Court Of Blood And Bindings Vk -

She was the entertainment.

Kaelen looked at the crown of thorns, still wet with his blood. She looked at the empty throne, the cold hall, the shadows that had been her only company for three years.

He removed his crown—a circlet of thorns that had grown into his brow—and set it on the throne. Blood welled from the punctures, but he did not flinch. court of blood and bindings vk

“Kaelen,” Riven said, and her name in his mouth was a velvet trap. “Come forward.”

“No,” she said.

“I said no.” She walked up to him, took his wounded hand, and pressed her own bleeding palm to his. Their blood mixed—red and black—and the magic that rose between them was not a binding of servitude.

She cut him.

“The Solstice Tithe approaches,” he announced to the court, though his eyes never left her. “And my little mortal has bled for me three years. But bonds must be tested, must they not?”

Her legs obeyed. Not because she wanted to, but because the binding hummed low in her throat, a command disguised as a suggestion. She walked down the central aisle, past the sneering consorts and the fanged courtiers who drank from crystal goblets of wine that was too red to be grape. She was the entertainment

Kaelen’s hand trembled. She looked at the scars on his arms, the silver glow pulsing like a heartbeat. Then she looked at his face—not the mask of the Night Prince, but the tired, ancient, lonely creature beneath.

“I cannot.” His silver eyes met hers, and for the first time, she saw something beneath the cruelty: exhaustion. “The binding is not a leash I hold. It is a lock we both wear. If I break it without the Tithe, you die. If I perform the Tithe wrong, I die. And if I do nothing…” He touched her cheek, and this time she did not flinch. “The magic will devour us both from the inside.” He removed his crown—a circlet of thorns that