Page 7 of The Dragon and the Dove

The boy pouted. ‘I guess now is a bad time to talk about my turn?’

Ruffling his hair, she gently nudged him towards his bedchamber. ‘Go on, before Ransom sends a monster after you. Or perhaps you’d like a giant serpent to tuck you in tonight?’

Tobias had the good sense to shudder. ‘Nah, I’m all right.’

He took off, leaving Sera alone in the north passage. Suddenly, her bedchamber felt impossibly far away. The ground tilted as she walked, the bones in the walls looming closer …

She ducked into an alcove just as a coughing fit struck. It was quick and violent, bending her double, staining her sleeve with blood. When she wiped her mouth, she found more on her fingers.

She had to get to her chamber.

Stumbling out of the alcove, she froze at an oncoming shadow. One of Ransom’s bloodhounds was patrolling the north passage.

Where shadows roamed, their master was never far behind.

Dread shot through her.

Ransom couldn’t see her like this, couldn’t know that something had gone wrong tonight. That he had been right to tell her not to do it…

He might not let her try again.

She crouched against the wall, waiting for the bloodhound to pass, then hobbled to her bedchamber to scrub herself clean.

Long after the blood was gone, the dread remained.

Chapter 2 Ransom

Ransom was going mad. In the inky dark of the bedchamber he shared with Seraphine, he swore he heard scraping. Fingernails dragged across stone. Over and over. Every time he bolted upright in bed and turned up his oil lamp, there was nothing but the same old shadows spilling across the walls.

He flung his hand out, reaching for Seraphine. Her side of the bed was warm, but she wasn’t there. She must have slipped out to use the bathroom. Flopping backwards, he traced her handprint on his chest, the golden skin there proof that she had saved his life.

That he was a saint now.

His blood, his heart, his destiny belonged to her.

She’d been passed out when he came to bed earlier, her golden hair like a halo across the pillow. Making Theo Versini had wrung every last drop of energy from her, and the bastard was still sleeping. After almost a week of badgering Sera, he’d finally got his way.

They had yet to find out what divine gift – or curse – Versini would discover once he bothered to wake up.

If it was worth what Sera had suffered for it.

In the dark, the smell of her lingered. Lemon blossom in the spring, along with a new disquieting feeling. Something he could not yet name.

It was nearing dawn, and Ransom had barely slept. He scrubbed his hands through his hair, sensing the ever-present tug of his magic at work. Even now, his bloodhounds were stationed throughout the catacombs like sentinels. Seraphine hated the adders, and his ravens always flew a touch too low in here.

The hounds were the most civilized of his creations, but as thoughts of the Silver-tongue Saint and his grasping plans for the kingdom festered, Ransom found himself itching to try grander designs, deadlier beasts…

Seraphine would chew him out for it. He was already pushing himself too far, staying awake most nights, wringing out his magic for all it was worth and leaning ever further into that dark pool inside him.

If he went on like this, he’d burn out.

Or worse – become one of the monsters he conjured.

He wanted more than anything to give Seraphine the sun. Breezy days above ground where Arthos and all its kingdoms were theirs to explore, and fear was a distant thought. But with Valterre on the brink of war, what choice was there?

With only shadows to his name, Ransom could offer simply this: a dark undying devotion.

He would die for her.