Page 96 of The Blood that Binds Us

A smile stretches across her rounded face. “Now Ireallywouldn’t refuse you an offer,” she says with approval. “Legion nor I ever touched your sister. I am surprised actually that someone with your abilities has been manipulated so easily. Perhaps you should have searched a little closer to home while looking for her.”

“Leave now,” Sin warns, his top lip curling over his teeth.

“Where is she?” I demand, taking a step towards her, magic flowing to my arms instinctually. Sin’s mother or not, I will rip the blood from her body, ounce by ounce, until she tells me.

“I wouldn’t expect you to believe me. Ask her yourself,” she says, waving a hand to the opened gate behind her.

Appearing in the portcullis tunnel, her arm draped over Cornelius’s shoulder, Cosmina limps towards us.

Goddess above.

“You traitorous cunt,” Dusaro seethes, watching the eldest Langston son help my sister into the keep.

“Give her to me,” I snap, rushing towards her.

“We recovered her a few hours ago. After mentioning to Cornelius you believed Legion was hiding your sister, he confirmed with me and what remains of Legion that we didn’t have her, nor did we ever. Putting the pieces together was really quite simple if you had just thought about it. But sometimes we don’t want to see what’s right in front of us.”

“This is your final warning. Get. Out. Now.” Sin’s voice is pure lethal, but Sera doesn’t so much as flinch.

“You raise a hand to me and I have enough alchemist fire to burn your entire kingdom to ash,” she threatens.

“Try. It,” Sin dares between clenched teeth.

“Enough!” I shout. I shove Cornelius out of the way, sling Cosmina’s arm over my shoulder, and hoist her weight onto my hip. I bare my teeth at him as I step away, and Cornelius merely gives me a nod as if understanding and expecting my reaction.

“It’s okay, sweetie. I have you. You’re okay. You’re safe—you’re safe,” I whisper against her head, burying my face in the side of her tangled, black hair that reeks of natural oils and filth. Cosmina’s usual fair skin is now a ghastly shade of translucent white, too thin, and pulled tight across her hollowed cheeks. Vibrant shades of plum and garnet strangle her wrists—bracelets I recognize.

She’s been shackled in iron, weakening her to the point she can barely walk, just as she found me many years ago in a Legion camp. My sister twists slowly in my arms, turning to look at me, her sky-blue eyes frightened and confused.

“Where have you been?” I ask softly, brushing the hair from her eyes.

She raises a bone white arm and, with a trembling finger, points behind me. “With the Black Art.”

When I was younger and learning to hunt, Theon taught me to claim my kill immediately, never to leave it in the woods where predators might smell it and take it as their own. I would have done well to heed his advice here at Scarwood. I should have left the same second I snapped Sin’s tether, returned home and looked for Cosmina with the help of my family. But instead, I clung to a seed of hope after seeing the faintest glimmer of something gentle tucked away deep inside him. Somewhere along the way, I dropped my heart and left it for the lurking wolf to claim.

And he fucking devoured it.

Cosmina lowers her arm, and I search both of her eyes with my own. Fear glitters in her light blue irises, even now, with my arms wrapped around her tight and our bodies pressed together. Her body trembles, her limbs adjusting to being without the iron turning her blood to lead.

Hedid this.

While I was risking everything for the sake of Sin’s war, wrestling with my own conflicting feelings towards him, he was holding my sister captive.

Not Legion.

Not Sera.

Him.

Everything goes still. My bones harden as if they’ve been petrified in place, my limbs stiffening like thick spring bark, and I wish I could sprout roots from my feet and bury myself in the organic material. Sin calls my name from behind me, but I barely hear him over the chattering of every moment we spent together replaying in my head, over and over.

“What happened?” I ask Cosmina, my voice barely audible.

She coughs to clear her throat, the sound strangled as her poor lungs are as weak as the rest of her. “I went looking for you when you disappeared. By the time I caught up with Legion, they had just attacked a kingdom outpost. I came to Scarwood to report your disappearance because I knew Legion had taken you—I had no idea you were already here. When I told the Black Art who I was looking for, he had me locked up. They… they did things to me to give them information on you… kept saying you were a Legion spy. They thought I was too. Eventually, they grew tired of asking and left me chained in the cell.Fucking pig,” Cosmina spits at the ground, and when she raises her eyes behind me, I know whom she’s boring her menacing stare into.

I crush her against me, tears falling into her hair as images of the torment she must have endured flash in my mind. She suffered trying to rescue me. All the while I was dancing in elegant ball gowns with her captor. Dancing and… other unspeakable things.

Shame burns through me.

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