Chapter 9: Tonight and Always
Blood still clung to his hands.
Zayn curled his fingers into fists as he walked down the corridor, slow and deliberate, boots echoing off the stone walls. The scent of blood, a strong scent that was thick, metallic, sharp, lingered in his nose, a reminder of what he had done. Of what he hadn’t finished.
He had broken the last heir of Thunder Paw. Reduced him to a sobbing, begging wreck. The bastard had pleaded for death, cursed him, offered him secrets and names, promises of surrender.
But Zayn hadn’t given him death. Not yet. He needed him to suffer. To feel every second of loss and degradation his own people had endured.
And yet... Zayn felt nothing.
Not triumph. Not peace. Only the same dull ache in his chest that never seemed to fade. No matter how much blood he spilled, no matter how many screams he wrung from their throats—it wasn’t enough.
He reached the top of the staircase and paused, his knuckles white around the banister. The cold bit at his face. These halls once reeked of fear when his people were enslaved beneath them. Now, they bore his name, his crest.
Yet he still felt like a prisoner.
Irene’s face flashed behind his eyes—blood in her mouth, wide eyes dulling as life left them. Her voice was gone now. He couldn’t remember it anymore. That terrified him more than anything.
He shoved open the door to his chambers and stopped dead in his tracks.
Her scent hit him first—soft, subtle, like crushed violets in a thunderstorm. His pulse snapped to attention.
Lily.