Текст книги "The wolf and the crown of blood"
Автор книги: Elizabeth May
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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 33 страниц)
Her eyes hold mine. “Storm,” she says, very softly, “I’m not a toy to be bent to your whims. I’m the only friend you have left who isn’t afraid to tell you when you’re being an idiot. That doesn’t make me a convenient cunt to fuck during Aethertide.”
Tipping my head back, I bare my jugular to her. The only creature alive who can press a knife to my throat and live. “Have I ever told you that you’re my favorite? And not a convenient anything.”
“Thank you. But I’d prefer compliments when you’re not thinking with your dick.” She pulls the dagger away and sheathes it.
“You’re right,” I say. “My apologies. I’m not handling this well.”
Her gaze softens again. “You’re a wreck.”
I catch her hand in mine. “What would I do without you?”
“Crash and burn, most likely. Want me to send in another courtier?”
“Someone durable, please.” I release her. “Don’t stay.”
I can’t have her here close enough to touch. To want. Not during Aethertide.
An emotion flashes across Zephyr’s face before she tamps it down and replaces it with that mask of cool professionalism. A curt nod, and then she’s gone.
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36
EVANDER
THE SCENT OF blood hits me before I even open my eyes.
Bastien is here.
I roll out of bed and grab my pants off the floor, almost tripping as I yank them on. The pressure of his power prickles along my skin.
Bryony’s still asleep, her silvery hair spilling across my pillow. The sheet’s slipped to her waist, revealing the constellation of bruises I painted across her torso.
Something twists hard in my chest, but I push whatever emotion this is down deep and lock it away. My brother will sense the weakness.
The garden air is warm as I step outside. Bastien stands among our mother’s roses, blood garish in his bone-white hair, splashed across the stark angles of his face. It’s dripping from his fingers onto the soil. The fading cerulean and pink aetherlight makes the red look almost black against his skin.
His eyes stop me cold—twin voids of obsidian, empty of all recognition. The eyes of something feral that’s slipped its chain. Then his power flexes, vast and crushing, as if it’s being shoved down my throat.
Fuck. Alexios let him off his leash for Aethertide.
“Bas.” I keep my tone deliberately light, like I can’t taste the violence saturating the air. Like I don’t notice the madness. “I see you’ve been enjoying yourself.”
Nothing. No reaction. Just that dead-eyed stare. “Made some corrections.” His answer is devoid of inflection. Mechanical. “Restored the balance.”
Balance. The word sends a chill through me. When the rut-madness takes him deep like this, everything becomes equations. Blood debt to be paid. Red ink to be balanced in ledgers only he can see.
He turns back to the roses. “I planted these with Mother. Did you know?”
“No,” I say carefully. I touch the knife at my waist, ready for anything. He’s unpredictable when he’s like this.
“We spent hours out here together before you were born.” His voice softens, almost normal. Almost like my brother again. “She showed me how to prepare the soil, how deep to plant each bush. Which ones needed more sun. She let me name them. I called that one Vasha, for our grandmother.” He crushes the rose in his fist, blood and petals mixing together. “I was only one hundred and ten when you were born. You were this tiny, screaming thing. Red-faced. Squirming. Your wings weren’t even formed yet, just nubs on your back. Your little fists kept punching the air.” He looks at me. “You were always so fucking loud, Evander. I hated you the moment she put you in my arms.”
I abandon the knife and begin pulling my power instead. Bastien doesn’t reminisce. Ever.
“Babies are loud.” I keep myself calm. Controlled. “It’s what they do.”
“That’s what Mother said. She told me I needed to look after you, because brothers protect each other. So I taught you to fly. Remember?”
My chest tightens as I recall the two of us soaring over the Osbu, his starlit feathers to my gold. He’d been my brother then, not this stranger wearing Bastien’s skin. I would have done anything for him, sacrificed whatever I had to.
Like craft wings out of the shadows, even if it nearly killed me.
