Duncan
Tobias’s body fell, knees hitting the ground before it toppled forward, his head still bouncing in the distance, discarded and meaningless. For a heartbeat, the battlefield narrowed to that sound. Bone striking dirt. Rolling. Stopping.
Chest heaving, his blood dripping from my fingers, I stood there as the white-hot rage that had carried me through the fight guttered out. I’d imagined this moment a hundred times. In every version, killing him felt like triumph. Like justice. Instead, it felt…quiet.
He was dead. Seren was safe. The threat was ended. Yet the memory of her broken body in that cell didn’t fade. The smell of damp stone. The rattling of chains. Tobias’s laugh as she struggled to stand.
Conn surged inside me, pride and savage satisfaction tangling with the ache in my
