Page 66 of The Panther's Price

Evryn screamed.

It wasn’t pain like fire or blade—it was somethingdeeper. Like her bones were being rewritten. Her blood unraveling. Every drop tugged, twisted, examined. Her veins burned cold, and her vision flooded with white light.

Selyne stepped into the circle.

“This power doesn’t belong to you,” she murmured, eyes glowing. “It never did. It belongs to the line. Tome.”

Evryn shook violently, her fingers twitching as blood soaked into the circle.

“You’re wrong,” she choked.

Selyne tilted her head. “Am I? Your own people didn’t know what you were. You stumbled into the Veil blind. And still… you pulled shadows like a Firstborn. Imagine what that could doif harnessed properly.”

Evryn’s head thrashed.

Her magic responded instinctively, flaring like a wounded animal—dark tendrils coiling up, striking at the Queen’s wards. But the circle was too strong. Her power couldn’t find purchase.

“I’ll rip it from you,” Selyne said, voice tightening. “Even if it kills you.”

Evryn’s laugh was broken glass. “Then you get nothing.”

Selyne didn’t smile. “Your bloodremembers. All I need is enough to trace the bond. The throne doesn’t need a body—it needs aline. But still, you being alive will help. FOr the moment. BUt I can’t promise this won’t hurt,” the queen said with a cruel smile.

She raised her blade, tipped with obsidian and bone.

Evryn closed her eyes.

TWENTY-NINE

LUCIEN

The throne hall was empty.

Too empty.

Lucien stood beneath the black-glass skylight, arms folded, the weight of his own silence pressing in on him like iron.

They had been waiting twenty minutes.

That was ten minutes too long for Queen Selyne.

She never kept a blade waiting—unless she wanted it dulled.

The two guards at the entry flanked him like statues, but Lucien could feel their eyes. Watching him. Weighing him.

He was being studied. Not greeted.

He shifted his stance, scanning the subtle changes in the room. The sconces had been relit. A second wine glass waited beside the throne. A faint perfume hung in the air—lavender and bloodroot.

But no footsteps echoed down the blackstone hall.

No rustle of silk.

No voice laced with poison and authority.

His mother wasn’t coming.

And Evryn wasnowhere.

---