These Twisted Bonds (These Hollow Vows, #2)(126)

I fall to the ground.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Riaan asks.

Jas cries out, and he grabs her by the waist, pulling her off the wobbling beam and close to him.

Before I can feel any relief that she’s safe from a deadly fall, he wraps his big hand around her neck.

“Let her go,” I plead, words hard to find around the pain and hard to speak through this weakness.

“I have worked too hard to let you destroy everything we’ve fought for.”

“For what?” I ask. “For your queen? For your intolerance for the Unseelie? For your self-righteous belief that you are better? ” The words spill from my lips and take the last of my energy.

“The queen is dead. You’ve lost.”

“Have Sebastian surrender the Seelie crown to me, and I’ll spare your sister. He’d do it. For you, he’d do it.”

“Abriella,” my sister gasps, and Riaan’s hand tightens around her throat.

Hold on, Finn, I think, taking another draw from his power. I stagger to my feet, clutching my hand to the gushing wound in my leg.

“Get me that golden crown, Abriella,” Riaan says softly. “We can both get what we want. I’d be on the golden throne and you can have the Throne of Shadows. I promise to heal your sister and let you live after Sebastian passes on those crowns.”

Let me live, but not free me. He’d lock me back in that tomb. He’d find a way to keep me from escaping this time. He’d take the golden crown and let me take the Unseelie crown, but he’d keep me from taking the throne. He’d hold me prisoner so this power didn’t pass to someone else, so the Unseelie Court would continue to weaken. Until it died.

“Please. I only care about Jas.” It was true once, I realize as the lie slips from my lips. Once I cared only about her. I didn’t believe I had the power to save more than one innocent. But by the time I plunged that knife into Mordeus’s heart, the human girl I’d once been was already gone. Long before I bonded with Sebastian, I’d become something more. Long before I drank the Potion of Life.

Fat tears stream down Jas’s cheeks as she shakes her head. “Don’t do it.” Her voice is weak. So damn weak it chills me to my bones. “Don’t trust him.”

Riaan’s hand tightens around her neck. “Enough out of you.”

Still gripping my sister, he lunges for me, and his hand wraps around the fire gem at my neck, but he doesn’t get a chance to pull it off, because Sebastian plunges his blade into Riaan’s back.

Gasping, Riaan releases my necklace, then my sister. His eyes are wide, his lips moving as he looks down at the blade protruding from his chest.

Sebastian steps close behind him, catching him under his arms before he falls. “You were like a brother to me,” he says into his ear. “My only friend through so many lonely and difficult years.”

Jas stumbles to my side, pressing her hand to the wound on my thigh, her fingers turning red with my blood. “Brie,” she whispers, and we sink to the ground together, neither of us strong enough to stay on our own feet.

“Arya’s . . . kingdom . . .” Riaan sputters, blood trailing down his chin.

Sebastian sneers. “Her kingdom—the whole damn realm—is better off without you both.” With that, he brings his blade to Riaan’s neck and slices though, ending his pain and his life.

The last thing I see is Riaan’s head falling from his body. The last thing I feel is Sebastian scooping me and Jas into his arms.





Chapter Thirty-One

It’s dark when I wake, and I’m immediately aware of Finn next to me. His even breathing as he sleeps, warmth radiating from him.

I roll over to see the stars twinkling in the sky above me. We’re on the rooftop terrace of the cottage in Staraelia—the mountain home Finn gave me back before he knew I was Mab’s descendant.

Someone brought a bed up here so I could heal while sleeping under the stars. Heal while sleeping next to my beloved, my tethered match, the one I draw strength from.

I need to get up and find Jas, or someone who can tell me where she is. I need to make plans with Sebastian. But I don’t want to leave this bed. I want to hold on to this moment for as long as I can. I never thought I’d be here again—under the stars, in Finn’s arms. Even in my strongest, most optimistic moments inside that tomb, the best I’d hoped for was to see his face again.

Finn stirs beside me, and when I turn my head, he’s awake and watching me. “How are you?” he asks.

“I’m okay,” I say. “Thanks to you.”

“And thanks to Sebastian. He brought you to me.”

“But you . . .” I swallow hard, but it does little to keep the emotions bubbling inside me at bay. “I had to pull power from you.”

He finds my hand between our bodies and brings it to his chest, pressing it there against his heart.

“We looked everywhere. Ten days you were missing, and we couldn’t find any sign of you or Sebastian. Arya was using her power to shield her mountain stronghold. It could’ve been right before our eyes and we would’ve missed it. I’ve never been so scared.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. I can’t imagine how I would’ve felt if our roles had been reversed. I’m not sure I want to.