K IDAN PACED OUTSIDE THE BATHROOM, WAITING FOR I NIKO TO EMERGE. If Tamol poisoned Ramyn as a child, why the hell was he still alive?

A growl built in her throat. The sound of clashing blades interrupted her thoughts, and, curious, she returned down the corridor.

Susenyos stood center stage. He’d removed his suit jacket, twin blades spinning in hand. Directly across from him, aiming a short sword, was Titus Levigne.

Her stomach hollowed out.

In the blink of an eye, the two lunged at each other. Sparks came from the rub of their blades, exploding around her vision like fireworks. They gripped each other, blade to throat. Titus held a sneer as he spoke. Susenyos was utterly still.

He will die tonight.

Titus couldn’t die without telling her the truth.

She tried to bolt to the center, but Taj materialized before her, holding out a muscled arm to stop her. The tails of his gold band wavered at his back.

“Not yet.”

“I have to—”

“He’s not ready yet.” His tone was robbed of all light.

Kidan’s brows pinched. What did that mean?

Susenyos knocked their weapons to the floor and slammed Titus down. The stone beneath cracked in lightning bolts, and tremors shot through the bottoms of her feet.

Titus groaned.

Everyone had gone still and silent—even the curtains didn’t dare sway.

Susenyos spoke in a voice that could only belong to death, rolling up his sleeves. “I dislike people who play in the shadows. Working so hard to frame me. Why not face me directly?”

A chilling cold slipped under Kidan’s clothes. Susenyos pulled Titus’s lolling form upright, spun him so they could see his face, and anchored him with a hand on the shoulder.

From behind, Susenyos’s fingers shot out, blackened claws extending and tearing from the roots of his nails. Kidan inhaled sharply. Her vision pulsed around the edges, so her world became only him.

Susenyos shoved his knifelike claws into Titus’s back. A horrifying squelching sound bled into her ears.

Titus screamed… a scream that couldn’t belong to a powerful vampire. Several dranaics around the circle shuffled backward. Kidan remained frozen, blood pumping in her ears, her mind unsure if she was in a nightmare, her fingers twitching pathetically.

“Let’s see if you have a spine.” Susenyos spoke close to his ear, utterly calm.

Titus jerked and coughed up dark blood, pupils blown wide. It took Kidan a long time to comprehend what had happened. Her mouth parted and stuck in horror.

Susenyos had grabbed his spine.

From the inside.

Titus broke into soft, unintelligible pleas as Susenyos moved his hand upward, the skin breaking like overheated bread, muscles and bones tearing in chunks, and blood—so much blood . It poured onto Susenyos’s shirt and formed a puddle beneath.

“Then you invited her here. What did you plan to do?” His voice slipped from its calm, snarling. “Did you think she’d come alone?”

He was talking about Kidan.

Something must have pinched or pulled inside, because Titus’s eyes rolled to the back of his head so all that remained was white.

Kidan staggered back.

She could feel Susenyos’s black hatred in every cell of her body. She had to run. Get away from the suffocating death and power radiating off him. If this was the kind of power vampires wielded with the Three Binds, what were they like without them?

Titus jerked with the next twist.

“Yos,” Taj called, once and final, arms crossed. “Enough.”

Susenyos’s murderous gaze flicked up, and its unconstrained fury slammed into Kidan. Her knees wavered, and all at once she remembered why she’d hidden from their kind most of her life. The instinct to drop her own gaze, to bow , overwhelmed her bones.

She could taste it in her throat, the air dense with his bloodthirst, and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t think—because if she did, if she made one single error, he would kill her.

He would kill them all.

She stared at her feet. Her knees buckled, and any moment now they would hit the floor.

“Kidan.” Taj’s soft voice was meant only for her. “You’re fine. You’re safe.”

She couldn’t stop shaking.

“You can look at him. His anger isn’t toward you, it’s for you.”

Kidan tried to lift her head, biting her trembling lip. What was wrong with her? Since when did she fear for her life? She craned her neck slowly, glimpsing his red shoes, his broad rising shoulders, and, upward still, his spoiled eyes. They were fixed on her.

Everything else fell away.

She’d thought she knew the shape and color of Susenyos’s anger—when she destroyed his artifacts, when she showed his fangs publicly. Those moments of his rage had been… nothing. A watered-down version, bound and repressed by the laws of Uxlay, only leaking at the edges. Had it been his loyalty to the Adane family that stopped him? He could have removed her heart without blinking, if he wished it. But he hadn’t… Even now, his true wrath stretched and enveloped her instead of cutting her down.

