"It's a deal then, don't back out later," Ray smirked as we both stepped into a dueling ring.
The ring was nothing special — just a wide circle of packed dirt, bordered by waist-high wooden posts and rope. Nothing grand, nothing dramatic.
Me and Ray stood inside it, the air thick with that pre-fight tension people love to romanticize.
I grinned and summoned Enkidu, the golden chains curling lazily in the air like they were bored too.
Here's the thing, though, in the novel, Ray's childhood was one big "how to make a psychopath" speedrun.
Poison, starvation, watching his family die, getting stabbed, cut, and burned — you name it, he collected the experience like trading cards.
So when Aurelia swooped in and saved him, the guy basically fell in love on the spot. And not the cute, healthy kind of love. I'm talking full-blown "I will murder entire bloodlines for you" devotion.
