against all odds you are, Darius. I won’t lie—you are in many respects his better, but you have his same hubris and the same utterly aggravating habit of being led astray by the whims of your cockhead.” Serafina narrowed her eyes at him. “Choosing not to marry an occassella, as much as I may despise the institution, is inadvisable, and walking out in public with a solarite on your arm is all but advertising to your country where your priorities lie. And that it is not with them.”

“You dare lecture me about priorities when you saw fit to walk out on yours on a mere whim? Where were your feelings of duty when you cast me aside, when you tried to murder me for the sake of appeasing your mistresses in the Vidua Nocte? When you turned your back to my father when he asked for your hand?” Darius had to balk at her audacity, pacing from side to side. “Marriage and queenship were never good enough for you, but you’d still wish for me to bind myself to someone I do not care for and sire sons from her.”

“I do not pretend to like the system, but unless you intend to change it or cheat it then this is simply what it is, Darius. And if the alternative is allowing Soleterea greater gains over controlling us, then I cannot in all honesty say I approve of that. I do not trust those creatures, nor that their intentions are honest and true. For all they claim to represent the light, they had no trouble going under the cloak of darkness to rid themselves of your father.”

“Then I will learn from my father, by taking his tactics and making them better.” Darius put his hand absently over the dark drum in his chest and felt the steady rhythm of all his frailty. He heard the leer of his father’s mockery in his ear telling him he couldn’t have it all. Not the foreign bride and the peace of his kingdom both at once. The demand for a Calantis heir would make it so he would need to shoulder the survival of his line alone. For that, he would need to be better than strong. He would need to be invulnerable. “You did the ritual once before to make him heartless so that he might be shielded eternally from true death. Do the same for me, and I will not make the mistake that he did. Heartless, I will be unstoppable by both the kingdom and Soleterea.”

Serafina’s jaw twitched in disapproval. “You don’t even see that you are already making a mistake. Completing that ritual for him was the worst thing I ever did. It was completely reckless. You were too young to understand what losing his heart did to your father, Darius, how it ruined him irreparably. I cannot do the same to you. I refuse to.”

His back tightened at the challenge. “I could make you.”

She held the intensity of his gaze and the threat therein with ease. “What more could you do to me that hasn’t been done already? Many rexes before you have tried to triumph over us and failed.”

His upper lip peeled back into a snarl as he turned his back. “Then you all can rot.”

“Darius—” Katerina lunged for him before being halted by Serafina’s hand.

“Don’t.” Serafina took her hand and laced their fingers together to lead her away. “This discussion is not over, Darius. I hope you know that.”

Darius suppressed the pang of envy as he observed their tenderness. “You know, you were wrong before. You ripped my father’s heart out long before you completed the ritual, and he never stopped punishing me for it.”