For her.

Susenyos wrenched out his hand. Titus gasped and crumpled to the floor. Taj left her side, grabbing a towel from the side panel, and escorted Susenyos to the corner. The two interacted in a practiced manner, Taj cleaning his hands, speaking softly.

Titus’s twitching flesh pulled Kidan’s attention. He was alive and, surprisingly, healing fast too, gouged-out flesh coming together.

Kidan’s fear dimmed, and her spine locked. She walked to Titus and squatted, voice hard.

“Where is June?”

The vampire’s eyes bled pain as he snarled. “You.”

“Tell me what you did to my sister.”

Before she could blink, Titus was on her, a shadow blanketing her from the shoulders. It was remarkable that he could move so quickly with his back torn to shreds. He was still unsteady, though, and he put all his weight on Kidan, crushing her. She fought to shrug him off but then a sharp claw at her throat stopped her.

He laughed, teetering back and forth. “I’m taking you with me.”

Susenyos and Taj froze at the end of the room.

“You hear that, Sagad?” Titus shouted to the ceiling. “How loyal you are to this girl. Did she break you in the day she claimed your fangs? Leashed you like a feral dog?”

Susenyos wore the face of pure rage. “Let her go.”

Kidan reached for her weapon slowly.

“No.” Titus’s manic laugh scratched on her ear. “I will gift her to the Nefrasi. Isn’t that what you want, to reunite with your sister? You stupid, stupid girl.”

Kidan stilled. “The Nefrasi? Is that who took June?”

Titus glared only at Susenyos, barely hearing her. “I would have given her a merciful death. They will pull out her spine and wear it as a belt.”

“Don’t move, little bird.” Susenyos approached slowly.

“Kneel!” Titus shouted at him, cutting into Kidan’s throat until she winced. Blood ran down her brown neck.

Susenyos’s muscles rippled with anger, but he lowered himself. His closed jaw moved as if he was trying to speak without opening his mouth, to tell her something, but Kidan didn’t understand.

“Susenyos the Third, Malak Sagad, the Great Emperor. To whom the angels bow, kneeling before me?” Titus trembled with wild delight.

Kidan began hiking her dress up gradually, reaching for the impala horn.

“How far you’ve fallen from your glory days, Malak Sagad. If we’d all started with your monstrous army, we wouldn’t be bowing at the feet of the actis. Yet here you are, a lapdog for the same house for decades. How pathetic .”

Susenyos’s eyes turned to slits, a twitch lengthening in his jaw.

Titus added a second claw to her neck. She flinched. “Did he tell you about his court? What he turned them into? The savagery of his—”

“Technically,” Susenyos cut in with a flat tone, “it’s not considered a true bow if the knee doesn’t touch the ground, but since you were raised in a barn, I’ll forgive your ignorance.”

Titus snapped his gaze to where Susenyos hovered several inches off the floor.

“And I kneel for no one.”

Susenyos spat before Titus could tear out her throat. A stunned choking burst across her ears. Titus stumbled back at once. Something had flown out of Susenyos’s mouth, sharp and bullet-fast, nicking her neck before finding its target.

Titus wavered, tried to reach for her, then fell. A silver nail was lodged below his Adam’s apple.

“Who are the Nefrasi?” Kidan demanded.

Titus stared upward, blank and unseeing. Susenyos approached the still dranaic, removed the silver nail, and wiped it thoroughly before pressing it into the roof of his mouth.

“You shouldn’t have killed him.” Her words trembled.

“I offered him mercy. He pushed me.”

His right arm was still slick with blood and guts. It had been inside someone.

Mercy.

“Take her,” Susenyos said with an unreadable expression.

A hand pulled Kidan to her feet. She began to protest, but Susenyos was already turning away, facing the next challenger. Taj led her across a hall and pulled her to a secluded corner.

Kidan reeled from it all. Susenyos’s wrath, the information she’d uncovered. Had Titus taken June at the instruction of these Nefrasi?

“Who are the Nefrasi?” she asked Taj urgently.

“I don’t know. We’ve never heard of them.”

Taj reached for her cut neck, and she jerked away. “You’re bleeding.”

It was supposed to be tonight. She was supposed to finally walk away with solid information on June.

Kidan leaned her head against the wall, frustrated tears blossoming. Since when did she cry this easily? “Am I ever going to find her?”

Taj’s eyes softened as he opened his mouth to say something. A challenger tapped on his shoulder, stealing his words. He worked his jaw and told her, “Stay here and clean your neck. I’ll be back.”

