Page 61 of The Blood that Binds Us

And then it hits me.

Ileana can use her position tomake sureLegionpays for their crimes. She may not have magic in her veins, but being the Black Hand gives her an entirely different kind of power to wield.

Ileana didn’t hide that she knew who and what I was the night in the ballroom. Sin knows she didn’t disclose that sensitive information. He could have executed her for treason. But he didn’t.

“Are you two betrothed?” Perhaps the rumors circulating the ballroom held some truth after all. It would explain why he spared her if she is his intended.

He pauses for a beat and then chuckles to himself. “My father would like that very much, but no, we are not. Even if I was interested, I… I don’t think I could pursue her, at least not for a while. Ileana is still very nervous around men. She won’t be alone with them in a room. Even when she’s alone with me, she is… easily startled. If I courted her, she would feel pressured to accept my advances due to my position, and that isn’t right. She is learning to trust me, and I respect her too much to jeopardize that.”

Sin may have inherited some of the wickedness of his father, but he isn’tthatkind of monster. I roll onto my side and prop my head up with my hand. “Did you fight in the war with Baelliarah?”

“Yes.” His tone is clipped.

“You would have been young,” I say, noting that Sin can’t be much older than me.

“Yes.”

I study his expression that has turned somber, and wonder if he regrets the feud between the two lands, when our transcendents fled to our closest neighbor, seeking refuge from Ephraim’s tyrannical reign. It wasn’t that Ephraim cared about his people that fled—he just didn’t want to risk them forming an army across the sea. Innocent blood was shed in that war, of both transcendent and the mundane that tried to protect them. And Sin had been one of the soldiers that crossed the sea to retrieve what was never theirs in the first place.

“Thank you for taking care of her,” I whisper. Despite my hatred for the kingdom, I’m not ignorant enough to not realize there were far worse fates for my friend.

“I will make you another deal, Wren.”

I prop myself up fully now, noting this is the second time he’s used my actual name tonight. Sin sits up and meets my stare with an expression more serious than I’ve seen on him in a while.

“Fight with me—giveallof yourself to me—and we wipe out Legion permanently. Do that, and I vow to release you.”

My gut clenches as my organs perform a series of somersaults inside my stomach. “When you sayallof me, you mean I would have to kill them?”

He nods slowly. “If it comes to that, which it likely will, yes.”

“You aren’t worried I’ll lose control?”

The Black Art leans towards me, his eyes sweeping both of mine as if searching for a reason not to trust me. “Are you?”

My breath catches. Just this morning, I scolded him for asking me that same thing when neither he nor his predecessors ever bothered to ask before. But now he presents the question laced with compromise.

I rack my brain for the right words to respond with, but it’s as if every thought I ever had, and every argument I rehearsed in my head for this very moment, has vanished. I close my eyes and inhale through my nose, steadying my breath and my thoughts.

“I damn well owe it to myself to try. And even if I lose control and you have to put me down after the war is won, it’s worth it if it means freeing my sister.”

He nods in understanding, and with the moon above as witness, I make a deal with a devil.

His fur is oily beneath my fingertips. I rake my fingers through his sandy coat again and again, wondering what happened to the usual plush blanket he once adorned.

And then I feel the wetness, a warm liquid pooling from his side, and my hand freezes over the thudding pulse of the wound. I try to pull my hand away, but it doesn’t budge. I pull and pull, but my hand is too heavy, stuck in a viscous glove of vital fluid and blood, and then I hear her.

A night splitting scream echoes around us, and I yank my hand from his side, to cover my ears and shut out the sound of her shrieks, but the smell of my palm snags my attention. I turn my hand over in front of me, admiring the thick carmine clots speckling my skin, and the shrilling screams grow louder.

I plunge my fingers between my lips and suck. I suck and suck and suck until my lips screech against my skin, and I slide my fingers out, dipping the point of my tongue into the underside of my fingernail. I look up and find Eldridge watching me, whimpering from the wounds I caused, hurt and betrayal fresh in his storm-colored eyes. Gently, he shakes his magnificent sized head, pleading with me to stop, to remember.

I throw my head back and caterwaul at the memory of who she used to be.

* * *

A hand clamps over my mouth and nose, but before I can throw my elbows into the attacker’s chest, a pair of lips find my ear.

“Don’t move.” Sin’s whisper is barely loud enough to hear. He’s covering me entirely with his body pressed firmly against mine, his palm hugging my mouth and the tips of his hair splayed over my arms like garden snakes. “Don’t make a sound.”

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