Page 73 of The Blood that Binds Us

I stop a few feet away from him and clasp my hands behind my back. “I suppose I neglected to thank you for intervening that night,” I say. Despite his demeanor when we spoke after, hehadprotected me in the moment, risking everything to do so.

“You don’t need to thank me,” he murmurs. “Besides, you seemed to have it handled.”

“Were you following us?”

“I overheard my father and Bennett talking about you before the dinner—talking about…things. I knew if he tried to put hands on you, you wouldn’t have it, and I worried what would happen when you didn’t. Bennett carried a reputation for being aggressive with women he deemed entitled to him. I knew him for almost my entire life. You kept fighting him every step, and I knew he would see it as a game, a chase. And if I know anything about you, it’s that you would never let yourself be caught.

“So, I tailed you both after you left. I was following just close enough to hear you, in case he was stupid enough to try anything. I was planning on intervening so you wouldn’t reveal the extent of your power and risk him learning what you were. Not shifting back before getting to you… that wasn’t planned.” He folds his arms across his bare, coppered chest, his slivered eyes narrowing farther as he relives the event from his own memories.

“Why didn’t you shift back?”

His hands slowly curl at his side, and he closes his eyes for a brief moment, as if he needs to keep his wrath in check. When he reopens them, he says, “I heard what he said to you. I was trying to get to you as fast as I could and was going to change at the last minute, but then he… hehityou, and it was like I couldn’t think clearly anymore. In that moment, when he put his hands on you, I didn’t want to change back. I wanted tofeelhim die in my jaws.”

He steps towards me, close enough I feel the heat coming off his body and filling mine with his warmth. I drop my eyes to my feet and hope the moon’s light isn’t bright enough for him to see the flush in my cheeks.

“Wren, you can’t tell anyone about this.”

“I need some answers, Sin. You can’t be talking of war on shifters in one breath, then telling me youareone in the next.”

He blows out a long breath, then runs a hand through his long hair and moves to lean against a nearby tree.

“One might say I am quite good at keeping secrets,” I say, gesturing towards my body to summarize my point.

He rubs a large hand across his jaw, then drops them both to the waist of his trousers, hooking his thumbs into the band. “My mother was a transcendent. My father… he loved her despite what she was. He loved her so much that he kept her identity hidden from everyone, especially Ephraim who was obsessed with plotting how to exterminate their kind altogether. She left when I was young—a boy still. She wished to see her family, so my father arranged for her to meet with them in secret. He told Ephraim he was sending her to scout out locations for healing temples in Baregrove,” he says, his eyes not quite meeting mine as he speaks. “She never returned. They killed her. Murdered her for treason against their kind. They couldn’t accept that she married the Black Hand who was assisting Ephraim in his plans to eradicate transcendents. It did not matter to them that she loved him. My father went mad when he discovered what they had done. He became worse than Ephraim. Escalated action against their kind, hence the restrictions that later became law.”

“Sin…” I trail off, thoughts eluding me as I make sense of his words.

He shifts his weight and kicks one foot up to rest on the trunk behind him. “I didn’t develop it until a few years after she was gone. My father was sure I didn’t inherit the ability because even at a young age, I was wielding destruction magic better than most transcendents ever can. I was terrified to tell him the first time I shifted. He was… so angry. Ashamed that his son was carrying the blood oftheirkind in his veins. I thought he was going to kill me. And I think maybe the only reason he didn’t was because of her. He loved her too much to do that to her only child.

“So, he forced me to keep it a secret, and we told no one. Neither of us ever anticipated I would perform the Rite. When Ephraim died, everyone was certain Adelphia would bless my father, and when she denied him, I know it gutted him—way more than he ever showed to the public eye. The council suggested I perform it next, and it would have been suspicious if he tried to refuse that. I thought for sure Adelphia would have denied me as soon as she sensed I held both the magics in my blood, but she bound a fraction of her power to mine instead. Everyone was thrilled I was chosen—except him, of course. I knew instantly he hated me even more for it, furious that the goddess would have chosen atranscendentover him.

“I inherited the responsibility of defeating Legion, and I already held a reputation on the battlefield. They knew me to be ruthless, cold—I killed many of them during the war with Baelliarah, and even more in Legion strikes. I suppose I can’t blame him for hating me, not after what transcendents did to my mother.”

Tiny cracks split my heart as I listen to Sin’s truth. In all the times I read his collective, I never detected this secret. In hindsight, the overwhelming shame and loneliness I felt each time I peeked in must have been pointing to this all along.

Sin isn’t a monster—he is a transcendent oppressed by his own father, taught to hate his body for the magic that flows through it, and conditioned to despise his own people that reacted to the crimes of his father. Sin’s wickedness doesn’t stem from some royal blooded corruptness; it comes from a lifetime of abuse.

“I’m so sorry about your mother. But never,neversuggest again that your father had any right to do what he did to you. No one deserves to feel they are not worthy of love simply for being as you were created to be.”

“I killed Bennett right in front of you,” he blurts out. “I ripped his throat out with my ownteeth, and you just looked at me standing over his body and asked ifIwas alright,” he says, chuckling once without humor.

“Because I don’t distrust your kind, Sin. Transcendents took me in when I had no one. When my own mother threw me from my home,theywere the ones to take me in. Protected me. Taught me how to fight, how to hunt, how to take care of myself. And Cosmina… while she isn’t a transcendent, I trust her judgment more than anyone’s, and she trusted them. That was good enough for me. I know what it’s like to live with the fear that if the world knew what you really were, they’d kill you in the same breath they accused you with. They don’t understand that just because we have the power to hurt others, that doesn’t mean we will.”

“I killed Thatcher,” he whispers, closing his eyes and resting his head against the tree. Regret casts his face in shadow.

“Nothing can be done to bring him back now, but youcanrevert the laws that threaten them, and youcanwork to clear the prejudices. Adelphia choseyou. Maybe it’s time to start considering why.”

Sin opens his eyes and cocks his head to the side, his hair fanning out across the tree like black vines. “Aegidale will riot against me if they know what I really am.”

“You can convince them otherwise. Show them it is possible for us all to coexist in peace.” I step up to him and square my shoulders to his, forcing him to level with my gaze. “I will keep your secret, Sin.So longas you don’t start a war with them afterwards.”

An ultimatum. I will safeguard his secret on the condition he does not declare war on transcendent-kind. He says nothing, but nods slowly.

He clears his throat. “I never apologized for my behavior when I found you with Cathal. I shouldn’t have lost my temper, and I should have never,” his eyes drop to my neck, “… touched you. Forgive me.”

“I know how strong a caster’s high can be. I almost bit your throat out after you let my magic pummel you like a godsdamned fool.”

He chuckles softly and slips his hands into his trouser pockets. “And I shouldn’t have said what I did the other night. I didn’t mean it,” he adds.

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