They disappeared down the hall.

Kidan felt powerless. Stagnant. She needed to act. Tonight. Get justice for Ramyn until she could get it for June. Rufeal Makary was dead, but Tamol Ajtaf lived. She would ask him about the Nefrasi first, and if he knew nothing, she’d kill him. Yes, she needed to regain control.

Kidan was walking to the bathroom to clean herself when a couple of dranaics blocked her way.

“Sorry.” She tried to go around, but they blocked her again.

Shit. She hid her neck, but the dranaics stepped closer, smiling.

“Unmask.”

Her limbs went numb. A circle had formed quickly, figures peeling themselves from the shadows.

“You smell that? We have a pure acti among us.”

One of them withdrew a silver claw and cut along the middle of her dress. She hissed, clutching at the thin rip and the blood emerging. He cut her arm, sending another painful slit across her skin. Then he brought his finger to his mouth, and his pupils bled hunger.

“Clean. We can drink from her.”

Kidan pulled out her impala horn and whirled around in a circle. “Stay back!”

A gaggle of laughter followed her. Someone pushed her, and her entire body rocked. Another powerful shove made the room spin, and she stumbled. They jostled her from one side of the circle to another, laughing at her petrified state. Crowding in.

Her arms became pinned from behind. Kidan kicked off, stabbing the horn into a thigh. The vampire howled and let go.

“You’re going to pay—”

A dragon blade tore through his thorax, spraying blood all over Kidan’s face. She wiped it away quickly to watch the dranaic stiffen and fall.

Susenyos’s shirt was barely on him, tattered from more fights. Iniko and Taj were close behind, silver weapons slick with blood.

“That was a nice distraction, but you’re going to have to do better than that,” Susenyos said, chest rising and falling.

Shaking, she tried to hide the slit in her stomach. But as Susenyos studied her from head to toe, his wide fangs became elongated, the ends of his twists inflamed.

“Who cut your lovely dress?”

His tone sent shivers down her arms. It was a strange sort of relief, being the one rescued. Kidan forced herself to stand a little straighter and faced the bastard who started all this. Susenyos turned his lethal gaze on him. Some stepped back and walked away. A couple stayed. Kidan grabbed the horn and returned it to her thigh strap, stepping out of the way.

“Well?” Susenyos roared, extending his powerful arms. “What are you waiting for?”

Taj and Iniko remained outside the circle, ready to assist if necessary.

It was an unparalleled dance of death. Susenyos dismembered every hand that had dared touch her. The brutality of it, the carelessness of his blows—she’d never seen such true unbridled power. He didn’t belong in a university, caught between law and order, but on a battlefield, facing the ends of a thousand swords and daring them to strike. Why had he chosen Uxlay as home? Why did he allow this place to rule him when he could make them all kneel? Kidan couldn’t make sense of it.

With each dranaic who fell, Sicions dragged the body away to a draining room. Blood had to be poured before the body was cold for a life exchange.

Susenyos’s silver blades became an extension of him, the wavelike edge splitting flesh and eliciting screams. Kidan winced and flinched as their cries became pitiful, begging for mercy. Yet she didn’t interrupt him or tell him it was enough. In a macabre trance, she watched the floor turn from white to red.

This was the rage that had engulfed her when she set Mama Anoet’s house ablaze. Kidan had to become a shield the moment she realized June was too kind for this world. She needed to be the unbreakable armor every blow fell on, to find some divine balance in the lashing and bear it, because June didn’t deserve it.

She was never the one worth protecting. Worth all this blood.

When Susenyos finally came to her, leaving a trail of bodies behind him, his hair had matted, and his dark skin glistened like he’d stepped out of a red sea.

Whispers of “Savage Susenyos” echoed around the room, yet no one dared raise their voice.

“Are you hurt?” His voice was rougher than usual, eyes transfixed on her.

When she didn’t answer, he stepped closer, worry, out of all emotions, replacing the rage that possessed him.

“Where?” He traced her cut dress.

Her stomach ignited at the contact, and she closed her eyes, savoring the wetness of his blood-slicked fingers. When he touched her, he felt human in the way a glass teetered on the edge of a table—blinding when the sun scattered him, lovely when he slipped into unimaginable ruin.

“Am I scaring you?” His voice rumbled like mountain rocks. “Do you want to leave?”