“Yeah,” I say softly. “I remember.”
“You were so small. But you were fast, and so eager to keep up.” His thumb traces over a thorn. “I got used to having you around and following me everywhere. Asking endless questions. I picked you up when you fell. I learned to love you.” Some real emotion flickers in those black eyes. “As much as I’m capable of loving anything. Which is why I can’t stand it when you lie to me.”
I don’t ask what he means or why he’s here after avoiding my tower for decades. I already know.
An image of Bryony flashes without warning—her hair resting on my pillow, body marked by my fingertips and teeth, soft and sleep-warm in my bed—
I shove the memories down deep, but not quickly enough.
Bastien’s head tilts. “You’re leaking emotion all over the place. Arousal. Possessiveness. Frustration…”
“It’s Aethertide,” I snap. “I’m not a puzzle for you to solve, so keep your prying ass out of my head. I’m not in the mood for nostalgia.”
I’m an idiot for dropping my guard like that. I might as well have sent Bastien an engraved invitation to carve her up.
His power unfurls, testing my defenses. Those pitiless eyes fix on me as he closes the distance between us.
This is the monster.
This is not my brother.
“While you’ve been rutting like an animal,” he says, “I’ve been in Vartena looking for Bryony Devaliant’s corpse. And her body is nowhere to be found.”
My blood turns to ice. I know that keen focus in his voice. He’s latched on to the scent of betrayal, and he won’t let go until he’s torn it open to see what bleeds.
Bastien steps closer, until we’re breathing the same air. “So I tracked her body to Scillari. And the only trace of her I can sense”—he inhales deeply, deliberately—“is here. With you. So I’ll ask once, and don’t lie to me. Why is her scent all over you?”
I only have a split second to brace myself before his power slams into my psychic walls hard enough to rattle my teeth. He scrabbles through my mind, seeking a way in, a vulnerability. Greedy for all the secret moments I’ve stolen with her. Moments I can’t let him see.
The feel of her in my arms, and the taste of her skin against my tongue. The little gasps and sighs she makes when I—
“Enough!”
Light explodes from me in a violent burst. Bastien stumbles backward as I unleash everything I have. My wings snap out, the flames licking up toward the night sky. Heat singes the air. His shadows rise to meet me, swallowing my light while my flames burn through his power. Soil cracks under our feet. The atmosphere thickens and squeezes my lungs as I call every bit of magic I can access before Alexios’ invisible collar chokes me off. I’m leashed and Bastien isn’t, and if he decides to slaughter Bryony in her sleep, I can’t stop him.
“Remember who you’re threatening,” I snarl as my wings flare brighter. Hotter. The roses around us begin to wither and smoke. “Try forcing your way into my head again, and I’ll tear you apart.”
A vein pulses at Bastien’s temple. His face is cold as ever, but his eyes—there’s a banked fire there. Something ugly and wild that I haven’t seen since the war.
“Is. She. Breathing? Is she in our mother’s tower? Have you been hiding her all this time?”
His shadows stretch and grow, devouring everything until the garden disappears. Until the stars and aetherlight above us are gone, and there’s nothing but endless black and the two of us standing in it.
I meet his gaze and don’t flinch. “Yes, she’s alive. And you know what? She’s my assignment, not yours.”
A blade to the belly would be kinder than this. If he saw even a glimpse of how she’s crawled under my skin…
He’d destroy her. Tonight.
In our native tongue, we had a word for this feeling. Byargski. The gnawing dread when the thing you want most is slipping through your fingers and you’re powerless to stop it. That bone-deep certainty that a reckoning is bearing down on you like an avalanche.
And right now? That reckoning is wearing my brother’s face, and it’s out for blood.
“Swear it,” Bastien says. “Swear you haven’t Claimed her. That you haven’t soulbonded with her.”
“I haven’t.” Not a lie. “She doesn’t mean a damn thing.”
