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That had been no lie—with skin of finest crea bronze, Isis had eelic race Men and woe on what he didn’t realize until later was a well-planned journey to avenge herself against Raphael

“Do you knowin the cold stone chamber beneath the keep “I was overheard to say that I would prefer a snake in ent, Isis hadn’t been satisfied with si but a passing comment No, she’d intended to corrupt Raphael’s el; she had chosen Del’s friendship with his faenerations

Then she’d seen Dmitri

“At first she took ht I was playing a ga a courtship” He dropped the pebble but rehted her that I was so apparently proud Gifts of exotic meats, precious spices, tapestries such as had never been seen in e, it all arrived day after day”

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Honor had covered the distance between theh that his shoulder touched her leg “I sent them all back, but she didn’t take offense” Isis had believed he wanted old, jeweled swords, a cascade of treasures that would’ve an to land on the simple doorstep of the hoined such beautiful things”

He looked up, sa fear in those farede, you are er that she’d doubt hie vows, husband” Tre the blanket around the baby “But I’el will do to possess you”

He’d shrugged off Ingrede’s concern, because, after all, he was a farht she would eventually tire of my refusals and move on” He had been a fool, an innocent in a way he couldn’t coel most people considered the etting anything and everything she wanted”

Her vampires had taken him as he returned home after a trip to the markets, a sweet for Misha tucked safely in one pocket, a pretty ribbon for his wife in the other For the baby, such a sht a piece of scented hich to , had had tihter’s cheek, and kiss his beautiful, strong wife good-bye

He would never forget the words she’d said to hih she had known he would soon be in another wo a terrible betrayal of the vows he’da turn of the seasons before Misha’s birth

“Will you forgive ht a battle” Her hand touching his cheek “You do this to protect us There is nothing to forgive”

“If I’d said yes at the very start,” he said noing the rage and anguish that had never died, “I think Isis would’ve used, then discarded one hohter “But because I’d made it clear that I didn’t want her, she played with me as a cat does with a mouse” First she’d taken hie that he couldn’t say no

“Such beautiful children you have, Dso easily broken”

Later, after she’d had her fill, he’d been dragged to the cold, reat castle, where she Made him with methodical care Only after the conversion was coe, had he been stripped nad and chained in a spread-eagle position, every part of him exposed “She started with a whip tipped with razor-sharpin his hair “I can’t bear it”

He heard the tears, was astonished by them Honor had almost shattered in that hellhole she’d been held in for two inter to her psych records, she’d never once cried during her hly concerned, worried she was internalizing her emotions, would implode But as she knelt down on the stones in front of him and cupped his face in a way he’d allowed no woman to do for near to a thousand years, her eyes were awash in da out, he traced the path of one tear over her cheek, down to her jahere he caught the droplet, brought it to hisDmitri hadn’t cried either Not after the day he broke his son’s neck “In my time,” he said, “they believed in witches Are you a witch, Honor, that youhim to rip open wounds that had stayed safely scabbed over for so long that, et they existed

Her hands, so very, very gentle, continued to hold his face as she tugged him down until their foreheads touched “I’m no witch, De thing to say when she was the one who’d been fractured

Perhaps he should’ve been angry at her arrogance, but his e so siot to her feet and walked to stand at the very edge of the strea her boots as it worked its way down the slight slope and deeper into the woods He stood, too, taking a position beside her It took her long moments to speak, but what she said returned him to a time in which he’d lived for the blade alone

He’d learned to fight at Raphael’s side, a simple man of the land beco else would quench the fury within him, not for decades, not for centuries The sole mercy was that he’d been Made in a time of blood-soaked battle between i for fodder—that tione, but Dmitri had lost none of his deadly skills