The muscles of his shoulders tensed as if he was preparing for another blow. He was mistaking her accelerated heart rate for fear. But it was thrill, the overwhelming rush of scaling a mountain. She lifted her lashes to him and rested her hands over his, coating her palms in red. His gaze dropped to their joined hands in a question, then flicked up, light piercing his night eyes. His strength seeped into her, and she tasted the immortal dark, wet and wanting her. It had been waiting a long time, and damn her, she could no longer deny it.

Just for tonight, she wanted him without the noise of her guilt and self-punishment. A night as he was, and most importantly, as she was.

Cossia Day. A day to be free of laws, of promises. Of June’s haunting memory and her vow to end it all.

One night. She would have him for one night.

Kidan broke from his burning gaze, spotted the lounge closest to them, and pulled him inside with surprising force. He loosened a sharp breath, warm yet biting. She stripped off whatever remained of his shirt in one motion, revealing his sculpted torso, and pushed him backward.

He stumbled onto the single couch, eyes wide, as if he was imagining it all.

“Easy, easy.”

Kidan drew the curtains and hiked her dress up to her thighs, watching his gaze darken. She ripped off her mask.

“Ask,” she said, voice thick with need. Unrecognizable. “I want you to ask.”

In the truest sense, she now felt like his Roana, and him, her Matir.

Once he realized she had the very opposite intention of leaving, he flashed her a crooked grin. “I’m not the one who pushed me into this dark room. You want, so you ask.”

“Why are you being difficult?” She gritted her teeth, impatience exposing her.

He tilted his head. “Why is it difficult for you to ask for something you want?”

“I’ve asked you for many things.”

He grabbed her waist and pulled her to his lap with sudden speed. She gasped. Her fingers braced against his solid chest, admiring its rich color past the blood, a shade darker than her brown skin.

“You’ve asked for things that serve the purpose of others,” he said. “To protect your friends, find your sister. I haven’t heard you ask for yourself, for your own pleasure.”

She opened her mouth but couldn’t do it. This ask felt impossible. How could she enjoy herself at a time like this? Especially at a time like this?

Kidan hid her face from him. Suddenly, she was cold. Dirty. What the hell was she still doing here? She didn’t know what she wanted from this. To forget the death encircling her wrist? To think about herself for once?

Susenyos’s chest pressed against hers, flushing her with delicious heat and forcing her attention back on him. Only his eyes were illuminated in the dimly lit room, and they refused to let her go. Her shoulders relaxed into his frame, loving the trail of his hand up her thigh.

“Repeat after me,” he whispered, voice labored. “I.”

“I,” she breathed.

“Want.”

She sucked in a breath. “Want.”

“You.”

After a heartbeat, then another, she was brave.

“You.”

He stained the gold dress with his hard grip and maneuvered her onto one of his thighs. The new angle made her lips part in surprise. His eyes gleamed with intention.

She moved before she could think. Her dress rode higher as her thighs straddled his leg. He trailed biting kisses along her bare neck, teeth scratching her skin, and yanked her dress down to her shoulders. But her braids got in his way. He made a sound of frustration, then gathered her hair in one hand, a tight pressure against her scalp, and used one braid to tie back the rest. Cold air licked the back of her neck. She fell forward onto his chest, almost brushing his lips.

“Don’t let go.” Her voice hovered between a plea and a demand. “Tighter.”

He obeyed. She wanted him to bite at and scar her skin until the outside of her mirrored the tangled ruins of her soul. There was nothing worse they could do to each other, plenty they could do for each other.

She braced against him, palms finding skin and muscle only, and began a steady back-and-forth movement, savoring the friction it caused.

His finger trailed a line to her collarbone, and the contrast between his feather-like touch and his hard grip made her bite her lip.

“There you are, yené Roana.”

Kidan closed her eyes at this new name he had given her. On this lawless day, she could admit she loved how he rolled the sound on his tongue, the possessiveness attached to it, and more so, the loaded intention every time he used it.

She sensed his canines before she ever saw them. Their pointed strength surprised a gasp out of her. His head buried in her throat, he trailed two lines with his teeth, hard enough to be painful but not to break skin.

“I thought you didn’t drink from the throat.” She was too out of breath to be convincing.

He swore and turned his face, warm cheek pressing against her collarbone.

“I can’t remember why at this moment,” he grumbled.

She brought his mouth to her bare shoulder. “But you do drink from here, yes?”

He trembled under her. “You’re killing me.”

The words thrilled her, and she imagined this scene from a different time, the first night he’d brought her here and made her watch as he fed from another girl.

“I hated you so much that day,” she whispered, shuddering.

He pressed a gentle kiss on her shoulder, immediately understanding. “Because I made you beg?”

