Текст книги "The wolf and the crown of blood"

Автор книги: Elizabeth May

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

10

EVANDER

ILAND ON a narrow ledge along the Duehavn Ridge, kicking up flurries of snow.

Alexios doesn’t turn at my approach. His red and black wings flare wide against the night sky as he places a boot on the object at his feet—a body. Well, more a broken pile of limbs and torn feathers. Guess someone pissed him off.

That’s about to make two of us.

“Been entertaining yourself, I see,” I say.

The leather jerkin he wears is worn at the edges—something he trains in, not his usual formal attire. It leaves his arms bare and his tattoos on full display. I recognize the celestial constellations inked onto his biceps, but the script flowing up his forearms is a language that’s been dead longer than I’ve been alive.

The shimmering veil of the Shroud stretches before us. The colors ripple and churn, ribbons of emerald and amethyst threading through fading starlight. But all I notice are the holes. The places where the Vartenan landscape across the divide is visible when it shouldn’t be.

“You didn’t deal with the princess,” Alexios says.

I suppose kings and killers don’t need to waste their breath on pleasantries.

Just like that, I’m in the Devaliant’s bedchamber, with her thighs bracketing my hips and her body arched against mine as she raged. There was no artifice in it. Just the purity of all that pain and anger unleashed, as if she’d wanted to swallow my heart whole.

You’re untouchable in a way I’ll never be. Powerful. Immortal. And you squander it all on meaningless shit like this. It’s pathetic.

What the fuck does she know about the prices I’ve paid? She’s only a doomed sacrifice paying the well-deserved penance for her family’s brutality. So why do I still feel her weight on me? The heat of her skin?

Why am I so eager to go back and see how all that hatred and rage looks when she comes on my cock?

“You promised me an oathbreaker,” I say, dragging my attention back to the god-king. “I didn’t find one.”

Alexios pivots to face me, his red eyes glowing as his power lashes out and slams into me so hard that it rattles my teeth. “She never bled on the altar. I didn’t feel her blood hit the collection channels.”

“The Accords never stated an offering had to be given on the altar. She tithed on the temple grounds. Ergo, not an oathbreaker. Ergo, no bloody smear on my pretty knife. Your Anchor found the loophole to your loophole. You should appreciate the irony.”

I’m baiting him when he’s already primed for violence. But this delicate push-pull is a path we’ve walked many times over the centuries, and fuck if I don’t get a thrill every time I remind him that his leash isn’t as tight as he thinks.

Those tattoos of his flare red. “Did you honestly believe that pathetic excuse would hold? Even if she’s not an oathbreaker, she’s Unclaimed. Nothing stops you from opening her throat.”

I tilt my head, considering. “That needs a second order, then, doesn’t it?”

The air changes. Electricity crawls across his skin, blue-white sparks jumping between his fingertips. Thunder rumbles in the distance. “I would tread very, very carefully, Wolf. If you disobeyed me to be contrary, it’s pointless now.” He reaches for a scrap of fabric on the ground and flings it at me. “This was left on Hellevig’s temple altar, and I felt my Claim fade. Bryony Devaliant is dead.”

I rub the bloody muslin between my fingers. The scent hits me instantly—jasmine, lilac, wisteria. Her. Some strange, nameless emotion stirs behind my ribs. “Who carved her up? Her uncle? Sister? Some noble licking your boots?”

“Does it matter? Killing her lanced the infection before it could spread.”

I don’t know why I should care. She’d leaned into my knife and dared to judge me. She was an arrogant mortal who believed she could dictate terms to a god.

But I made her a promise, and I’ve never broken my word.

I wonder if she thought of me in those final moments—of the death she’d bargained for and the god who failed to deliver.

It shouldn’t cut so deep. I’ve sent countless people to their deaths. Pretty faces, pretty girls, all of them blurring together. She was a Devaliant, and that made her more worthy of a brutal death than anyone else.

It shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I just don’t like leaving debts unpaid. I’d abandoned her to be hacked apart by vermin who didn’t give her the execution she earned after cutting me open. Her dying breaths belonged to me.

“Anything else?” I keep my voice controlled, bored. As if I don’t care if he gives me another order or tells me to get fucked. “More throats to cut? Bodies to bury?”