I say it like my chest doesn’t ache when she smiles, when she breathes, when she exists in the same space as me. Because none of it matters; I’m still going to end her. That hasn’t changed.
But I need to be convincing.
“Fuck’s sake, Bas. It’s been centuries since I took my time killing a Devaliant, and this one has a mouth that’s good for more than talking.” I shrug. “She’s a nice piece of ass to enjoy while I’m bored. It’s just fun.”
His expression goes colder. “Fun. They aren’t meant for fun. Not after what they did.” There’s a fine tremor running through him now. “I’ve seen the older sister. You know why they glow like that. Why are you keeping her?”
There it is—another fracture in his control. A hitch in his breathing, there and gone too fast to track. And I see him. The real him, the brother I knew before the world broke him and carved out everything soft.
I wish I could serve Bryony up to him on a platter. Let him have his fill of Devaliant blood, drown himself in it, if it meant never having to see that look on his face again. That awful, empty despair. What kind of brother am I that I can’t even do that?
But I can’t. Because hating her turned into needing her when I wasn’t looking, and now I’m lost. Every time I picture carving into her and watching the light fade from her eyes, something inside me riots.
Sentiment. In its most lethal form.
“Because it’s not enough to tear a Devaliant apart,” I say, lying to him. Lying to myself. “I want to break her first. Get her to trust me. The other day, she tried telling me she wasn’t catching feelings, but she looks at me like what we’re doing is more than just fucking. You want to know how to hurt a Devaliant? Let her think she’s special. Then let her realize she’s been spreading her legs for the monster who’s going to slit her throat anyway. It was all a game she thought she could win.”
I don’t tell him how I traced her freckles last night while she slept. Don’t tell him I’m counting heartbeats instead of plotting where to stick my knife.
“That had better be all this is,” Bastien says. “You swore you’d never abandon me. Not for anything.”
He thinks I’ve lost my way. That this fixation has made me weak, compromised me. And maybe he’s right. Maybe Bryony has dug her claws in so deep I’ll still be trying to get them out ten thousand years from now.
Doesn’t make it hurt any less—the accusation, the doubt.
I square my shoulders. “I haven’t forgotten.”
For a moment, neither of us moves. Then Bastien steps forward. His fist cracks into my jaw hard enough to snap my head back. White-hot pain blooms, copper flooding my mouth.
“The princess gets five days,” he says, his voice lethally soft. “You can shatter her precious, preconceived notions and savor the betrayal in her eyes before you end her miserable existence. Carve her up. Bathe in her blood. Fuck her corpse, for all I care.”
His eyes are twin black holes. I wonder, distantly, if this is what mortals see before they die. If this is the Void that greets them, cold and eternal.
“But if you’re lying to me,” he breathes, “if you Claim her, or worse, soulbond with her? I’ll dig my fingers into your chest and crush your traitorous heart in my fist.”
I think he loves me in whatever broken way he still can.
I think he hates Devaliants more.
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37
BRYONY
THE FIRST TIME I let a man fool me, he cut open my throat.
Five months after my father died, the court decided we’d mourned enough. Summer meant festival time in Luceni, and nobles from across Vartena came to dance, drink our country’s wine, and meet the three princesses of marriageable age.
Percival Whitworth was from Brevig. He asked my cousin Odessa to dance first—proper protocol—but his eyes never left me. Not once.
He had this smile. One dimple, right corner. The kind that makes something low in your belly tighten. When he took my hand for a waltz, I noticed that he had a deep voice that made me blush. His hand at my waist felt different than the dance instructor’s. Warmer. Intentional.
After, he’d poured wine into a goblet and handed it to me. “Show me the festival,” he’d said.
We wandered between the stalls that servants had spent days setting up on palace grounds. Lanterns were lit everywhere, strung from trees and posts. The air had smelled like cinnamon and summer flowers.
I remember his laugh. The way his fingers brushed mine and his palm settled on my lower back. Now I understand—a princess who rarely left the palace made for easy prey. I heard stories on my father’s knee about wrathful gods, but I was not warned about what men do to the women who anger them.