She shivered. “Because I couldn’t stop picturing your mouth on me.”

Kidan swore he groaned. She tugged her fingers through his thick twists, loving the coarse texture against her soft palms, and lifted his head.

She stared into those endless, ruinous eyes. “I still hate you.”

Why he had to know, she was unsure. But it felt good, so she said it again.

“I hate you, Susenyos.”

His brows melted into reverence as if she’d told him the opposite. “As long as hating me leaves you on my lap, I can bear it. Hate me for eternity.”

She pressed her forehead against his, letting his supplication tug at her lips, sharing the same hot, staggered breath.

“Eternity… I could do such awful things to you.”

“More than what you’ve done?”

The tug in her mouth turned into a stretch. “So much more. And you’ll keep forgiving me?” She rolled her hips deliberately, making him suck in a breath. “As long as I end up here?”

“God yes.”

She grinned, unable to help it. “You confess such dangerous things when you want something.”

He traced her curved mouth with a finger. “Pulls the truth right out of me. I hold up better under torture.”

Kidan ignited from the inside out at his hungry gaze. He was admiring her like she was the blazing sun itself.

More. She wanted so much more. She continued her dance again. His hand moved, firm on her back, sliding a little downward, providing the anchor she needed. Lips parted, heavily breathing, she took her pleasure how she wanted it. He met her rhythm from underneath.

“Slower,” she whispered in his ear, borrowing his favorite word.

He smiled and hoisted her higher, slowing. She shivered when his mouth devoured her shoulder, kissing and tugging at the skin. An odd little thought cut through her jumbled mind. She’d been right back then. His mouth was hot and wet as boiled fruit. How would it feel against her lips?

His fangs rubbed in a steady movement, shooting a spear of lightning through her. Still, he didn’t bite.

Her breath became choppier. “What are you waiting for?”

“You.”

God, she wanted to kiss him.

She moved to do just that, but he grabbed her chin, stopping her inches from him.

She lifted her lashes in a question, biting her lips. He used his thumb to free her bottom lip, and his intense gaze alone made her lips tingle and swell.

He inhaled sharply. “Don’t let me kiss you. It will be the last thing you ever do.”

She wanted to protest, but he was already hiding his face from her, pressing his mouth to her cheek, then down the curve of her neck and lower to her shoulder in slow, knee-weakening kisses. Her thoughts disassembled, and her eyes fluttered shut. She was pure energy, about to crash into another.

When she did feel the familiar tide rising inside herself, she couldn’t say his entire name—it rang entirely too long and she only had a sigh in her, so she gripped his bare arms and whispered, “Yos.”

He sank his fangs into her. Dull pain and sharp pleasure collided and vibrated as her body ascended to the heavens. But her mind remained here… in this room, watching this scene through his obsidian eyes. Kidan’s full lips were blushed and caught between her teeth, her dress messy and yanked low, her face radiant with glow. The image rippled away, and she returned to the earth, sagging upon him.

He breathed harder, the force of his inhalation lifting her up and down. Sharp pressure poked at her back and thigh. His claws had reemerged.

“The shoulder…,” she managed through her delirious wave. “What type of memory does it show?”

His voice, glazed with desire, was thick and breathy. “Not sure. What did you see?”

A lie.

All vampires had to know what memory each body part conjured. They’d never bite carelessly. But… she found she didn’t want to know either. It wasn’t an old memory she glimpsed but the formation of one. This moment they’d shared must have claimed the space of what the shoulder usually evoked. Whatever that feeling was, she wasn’t sure either of them was ready yet.

“Nothing clear,” she whispered. “Too distracted. What did you see?”

His eyes swirled, and he seemed grateful for her lie.

Had he seen himself in her memories as well? Her fingers in his wild hair, his otherworldly eyes flaring, lips glistening with blood?

She swallowed thickly, preparing.

He traced the line of her throat, making her knees squeeze around him.

His slick lips stretched. “I saw nothing too.”

Kidan’s pupils glittered. They were understanding each other without words, as if they shared the same mind.

Susenyos peered at the impala horn scattered at their feet during his touch. The one weapon that could kill him, and she hadn’t noticed him remove it from her thigh.

“I wonder,” he murmured. “Who was that for?”

She brushed over his taut pectoral where his iron heart would be. “What if I said you?”

He caught her wrist lightning-fast, making her gasp, and cocked his head in near wonder. “It’s a shame I can’t tell if that’s true or not. Even worse that I don’t seem to care much right now.”

Kidan smiled. He truly confessed such dangerous things.