Anela shook his head.

“They were playing with me. Had they devoted themselves fully to the fight, I would not have returned. They are fast and powerful. One of the monarchs, whom they called Raj, behaved like a feral child of the forest. She spoke properly, but she remained on all fours and possessed long claws. Her hair was wild and unevenly cut. Her teeth were pointed—more so than ours.”

He pointed toward the gashes that had sliced through his armor.

“Her claws are powerful enough to cut through metal as though it were paper. The other monarch, a boy who appeared young, had the same claws and the same strength, though he stood upright. When I fought them, I knew I was no match for them. They were so silent that I could neither hear nor sense them, and they moved so swiftly that my eyes could not follow.”

Seeing Anela so shaken after a fight—not because he had felt death approaching, but because he knew he was not strong enough to face them—was… new. He stared at his hands as though they alone were responsible for his “defeat.” He was so hard upon himself that the absurd urge to whisper how extraordinary he must have been made my flesh ache.

“And there was another, Luna. She was older, more… bewitching. She reminded me of the witches from the tales we read as children, capable of driving someone to the most terrible crime with a single glance. She moved only to prevent me from killing Raj. Believe me, we must avoid fighting them. We would not stand a chance.”

The truth finally forced its way into his mind—a truth that Blood had tragically overlooked until this day. Anela met Fratera’s gaze, and though those blood-red eyes did not settle upon me, I felt every ounce of the despair consuming him.

“The monarchs and Od… until now, they have forbidden the purebloods from approaching their lair. They have never attempted to annihilate us, but if that were ever to happen… if they tried, they would succeed. Vileblood could barely withstand several legions, but it would never survive an assault from the Nightmares and the monarchs.”

“And we do not truly know what the monarchs or Od are capable of,” Fratera breathed. “You are right. Tragically, what you are saying is true. I wanted to believe in the Asmerion and his mad quest because, until this decision, his ideas had always been brilliant. Today, I must admit that he sent us to our deaths.”

“I am continuing to the end,” Anela declared. “I want to know what Od and the monarchs want from me. Today, they could have killed me, but they did not. I am going to meet them.”

“But you cannot guarantee our survival,” Pero added, slowly recovering her courage. “That is what you are telling yourself, is it not?”

Her small hazel eyes were red, painfully ravaged by tears. Anela nodded without saying another word. Fratera leaned toward him and placed his hand over Anela’s. That comforting gesture soothed some of my rage. I could feel how deeply shaken Anela was, and I hated it. I hated knowing that something was haunting and tormenting his mind. Yet he withdrew his hand from Fratera’s grasp. He rose, removed his armor, let it fall to the ground, and walked away from us.

I met Fratera’s gaze, and he motioned for me to follow our companion. I needed no encouragement. I removed my own armor and weapon and ventured into the forest after him. I found him hidden from prying eyes, his arms wrapped around himself as though he were trying to ward off an incurable cold. I hesitated for only a moment before my body decided in my place. I pressed my chest against his back and wrapped my arms around him, holding him tightly against me.

A long, relieved sigh escaped him, and his head came to rest against my chest. The relief upon his face filled me with emotion. I suddenly felt both sorrowful and happy. I tightened my embrace and bent down to breathe in his scent.

“I wish I had been born in an age of peace. I wish I could have lived without blood upon my hands, without being made into a symbol of hope and victory in a war. Selene, I wish I could have given myself to you without fearing tomorrow, without knowing that it would lead nowhere.”

His voice was muffled and broken. His words split my heart open and stirred a fury within me that I directed against the entire world, against the gods, against Rodel and his sons.

I slid my hand up to his throat and closed it around him. I turned his face toward mine, and he opened his eyes. There, I saw the full extent of the chaos raging within him. I saw how close he was to breaking, how exhausted he had become from this world and its endless battles.

“I would kill the gods for you,” I growled. “I would flay them alive for allowing someone like you to be so cruelly worn down by life.”

“Selene! Do not say such things!”

He tried to break free from my embrace, deeply and sincerely horrified by my words. He loved our God Rodel, but how could he continue loving Him when He was partly responsible for what our world had become? Yet Anela still loved Him, still prayed to Him during every moment of silence he was granted.

My fingers slid from his throat to his jaw, and I forced him to look at his palms as I took them in mine. Open before us, despite the wound upon one of them, I found his hands so beautiful.

“If you have blood upon your hands, then so do I. But what separates you from me is that you are pure. You pray to a god who allowed His world to become hell and His children to suffer. You see humanity in the bloodfeasts. All of it—this innocence within you—would drive anyone mad.”

I pressed my lips to his ear and inhaled deeply, my body burning from having his so close to mine, from feeling how intently his heart listened to my words.

“It drives me mad. You cannot imagine how much. Anela, the blood upon your hands does nothing to tarnish your beauty. On the contrary. It makes you so imperfectly perfect.”

He raised his head toward me, his expression pained yet touched by my words. I allowed my lips to graze his without breaking our gaze, not even for one miserable second, not even to satisfy my burning desire to possess him in this way that was so unfamiliar to me. In that moment, only he mattered. There was room for nothing but him within my thoughts, and everything else—everything that had seemed essential to me until today—was no longer important. None of those things were him.

“You told me you were afraid of tainting your lovers. I am already filthy. I am drenched in the blood of everyone I have killed. You do not need to fear staining me. If I must die tomorrow, I want to do so having possessed you. I want to give you a glimpse of what we might have shared. I do not care that we may have no tomorrow or that our story might lead nowhere.”

“Selene…”

My jaw tightened at the sound of my name. I pressed my lips violently against his. I did not move. I merely held my mouth against his, and his hand disappeared into my hair as he returned the pressure. Even that simple contact, devoid of sensuality, was already so much. Anela allowed me such intimacy when he had always so carefully kept everyone else away.

“You are not cruel,” I added. “I am. Cruel for selfishly wanting to possess you, to steal you from everyone’s sight—from the eyes of the entire world. A violent desire is tearing through my loins, burning my stomach, and devouring my body. It is an entirely new hunger, and you are the only one who can sate it.”

Anela arched against me, revealing the sensuality I had glimpsed when he slept in my arms. The gesture set me aflame in a way no lover ever had. I felt myself losing control, burning alive beneath the force of my desire, and I gasped against him. My cock responded to the tempting movement, painfully pressed against the curve of his lower back. My breathing became ragged, and I could no longer regain control. I was going to lose my mind.

“I want you so badly,” I moaned. “Anela… you need only say it.”

A stifled plea escaped him as our bodies burned against one another. I longed for him to say it. Nothing else mattered. Not Beret lying in agony, not Fratera and Pero waiting for news, not the monarchs, not the gods. Fuck, nothing mattered anymore except him. I did not understand why or how this had happened to me, but I had fallen headfirst into the temptation he embodied. I was bewitched.

I could no longer resist the innocence that made me hate the entire world on his behalf; that slender body whose movements in battle resembled a dance; that voice that drew the red whistlers into song beside him; that gaze that set my body ablaze; that face that twisted my insides. Desire blinded and suffocated me, and I did not care whether that flame might one day consume me to the bone. I wanted to possess him, to tear him away from the world and hide him from it. I wanted him. Desperately. Agonizingly. Dangerously.

“I want you too, Selene.”

Ah, cursed be Rodel and His sons for creating such a world, and blessed be He for allowing me to meet him. Anela, shaped by Rodel’s own hand and faithful Vicar of God, had bewitched me beyond all hope of return.