So when Percival Whitworth asked me to follow him into the woods, I went without hesitation.
His lips were soft. That surprised me. I liked kissing, the weight of someone else’s mouth on mine, the warm press of a man’s body. I’d only kissed two boys years before that, behind columns during dance lessons. This felt more real.
Until his hand shoved up my skirts.
I pushed against his chest. “Stop.”
His grip tightened. His eyes changed as he pushed back harder and rougher.
“No.” The word felt strange in my mouth. Princesses weren’t supposed to say it; we were taught to nod and smile and agree. “No.”
“Shut up,” he hissed, all that charm vanishing like it had never existed. “You can’t be all that different from your slut sister.”
He pressed a blade to my neck to quiet me.
I struggled anyway. A guard on patrol heard me and intervened. Percival didn’t run or cower, just stared down at me while the guard’s sword pressed into his back, like I was the one who’d done something wrong. Like I’d disappointed him.
He slashed the dagger across my throat before the guard could get him off me. My scar is a reminder that a man will still smile when he plans to hurt you.
But some lessons you have to learn twice.
Evander’s words to his brother echo through my thoughts as I slide beneath the sheets.
Let her think she’s special. Then let her realize she’s been spreading her legs for the monster who’s going to slit her throat anyway.
I’ve always known what he is from that very first glimpse of him in the Hellevig palace woods. But hearing him talk about toying with me? It lodges like glass behind my ribs. It hurts so much I can’t breathe through it.
The door clicks open, spilling light across the floor.
“Bryony?” His voice is dark and intimate. Tender. Like he gives a damn.
Like he isn’t trying to soften me up to hurt me worse later.
I pretend to be asleep, like I’ve been here this whole time. As if I hadn’t sneaked into the gardens and eavesdropped on him with his brother. The mattress dips as he climbs in beside me, his palm skimming over my waist. My jaw clenches.
Percival Whitworth’s hands were soft until they weren’t.
“Wake up. My rut-fever’s broken,” he breathes against my ear. “There’s something I want to show you.”
I tense. Is this it? The moment he slides a blade in?
Swallowing around the sudden tightness in my throat, I roll over to face him. “What is it?” The question comes out small.
Something complicated, almost like regret, ripples across Evander’s features. There and gone in a blink—an illusion, maybe.
Then he’s grabbing my chemise from the floor and pulling it over my head. “A surprise. Do you trust me?”
Four simple words that rip through me.
I want to break her first. Get her to trust me.
The cold reality of it knifes deep. This strange, fragile thing between us is nothing more than an illusion. It’s the same game we’ve been playing since he came into my bedroom in Hellevig and pressed his dagger to my throat.
What are you doing?
Playing with my food before eating it.
I shove the hurt down, lock it up tight. “For tonight, I trust you. Just for tonight.”
And never again.
His breath hitches. Then he’s sliding his arms beneath me and scooping me up, carrying me out to the garden.
The roses are painted in opalescent shades by Aethertide, the usual pulsing red glow more like starlight now. The air is thick with the flowers’ decadent perfume.
“Close your eyes.” When I tense, he gentles me with a squeeze, ducking his head to nuzzle into my hair. “We’re just flying.”
Okay. He’s still playing with me, then.
So I let my eyes flutter shut, surrendering to the familiar swoop in my stomach as he launches us skyward. The wind whips through my hair. I press my face into the crook of his neck and inhale, memorizing the scent of him, the way his skin feels against mine. The pressure of his fingers as he traces idle patterns over my spine.
I want to capture this stolen moment in amber before he turns on me. I’m going to remember what a liar looks like, sounds like, smells like.
At the end, I won’t beg.
His lips graze my temple. “Look, Bryony.”
The sight steals the air from my lungs.
