Page 37 of Ronan

“… but he snuck up on a highly trained officer and drove that blade through his heart without hesitation. And the way he argues? Ronan, he is magnificent.”

“And you won’t get anywhere close to him.”

Commander Bravis sighs, indifferent to the blade pressed against his jugular. “You always had an affinity for making things more difficult than necessary.” In a single move, he pulls out his sword and knocks mine back, assuming a fighting stance as that smile spreads. “It really is too bad you’re forcing me to do this the hard way.”

“You sound like every cliché villain ever,” Cameron calls from behind me as my sword meets the commander’s,and I grit my teeth as I force myself to focus on the fight in front of me.

Metal clashes as our weapons send a spray of sparks into the sky, and we dance a deadly waltz, swinging heavy blows that throw us both off balance. We separate as we find our footing. “Come on, Ronan, I taught you everything you know. Do you really think you can best me? I’ll give you one last chance to share him with me before I rip you apart and take him for myself.”

Fury unlike any I’ve ever experienced consumes me, and I charge, bellowing a guttural challenge. His eyes flash a brief flicker of shock before he uses his considerable muscle to force me back, driving his sword in a perfected pattern built over decades of battle. A brutal onslaught of blows vibrates the hilt in my hand, but I return his attack with just as much intensity. Visions of Cameron in his control spur me forward as I match his ferocity.

His sword whistles past my face as I jerk back, the searing heat of his blade a near miss that grazes my cheek. The warm rush of blood streams over my skin as he snarls in triumph. “You’ll never win,” he taunts, rushing me as I parry and knock him aside. “Do you wonder what will happen to that mark when you’re dead? Maybe I’ll mark him for myself—”

The whoosh of my sword cuts off his words as I feint, redirecting my blade into his exposed ribs. His attempt at a block is too slow, and I snarl at the contact. Though his armor absorbs the brunt of the blade, the wind is knocked from his lungs with a grunt. Fury twists his face into something terrible, his roar shaking the very air as he lunges forward with strength that catches me off guard.

A cry shatters in my throat as his blade finds its mark, searing pain blossoming where the steel slices between the edge of my glove and my sleeve.

It’s a rare weak spot—one that he knows how to exploit.

I stumble back, the slick, hot trickle of my blood filling the fingers of my glove in a sticky heat. He catches me again in my biceps, and even though it’s stopped by my armor, the force of the blow sends a bone-deep shockwave that drops me to my knees.

“You should’ve known you weren’t a match for me,” he sneers, the glint of his sword catching the light as he pulls it back in a deadly arc. “You haveneverbeen a match for me, Ronan.” Defeat weighs heavily in my stomach as the world moves in slow motion.

“Ronan, please,” Cameron whispers from behind me,pleading, and the fear in his voice stirs the monster inside me. The mark on my palm is a wildfire as my eyes dart up to the commander, and I dodge at the last second. When his sword finds nothing but air, the unexpected force causes him to stumble and almost fall. More animal than human, I bellow as I ram my shoulder into his stomach.

A pained grunt whooshes out of him as we hit the earth, his breath stolen by the impact of my body. My tail lashes around his wrist, immobilizing his sword hand as the other two constrict his throat, and his eyes flare as he bucks his hips, trying to throw me off him.

“Never threaten my mate,” I growl, grunting when his head snaps forward and smashes into mine, crunching my nose with one of the blunt horns on his forehead. Fresh blood drips from my nostril as I struggle to keep him inplace, and my tails slide away from his neck as I replace them with the point of my blade.

“Do it, I fucking dare you,” he taunts, lifting his chin. “You never had the balls to do anything without orders, Ronan. That’s why I had to take you. So young, so impressionable, but I saw your potential. It was so easy to make you mine once everyone else was out of the way. Such a mindless killing machine once we got past that annoying need for comfort and love.”

My eyes flare as I recognize the truth in his words, and I’m deathly calm as I lean into his ear. “I was never yours,” I whisper, and a slow gurgle replaces his response as I press my sword into his neck. The blade punctures through flesh and muscle until it meets the resistance of bone. I give a final, furious thrust, and a sickening crunch echoes in the stillness.

Further and further, I sink the sword until it passes through to the ground below. His eyes widen as he chokes on his own blood, his life extinguished as a crimson pool spreads beneath him.

Take you…

That’s why I had to take you…

Visions of the massacre in my village flash through my mind, turned into nothing but bloody nightmares through the lens of time.But it was the radicals that attacked… it’s when Commander Bravis took me in, barely old enough to remember life beforehand.

Lies.

Lies, lies,lies… Nothing more than the false words of a dying man. It has to be.

Because if it isn’t…

Hands land on my shoulders, but I only plunge my blade deeper as I quake with rage. “Ronan, he’s dead,” Cameron says, his voice miles away as I shake my head. Bloodlust drives my sword further until the hilt meets the mutilated skin of his neck, but still, it’s not enough.

“It’s done,” he tries again, grabbing my face and forcing it to his. “He’s gone… you killed him. It’s over.” I twist in his grip, trying to track my prey beneath me as Cameron yanks my head.

Bright blue eyes are all I see, his voice breaking through the cloud of my rage. “Come back, Ronan,” he whispers, inching nearer, and everything is blue… so blue, like my feet have left the ground and I’m hovering, lost in the sky. “You promised you’d come back to me, so come back.”

Soft lips land on mine and everything inside me rearranges.

Every vein.

Every drop of blood.

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