My Blood Awakened, His Reign Ended novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Mark

The light under my ribs burned through my gown.

I could not stand.

My knees folded, and Ronan caught me before I touched the floor.

I had not asked him to.

I did not care.

"Isobel," he said, very low, against my hair. "Look at me."

I did.

His green eyes were wide, and for the first time since I had met him, he looked afraid.

"What is it?" I whispered.

"It's mine."

I stared at him.

"It's the mark of my father's bone," he said.

His thumb moved against my side.

"That scar is its wound. It was never going to heal."

A murmur went through the Court.

"Three years ago, somebody took my father's bone out of your glass case," Ronan said. "It went into you."

He swallowed.

"I felt it in my cell the night it happened. I've felt you ever since."

I tried to breathe through the burning.

"You knew," I said.

"I knew in the dungeon, when I smelled you."

"You kissed me."

"I kissed you because I wanted to."

He did not look away.

"I didn't tell you because I did not want to be one more person who said you were theirs," he said. "You can hate the mark. It's yours to throw back."

Something in my chest loosened.

For three days I had been waiting for him to want something from me.

My power, my mother's name, a debt for his father.

His hand on my side had not tightened once.

Then the pain crested, and the memory came back all at once.

I was standing in this hall in a green gown.

It was the Midwinter feast, three years ago, with the candles low and the music loud.

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