Color, so much color. Indigos and rouges, emeralds and golds all tangling together, the stars strewn through the expanse like diamonds on black velvet. Aethertide gentled, but no less lovely. The celestial storm ripples and flows, its reflection shimmering on the placid surface of the Osbu until sea and sky meld together.
And in the water, as far as I can see, are ribbons of turquoise and purple. They glow against the black like entire galaxies trapped in the depths of the sea. Each wave sends another ripple through the hues, shifting shades.
“It’s beautiful,” I say.
Is that what this is? A final tender moment before he kills me?
“Aethertide’s light activates bioluminescent algae in the water,” Evander tells me, spiraling us down to a narrow crescent of the shore. He alights on the sand, bare feet sinking in. “Would’ve been a shame for you to sleep through a once-in-a-century event.”
He lowers me to the ground.
“I suppose I won’t be around for the next one,” I say, stepping away. It comes out too flat, too raw.
Evander goes still, hands flexing at his sides.
I don’t wait for his reply before stripping off my chemise and tossing it aside. The night air pebbles my skin as I wade out into the shallows. Effervescent streaks of teal and lavender swirl around my calves with each step, leaving glowing contrails in my wake.
Fabric rustles behind me, followed by the soft noise of clothing hitting the sand.
“Never took you for the indecent bathing sort,” Evander calls.
So we’re not going to talk about it, then. We’re still going to play pretend. One last game for Aethertide, while he’s still Evander and not the Wolf.
One last game before I lose.
I glance over my shoulder. The aetherlight loves him, gilding the sculpted planes of his body as he strides into the surf after me. It catches in his tawny feathers as he flexes his wings. What was it he told me last night?
Monsters are always beautiful. The prettier we are, the easier it is to fool a clever girl into letting us devour her.
But I wasn’t clever, was I? I was so, so stupid.
“I figured I should live a little.” I flash him a brittle smile. “Enjoy the scenery before it’s ripped away.”
His eyes flare, lips compressing into a flat, bloodless line.
And then he’s on me. His mouth is gentle against mine, the barest pressure. As if he’s savoring the taste of me. I shiver as his kisses skim my cheekbone, my temple, my jaw. He’s breathing me in like he’s trying to pull me into his lungs and keep me there.
He’s fucking with me. I know that. The thing is, he never lied about what this was, never promised me anything. But somewhere between his healing hands on my wounds and his body over mine in the dark, I’m the idiot who let myself believe this might be real.
That he might decide to let me live, after all.
“What would you think,” he murmurs, “if I took my time tonight? Kissed every inch of your skin? Learned what you taste like under the stars?”
I hate him. I hate him so much for this.
It’s so easy to sink into him, to surrender to the seductive pull and let him take me apart. To pretend, just for a little while longer, that he isn’t meticulously planning my destruction even as he holds me like I’m something precious. Something worthy of worship.
It’s been centuries since I took my time killing a Devaliant. And this one has a mouth that’s good for more than talking.
I pull away. “How about a game first?” I ask with forced lightness.
His head tilts. “What sort of game?”
The kind where I dig my fingers into all his soft, hidden places, and pry up his secrets. Discover why he and his brother hate my family.
I deserve that much.
“Answer a handful of questions honestly. Think you can manage that?”
His expression sharpens. “Only if you agree to the same.”
“I suppose that’s only fair. We each get three chances to refuse before forfeiting victory to your opponent. The winner chooses the penalty, and the loser endures.”
“And the prize?”
I lift my gaze to his. “Complete surrender.”
She’s a nice piece of ass to enjoy while I’m bored.
Evander’s hand finds my wrist beneath the water, his thumb sweeping over my pulse in a deliberate caress. Teasing. “I accept your terms. Ask your question.”
I don’t even pause to think. “Before you were Alexios’ Wolf, who were you?”
Something dark passes through his features. For a moment, I think he’ll refuse to answer.
“A prince,” he says flatly.
A startled sound leaves me. “An actual prince? With a crown and everything? Of where?”
