Page 115 of The Dragon and the Dove

Bastian. Her Bastian.

He scrubbed his jaw. ‘I lost my head. When I came in and saw him on his knees like that…’

Her heart sank, as she imagined the scene from his eyes. ‘It was nothing. I thought I had injured my ankle.’ The lie was small, a bandage to cover a grander, more terrible truth. Now was not the time to reveal it, not while he was still teetering on the edge of destruction. ‘We weren’t… It wasn’t…’

‘I know,’ he said, evenly.

But there was doubt in his eyes. Beneath the veil of his anger, there was hurt.

‘I would never do something like that to you.’ She reached for him, sliding her hands up his chest. ‘I would never want to.’

His hands found her waist and he pulled her close, bowing his head until his lips ghosted hers. ‘What we have, Seraphine… It’s a different kind of magic entirely. Rarer than gold blood and dark shadows. And far more precious.’

Not sainthood but fate.

She smiled against his lips. ‘Once in a lifetime.’

‘Far longer than that, spitfire.’

They kissed, soft and slow. And when the last of his fury had dissolved on her lips, she stepped back, hooking her finger around his. ‘We have bigger enemies to face, Ransom. Don’t waste your anger on Theo.’

A long beat of hesitation.

‘It’s not anger, Seraphine. It’s fear.’ He let her go, the shadows returning to claim him. ‘I’m afraid that there will come a time when you ask me to kill him, and it will be too late.’

Chapter 29 Ransom

Ransom stormed off to the forest. The scent of lichen thickened as he crossed the treeline, and eventually he came upon a clearing where he could break whatever the hell he wanted. The trees loomed over him, looking gnarled and mournful.

He leaned against a stretch of bark and remembered to breathe.

Just … fucking breathe.

Shadows leaked from fists, blanketing the dirt. It was getting worse, the pull of his magic. His anxiety wasn’t helping, the fear of losing her was like a vice around his heart. He had reason to worry, even if Seraphine had set aside her better judgement.

Versini was a soul-eater. A thief of power. A saint-killer.

Fate had unmasked his true nature. Now it was only a matter of time before he succumbed to it. Ransom knew the temptation well enough already. Every day, the tide of his own darkness lapped ever higher.

More shadows spilled, wreathing the trees. Ransom paced. Blackness swirled, gathering in a tornado. Leaves skittered and took flight before withering to nothing.

More, demanded the old voice. You can do more.

More than snakes.

More than hounds.

Tipping his head back, he let his magic unspool. The dark streamed from him like smoke, the whole of the sky disappearing beyond its seething canopy.

And still that voice cried, More!

Alone in the black woods, he became an artist again, and conjured something new. Death filled the clearing, the moss on the trees turning to ash as his shadows clumped like wet clay. He crafted the body first, half an oak tall and ten times as wide, its barrel chest heaving with phantom breath.

The legs were next, each one thick as a tree stump. Then arms, long and lithe, with claws so sharp they curved at the ends. He tunnelled deeper still, diving into the pool of his magic. With more power, he conjured scales of charcoal and midnight, and a ridged tail that wound all the way around the clearing. The head then, and it was both mighty and terrifying, with orb-like eyes of silver mist. Last, he made the wings, each one wide enough to smother the sun.

With his back pressed to a tree at the edge of the clearing, Ransom had to tilt his chin to behold the entirety of his creation, this menacing portent of doom, this fearsome bringer of death.

It was beautiful, a thing of rage and teeth and power, made to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies. To soar and swoop and kill without remorse.