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That is what undoes me. Not the love but the terror.

Because I feel it through the bond, naked and immense. He’s afraid of losing me, maybe of hurting me. Afraid that fate has finally given him something he cannot conquer without destroying. That the curse has already eaten too much time.

I press my mouth to his.

And the kiss is gentle at first. Then it deepens, because we are us, and gentleness has to fight for space between hunger and grief. He doesn’t push. He lets me set the pressure, lets me end it when my throat aches, then rests his forehead against mine with his eyes closed.

‘Say it again,’ I whisper.

His fingers slide into my hair. ‘Lyra.’

The name hurts. It also fits. I breathe through it.

He kisses my temple. ‘My little hunter.’

He holds me as if he has no intention of letting the world touch me without permission. I let him, because the world has already touched me too much, and for tonight, for this sliver of fragile, blood-soaked truth, I want to be held by the monster who learned my names and chose all of them.

Outside the room, the Tower waits.

The curse waits.

Selphine lurks. Morrighan bides her time in whatever darkness mothers monsters.

Inside the bed, Valentin’s arms tighten around me.

I close my eyes. ‘Lyra.’ I test it.

And this time when I say my name out loud, nothing tries to stop me.

24

EIRA

The Tower settles after my confession.

But I know better than to be comforted.

Because a place like Valentin Moretti’s Tower doesn’t quiet because peace has arrived. It quiets the way a predator quiets before the next strike. Wards hum in the walls and the Heartshard Glass pulses dimmer now from the far side of his chambers, watching with its fractured, opinionated silence.

The Twelve move through corridors with a carefulness that makes the air feel polished thin.

And Valentin rarely lets me out of his sight.

At first, I tell myself it’s because I almost bled to death. Twice. Reasonable people might become a little clingy after that, assuming reasonable people also have fangs, a death-clock mark, and a control complex older than several countries.

By the third time he appears behind me because Aaron steps too close while delivering a report, I begin to suspect this is something else.

‘Aaron was giving me paper,’ I say, staring at the ancient vampire now standing between me and one of his most trusted men like the file might contain a live grenade.

Valentin doesn’t look at me. ‘He can give it from farther away.’

Aaron’s expression remains blank, but I hear the faintest flicker of amusement through the open bloodline before he shutters it. Everyone has become very fast at mental privacy since I started hearing fragments. Suspiciously fast.

I snatch the file from Aaron’s hand. ‘Thank you, Aaron.’

Aaron inclines his head. ‘Eira.’

Valentin’s eyes cut sharply to him and Aaron corrects immediately. ‘Lyra.’