I try to picture him in court finery, but it’s impossible to reconcile with the savage god before me.
Evander smirks. “You’re up to four questions, greedy girl. But I’ll indulge you. My brother and I were princes of Turpori.”
“The Court of Radiance?” I can’t hide my surprise.
Our history books barely survived the war, but I’d read what little remained. Turpori was a territory of light and metal, ruled by Astraea, who was ancient even among the Eternals. She’d been one of the last to fall before the Accords were struck. I could never figure out how humans had managed to kill a goddess that old and powerful.
Evander nods. “When my mother—” His voice catches, and my heart squeezes painfully. “When she died, her territory was divided between Alexios and Severin. That’s our way. Land always returns to surviving Eternals.”
I want to reach for him and smooth my fingers over the stark lines of his face until that grief eases. Until I remember—
She looks at me like what we’re doing is more than just fucking.
So I say nothing.
He gives his head a sharp shake as if to dislodge the memories. “I’ve answered you honestly. Now it’s my turn.” His eyes rake over me in a slow, deliberate sweep of my body. “Have I lived up to all those sordid stories your people tell about me?”
Under any other circumstances, I’d assume he was fishing for compliments. But right now, I recognize it for what it is: armor. He’s trying to reestablish our usual push and pull. Our familiar roles.
I’ll allow it. Just this once.
“I suppose you’ve shown a flash of legend from time to time,” I say.
His mouth lifts in genuine amusement. “Well, now I’m intrigued. Elaborate for me? Unless you’d like to use one of those vetoes.”
“The bards had plenty to say about you. I think it started with all the girls who got wet just looking at your face in the temple murals. But they left out some details. I never heard a single story about how the Wolf likes to fuck the women he’s planning to butcher.”
Something in his face shuts down like a door slamming closed. “No,” he says. “You wouldn’t have. Since you’re the first.”
It’s hard to think past the sudden roaring static in my head. The reckless, destructive need sharpening its claws in my chest, as if I’m standing at the edge of a precipice and counting down to the fall.
You want to know how to hurt a Devaliant? Let her think she’s special.
Evander shifts. The aetherlight dances over his wings, catching the top gold feathers. A drop of water glides down his cheek as he stares at me. “What are those five scars on your inner arm for?” he asks quietly.
“I’ll trade you my scar stories if you tell me what’s behind the door with the obsidian seal.”
His hands curl into fists beneath the water. “No.”
“Then my answer is the same. Ask me something else.”
The water laps against my skin in the silence. A few seconds pass in silence.
“What we do together in my bed,” he says finally, his thigh brushing mine in the water. “These games we play. Do you enjoy it? Does it make you feel good?”
As if he needs verbal confirmation of what he can undoubtedly scent on my skin—arousal, the lingering musk of sex, all of it betraying me more than any confession. And with it, all the complicated emotions.
Inhale. Exhale. Shove the truth down deep and bury it.
“I like everything you do to me,” I whisper.
And right now, I hate him for it.
A pleased smile tugs at his mouth. “Good.”
I need to hit back hard before he crawls any deeper under my skin.
“Why are you and your brother bound to Alexios?” I ask.
His body goes rigid. Something dangerous flashes across his face. Don’t, that expression tells me. Don’t even fucking think about it.
But I don’t stop. Can’t stop. “I thought Eternals were all equal. So, how did that happen? Why don’t you rule territory if it’s Scillarian practice for demesnes to pass to the remaining Eternals after one dies?”
Sparks dance across his wings. His beautiful face hardens into something ancient and terrible. “That,” he says, his voice dangerously soft, “was a whole fucking inquisition crammed into a transparent attempt to knock me off-balance.”
“Feeling overwhelmed?” I smirk. “Fine. I’ll be nice. Pick one to answer and I’ll save the rest for later.”
“Non-negotiable. To all of them.”
Dark satisfaction rises. First blood to me. I’ve found a chink in his armor, and the ruin-hungry creature pacing in me thirsts for more—more chaos, more destruction.
