Page 54 of Eternal Ruin

Kidan’s teeth ground against one another. He was truly enjoying himself. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much she wanted to scream.

His gaze flicked to her fisted hand. “I will help you punish June.”

She stiffened, unsure she had heard him right. “I thought she was with you,” she said with forced calm.

“She is. She is my favorite, actually.” He turned in the direction of the grass court. Students lined the edges of the square, hunched over books, while others lay on the grass with their heads propped up. “But anyone who abandons their family must be punished. That is the only rule I live by and even June isn’t exempt from that.”

From the flash in his starless eyes, he seemed to be telling the truth. Still, it made Kidan ill hearing him talk about her sister whether with anger or affection. She didn’t want him to mention June at all.

“Losing a sister,” he said with a piercing look, “is a different kind of pain.”

Kidan remembered what Susenyos had told her. How on their fifteenth birthday, his friend’s sister had been killed by raiders and they’d both gone to hunt for revenge. She was now sure he’d been talking about Samson.

Samson’s gaze drifted over her head, to Susenyos and Iniko, walking across the cobblestone path and slipping through the black iron gates of the Southern Sost Buildings. Kidan straightened, stepping forward before pausing.

Did he get her text message? Why wasn’t he responding?

At once, Samson’s features bled into a crimson rage.

“It is maddening to see them so carefree.”

This wasn’t about her or June.

“Abandoned”—he was a victim of that word as much as she was.

A gnawing sensation built in Kidan’s gut. She didn’t want to understandSamson’s hatred, though in this second, it spoke the same language as hers, swam in the same hateful swill.

His eyes flicked back to hers, near bloodthirsty. “Tell me what will hurt him the most and I will give you the key to hurting June.”

Something wicked extended between them, sudden and vile.

What are you doing?Kidan shook herself out of Samson’s spell. She was preparing to walk away when a sound, sweet and low, pulled her to a stop. It was her sister, along with Qara Umil, their laughter carving through the space like a bouncing song at the end of the corridor. Her attempt to humiliate her had failed.

Hidden by shadow, Kidan watched.

Samson’s voice hovered by her shoulder. “It burns, doesn’t it?” he whispered. “To see them smiling? It’s a delicate line. You don’t want them dead, because a part of you needs them to exist, but you also need them to understand the pain. Because until they do, there can’t be peace.”

She hoped her face didn’t betray how accurately he’d described her thoughts. Her fingers moved to draw a square on her thigh, and she was afraid not of him, but herself. If Kidan listened to this, to him, she would cross a line.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she shoved him and kept walking.

“Fine. I’ll tell you mine first, heiress,” he shouted after her, spinning on the spot with too much delight.

Kidan willed herself tokeep goingbut her sister’s laughter was close, grating, surrounding her. Mocking her. Instead, she slowed her steps.

A satisfied sound came from behind, like a wolf content with his meal. It agitated her to give in.

“Warde.”

She turned, brows raised, face hot with hatred.

“I’ve seen June cry many times over the past year. She cries for the sick, the injured, the dead. But I have never seen her so broken as the time Warde was kidnapped by rogue vampires. She would not eat, would not speak. Her eyes were truly haunted. We could not find him. And yet, somehow, she went into the rogue camp to rescue him herself. She came out unharmed.” His brows were drawn as if he didn’t believe it still. “Warde gives her strength, and I may not understand it, but their bond is powerful. I only brought him into Uxlay for her because she wouldn’t come without him.”

Kidan turned, finding the giant vampire by a tree a short distance away, keeping an eye on June.

He was always there, watching. At times, he reminded her of GK, other times, of herself. Alert to a whisper of danger, ready to save June.

Samson flashed before her, standing too close. She flinched but still met his coal eyes.