The realization was — freeing. The particular, full-body, deep-breath, shoulders-dropping, weight-lifting, cage-door-opening freedom of a woman who had spent her life believing that her blood made her less and had just watched a man prove that blood meant nothing.
She looked at Viktor.
He lay on the moss. Pulling Dara and Berenga — both women, both destroyed, both limp — into a hug. The particular, casual, proprietary, 'these-are-mine' embrace of a man who had finished using two women and was now holding them the way a man holds things he owns. One in each arm. His cock softening between them. His tail curling around Dara's waist.
Evriana trembled.
The tears fell.
Not the tears of grief. Not the tears of shame. Not the tears of jealousy or fear or the particular, complicated, layered tears that she had been crying since the training yard.
These were different.
These were the tears of a woman who had just realized something.
'I have a chance.'
The thought landed.
Settled.