More truth.
I close my fingers around Evander’s wrist. “What happened to your mother?”
“Non-negotiable.” A warning snarl.
A smarter person would retreat, but he’s going to kill me anyway. Might as well burn everything down first.
“Why do you hate my family?”
His hand tightens on my wrist. “Non-fucking-negotiable.”
Power lashes from him in blistering waves, and a sudden pressure compresses my lungs. The sea churns and hisses. But I don’t so much as flinch. We were always heading here—every touch, every night together, every damn day, was just the path leading to this inevitable cliff.
“Why does my skin glow like this?” My voice rises, almost shouting now. “You want to know all my secrets? Want to pull me apart? Then give me something back.”
I’ve seen the older sister. You know why they glow like that.
“Non-negotiable! Fucking stop.”
I laugh bitterly. “That’s really rich. You get to poke around in all my broken places, drag out every ugly thing inside me. But the second I touch yours, it’s non-negotiable?”
He shoves me against the sea rocks, irises blazing with inner fire. “Shut your mouth. Or I swear to you, this ends with my teeth in your throat.”
But it’s too late. I’ve already hurled myself off the cliff. My rage burns higher, hotter, consuming any shred of sense. And now there’s nothing left but the freefall and the promise of impact.
“You know what? Let’s change our negotiation. We both know how this ends, so just do it already. Kill me.” Angry tears burn my eyes, but I blink them back. “You’ve had your fun, right? Fucked the stupid Devaliant princess until she forgot what you are? Was I a good piece of ass, do you think? Worth the effort?”
Evander’s eyes widen just a fraction. His lips part. No sound comes out.
Now he gets it. Now he knows I heard him talking to his brother about using me up and throwing me away when he’s done.
“Say something,” I whisper, hating how unsteady I sound.
Nothing. Just the sound of waves between us.
“Right.” I let out a bitter laugh. “You wanted to know the stories they tell about you in Vartena? They love warning us about the Wolf’s cruelty. How you make your victims scream and beg before you finish them. But they leave out the real artistry, don’t they? The part you love most?”
He doesn’t react beyond the slow clench of his jaw.
“Those stories never mention how much you get off on mindfucking the women you screw.” I slam my palm hard into his chest. “Telling me that you’re trying out giving a shit? You really know how to lay it on thick, don’t you? All those perfect words. Those calculated touches. The way you look at me when we’re alone. But I’m nothing to you, right? Just a disposable fuck-toy to pass the time! A nice piece of ass dumb enough to bend over for her executioner!”
His chest rises and falls too fast for someone trying to look calm.
“You think I don’t see it?” I step closer until my chest touches his. “Give the Devaliant bitch a knife, and let her think she matters. Let her think she has control.” I grab his arm when he tries to turn away. “No. You look at me.”
His golden eyes meet mine, unreadable.
“Because what else would a woman who’s only known blood and death want more than a taste of power? That’s the real trick, isn’t it? Convince her she’s special before you gut her. Make her death so much worse than anything she’s known on that altar. I have to hand it to you, Wolf. Breaking someone before you kill them? That’s skill.”
Evander’s face is cold, but I catch the nearly imperceptible flinch, there and gone.
Good, I think savagely. Bleed for me. Feel it. Hurt.
“I was so wrong,” I say. “When I said you were just like Alexios? Turns out, you’re actually worse.”
I push him away and wade to the beach, where I yank my chemise over my head.
“We’re done here. Take me back to the tower,” I tell him. “Now.”
* * *
We touch down in the gardens, and Evander sets me on my feet. He turns away. Done with me.
But I’m not done with him.
“Your room,” I call out, and he freezes mid-step. “You failed the game on the beach. I want what I won.”
His shoulders rise with a deep breath, and I can almost hear him counting to ten in his head. When he pivots halfway, the look he gives me could skin a person alive. Like he’s calculating how small the pieces should be when he’s finished with me.
