CHAPTER 126: ONE HUNDRED & TWENTY SIX

Evadne

The prisoner has delicate ankles.

You could tell from how easily they snapped that she’d not spent a single day in her life on a battlefield.

Delicate wrists. Soft palms. Pale skin that bruises too easily. Too easily for war, too easily for me to look at without imagining my fingerprints there.

Voluptuous. Tall. There’s a regal grace buried somewhere beneath the bruises and the incessant, maddening entitlement, and I hate that I see it. She would tower over me if she ever decided to stand, but she never does. She stays kneeling, watching me from beneath her lashes, as if she knows how easily that sight unnerves me.

I don’t think Astrea Draemir quite understands the hostage situation.

I should have stopped coming days ago. Each visit has stretched longer than the last, minutes folding into hours. She’s begun to look for me now, even when she pretends not to.

And I could blame it on the nuisance the castle has descended into in my cousin’s absence.

He may have chosen Verya to rule in his absence, and me, his vice, but someone must have shat in his food if he thought the seer knew the first thing about what to do during a siege. Worse yet, when the rest of the ruling families saw this as an opportunity to steal power for themselves.

News of the battle at Grave’s Bay reached here weeks ago, along with the army of half-breeds. "Your King is dead," Sebastian had said from beyond the wall. "Hand over crown and we will not harm you. Bend the knee to Rafael Draemir and order will be restored. Your daughters and wives will remain safe behind those walls, not taken and sold off for their worth. And your sons and husbands will not be killed or laboured to death." To me, he had said, "You are my mate. You will come home with me."

The ’or else’ hadn’t been subtle.

We were given fourteen days to agree to their terms before they stormed in and sacked the streets.

We were told of five thousand men. It was an easy number to curb, but it was a different matter when they were camped right in front of the gates where the common-folk resides. Worse yet, there are rumors of another five thousand and twice that number of Vossian soldiers merging their efforts.

That was beyond problematic. We needed Lucien, but no one knew where the fuck he was. And I knew for sure the bastard wasn’t dead. I’d seen the fool survive worse things. Rather than come together as one to hold it all together until he arrives, they’re screeching over their heads, fighting over who should be the new King.

Unsurprisingly, Wyatt seems to be the strongest candidate, the stupid leech who couldn’t tell a nipple apart from a zit.

Astrea’s head finally tilts my way, her stare cool. "Release me or execute me. Or you’ve come to bore me to death with your stories, again?"

The keys jiggle as I insert them into the lock. "They’re all the entertainment you’ll get before the world comes crumbling down. Don’t be so eager. You’ll get your turn with the executioner’s axe soon."

She huffs a breath, turning her gaze to the window, but I note the way her fingers tighten on the hem of her dress, her gaze troubled. "He hasn’t sent word for me, still?"

"No. It would seem you truly are as useless to him as you think you are."

She bites her bottom lip hard and I catch the scent of blood. "I won’t betray my kingdom. Kill me if you must."

I roll my eyes.

Always the ones who have so much to live for choosing to die for useless causes.

She turns eagle sharp eyes to me as the lock clicks softly and I step inside. The air tightens and without looking, I feel her body stiffen as I settle against the wall opposite her, close enough that the scent of her--rose water and stale confinement--wraps around me.

She doesn’t move, but her eyes flicker downward, tracing the slit of my skirt as it rides higher along my thigh. The look she gives me, it is confusion and human and something more reckless and alive. I feel it drag across my skin like a touch, and something low in my gut stirs in answer. I should look away. I don’t.

Her chest rises and falls a little faster than it did before, and she forces her gaze away, like I am indecent.

But you live around me long enough, you realize it doesn’t really bother me. I never quite like having clothes on. Or anything, for that matter.

House Kaldrith’s intimate connection to our nature makes it a damn near inconvenience. There’s no need to be clothed if you’re itching to wear your animal’s skin every other second and more than others, we slip into it rather easily.

"There’s been a royal wedding," I say, eyes fixed on the ceiling as I loosen the pins in my hair. "And a royal treachery. Your King is married to Lilith Blackspire now. He has already betrayed you twice. There is no home left for you in Silvermoor."

House Blackspire is facing the heat, still, it isn’t nearly as terrible as it should be, seeing how quickly they have denounced Lilith as one of theirs. I wish I could say I was surprised at the outcome of things, but the only thing that did strike me was her decision to wed the wolf king.

It was foolery, whatever she was thinking.

Astrea’s face grows white as sheet. "You said he took Valka."

I’ve been steering my mind away from that detail in particular. Having being subjected to the wolves’ particular brand of mad and sick, I worry for her, wish I wasn’t stuck her bound by an oath to keep Ebonheart safe.

But I suspect there’s little I could’ve done anyway. Barging in and demanding they freed her would be a shitty plan. We needed all the men here to finish this war. We couldn’t spare any more. It was left to Lucien, who I am, in fact, just as worried about.

I’d seen what he’d looked like every time Valka was in danger. If Rafael Draemir thought he was insane, then he was in for a reality check.

"The more the merrier, I suppose," I purr, enjoying the emotions sifting across her face. Anger. Hate. Hope. Realization. More hate. More anger. Then a carriage load of denial.