Page 76 of The Blood Crown

Panic ripped through the blissful haze and smothered the glow surrounding her as she struggled to shackle the power building in her veins. Ven glanced down at her, tendrils of midnight curling around her body as his shadows whispered to her magick.

“You will never have to dim your power here," he growled. "You will never have to pretend to be anything less than what you are.”

“What if I can’t control it?” she panted, fear bleeding through her voice.

“I’m quite difficult to kill, Love," he whispered against her throat, "but I’d love to watch you try.” He slid into her again, stretching her to the cusp of pain, and with one final growl, he spilled into her—the sensation enough to take her over the edge with him.

White light poured from her, unrestrained and unbidden. From her fingertips—her eyes, until every part of her glowed pale gold against the black backdrop of his shadows, his dark power soothing and subduing the blinding swell of her magick.

"Control it, Ari." Ven's command threatened to snap the tether on her power as light washed over the cavern. "It is your power to wield—yours alone," his deep voice rumbled through the haze.

And darkness caressed her in answer. Shadows wrapping around her skin. Whisper soft as they murmured to her magick, lulling the blistering heat to a gentle flicker of warmth.

Bound.

Maybe she should have felt fear—some kind of hesitation at the knowledge that whatever happened to her now, her fate was linked with his. But only one thought emerged through the tempest of unknowns . . .

Home—thiswas home.Hewas home.

Ven held her in his arms, his chest pressed against her back as she curled into him. Shifting, he looked down to where they were still entangled in each other, to the faint wisps of shadow drifting across the floor.

His dark brows creased, eyes flicking to her as he murmured, “I didn’t summon those.”

Darkness wound around her body, shadows lingering as they seemed to whisper to the crackling energy of her lightning. But they didn't belong to Ven.

He shook his head, lifting her palm in his hand and running his thumb across her skin as if her power might reveal its secrets to him. But the sound of his voice still echoed through her thoughts.

He’d told her to control her magick . . . and she’d summoned shadows.

"In my father's throne room . . ." he paused, voice tinged with disbelief, "I thought maybe Karro had been the one to cover everything in shadow, but then I realized he'd still been shackled when the darkness fell."

She still remembered the visceral feeling as the weight of those cuffs left her wrists, her magick free and unbound . . . She'd only known that they needed a distraction, that they needed a way to escape. And there had been a rage that darkened her power, a hatred that made her want to make Ven's father and his court of monsters suffer and feel . . . terror. Utter terror.

And the shadows had answered her.

Ven's eyes lifted to hers. “Do it again,” he whispered, excitement edging his voice.

She sat up, turning her palms over. “I don’t—I don’t know how.”

“Close your eyes.”

She obeyed as Ven propped himself up behind her, head dropping over her shoulder, arms wrapped around hers.

He cradled her upturned hands in his own, murmuring, “Think of the dark, quiet corners of this cavern. The shadows pooling at the edges.”

She reached for her power—that familiar heat rising to the surface beneath her skin.

“No.” The command was firm, but gentle. “Every magick answers to a different call—you cannot summon shadow the same way you summon lightning.”

She’d only just begun to understand how to call her power, she'd never considered the nuance it would take to command two. And a pang of sadness settled in her chest that Ven’s patience—his relentlessness in helping her control her magick—had stemmed from having to learn to control his own.

Easing back against his warm chest, she focused once more, murmuring to the heat that rose at her call. She thought of the way Ven’s shadows felt when they wrapped around her. Smooth as satin. Caressing as the night air. The magick she reached for whispered like the grey pines. It smelled of damp earth, and citrus, and a chilled breeze—it smelled like . . .

Ven.

Itfeltlike Ven.

Spreading her fingertips wide, she called to the quiet, to the dark. As familiar to her as her own blinding light. And she let out a soft gasp as something brushed against her skin.

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