Maximus's POV
The night reeked of copper and ash.
The blood moon bled across the sky like an open wound, its crimson light spilling through the narrow slits in the underground walls. It painted the stones in shades of murder and memory, and I tasted its call the way a drowning man tastes salt water—desperate, poisonous, inescapable.
The chains cut deeper tonight.
Black iron. Soraya’s strongest spells. Every link etched with magic that burned like frozen fire against my wrists and ankles. I had demanded this, demanded a cage I could not break, but the magic bit into my skin like the jaws of a starving wolf, hungry to taste bone. Blood slicked my palms. The scent was sharp and metallic, feeding the beast that paced inside me.
I tilted my head back and glared at the ceiling where the mo
