Page 178 of Hellbound

“Come here,” he growled. His compulsion had bent kings and killers and everyone in between, only for her to just look at him. “You can’t refuse—”

“Oh, but I can.” Her voice pitched low as she threw a silver hairpin at his feet.

His eyes widened, and he shifted on his heels.

“I can do anything I want.” The sapphire brooch shattered before him.

She was never his to begin with.

“Kill anyone I want.” An obsidian medallion was crushed beneath her heel as she stepped closer.

She was completely outside his control.

“That is what you said, right?” She casually flourished Caromir in her hand.

Wide eyes and pinched brows transformed into a curled snarl and mottled skin. “You—the assassin—”

“Assassin? No—no, Lord King. I’m much more than that, don’t you see?” Her brows shot up, a manic smile painted on her face as she stalked closer. “I am the ghost of your past, the haunting of your present.”

Her eyes flashed, Caromir humming in her palm like a living thing.

Do you see me now?

She tilted her head. “You don’t remember me.”

A step closer.

“You invited me into Hearth.”

Another step.

“Crowned me your Sevrant.”

Another step.

“And you never once asked my name.”

She peered at his inadequacy.

“Say my name.”

Her voice cut him better than any knife could.

His red-rimmed eyes darted from the ferocity of her golden ones to the protective stance she adopted before Danika.

His lip quivered before he forced a smile to his face. “Well played, Ksenia Drazan…” He laughed—a sharp, humorless bark. “I certainly hadn’t expected a dead woman to avenge herself, nor for Vornaya to succeed in sending you back. After all, she’s failed so many times.” His grip curled around Radegast, matching his snarl.

The blade’s blood-stained patina glimmered. Within the metal grain, a writhing pattern of hundreds of screaming faces formed in the dark and light stains along the steel.

His smile turned razor-sharp. “But now that I know exactly who you are…” He tilted his head, considering his prey. “I can try something new.”

The walls began to warp and twist, solid stone flowing together like melted wax, dripping from the ceilings to pool on the floor.

Karsan’s smile never wavered. “Embrace your true self.”

He took a step forward, his boot crunching on the slivers of metal.

Suddenly, he was everywhere. Emerging from the shadows, from behind the furnace, clawing out of the melting wall.