“Find what’s left of the princess.” He says it like he’s asking me to fetch his boots. “My Claim snapped when she died, but traces of my magic will cling to her. The worthless idiot who gutted her was too much of a coward to bring me the body.” The tattoos on his arms pulse again, and more lightning crackles between his fingers. “I want a public pyre for the Devaliant bitch. Everyone in Hellevig needs to see her burn and understand that not even Anchors are spared my wrath.”

Something twists in my chest, sharp and unwelcome, as I picture it. Her corpse. Violet eyes now dull and empty, the heart that beat so fiercely against mine entirely still. All that vibrant emotion snuffed out on a king’s orders.

I blink, keeping my expression neutral. “Now?”

“After.” He gestures to the crumpled demi on the ground. “Watch me finish playing with this one.”

A runed collar winks at the hollow of the captive’s throat, the glyphs flaring as they siphon away his strength. My brother, Bastien, etched the shackles with magic to keep prisoners immobilized while Alexios plays.

I let out a whistle. “Must be quite the prisoner to get the royal treatment. What’d he do? Piss in your wine?”

“He’s a traitor. One old enough to remember the war”—he aims a brutal kick at the male’s side, earning a wet gasp—“and stupid enough to want to resurrect it. A scouting party found Turpori steel on him during the arrest.”

My head snaps up. “Where did he get it?”

Bastien’s blades are infused with his unique power signature. They were his gift and legacy to our realm—before humans learned that consuming our flesh would transfer our power temporarily. That our bodies were another resource to be exploited, carved up, and devoured. Now, the godkillers are permitted to be carried only by a few, but there’s a bustling black market for them. Every time some fleshbuyer gets their hands on Bastien’s feathers, they can use his magic to make Turpori steel. We keep having to track them down.

“I couldn’t torture an answer out of him,” he says. “Someone scrubbed the memories. But never forget how many of our own were complicit in the slaughter.”

He reaches down and wrenches the demigod up by his hair. “Maybe you’ve forgotten the screams of our dead. Or maybe you’re pissed off that the Eternals of Asteria and Nyholm are all that’s left. Is that it? Loyalty to a murdered Eternal?”

The demigod stirs with a rattling cough and gathers the remaining dregs of his defiance to spit a glob of bloodied saliva onto Alexios’ boots.

For a long moment, Alexios and I stare at each other, and I see my own grief reflected in his gaze. My own need to repay humanity’s sins. A part of me regrets him ever signing the Accords that prevented me from slaughtering every last one of them.

I think he knows that. I think he feels it, too. Understands precisely how deep this poison runs. This ugly, symbiotic rot that we’ll never get rid of.

“Just… kill me…” the captive says between choking gasps. “I welcome it…”

“Oh, I will,” Alexios says. “But first, I’m going to tear you apart until you’re a drooling, shitting husk.” His fingers squeeze around the demi’s throat. “Maybe I should have the Wolf put you back together so you’re lucid when I carve out your insides and feed them to you.”

I watch, saying nothing, as Alexios’ power burrows inside the prisoner’s chest and wrenches. The male makes a noise somewhere between a scream and a whimper as something in him gives with an audible snap.

The king winds his magic deeper. Wet pops fill the air as organs rupture. Blood gushes from the demigod’s gaping mouth, splattering Alexios’ hands and face.

He doesn’t so much as flinch.

“What do you think, Wolf?” Alexios’ voice is light. Conversational. “Want to dust off that healing ability? Should I start with feeding him his intestines or save that particular delight for the finale?”

“Depends. How long are you planning to stretch this out? I have a nice wine waiting for me at home.”

“Hmm, valid point.” He drops the body to the ground with a thud. “I’m leaving his corpse here,” Alexios says, wiping flecks of blood from his cheek with the back of his hand. “Let it be a reminder to anyone who foolishly mistakes my restraint for weakness.”

“You know for sure there are others?”

His smile is bleak. “There are always others willing to ally with the filth who cracked open our brothers and sisters and ate them raw, no matter how many carcasses I leave in my wake. That’s why we can’t ever show mercy.”

My mouth twists in a grim smile. “I know.”

“Yes, you do,” Alexios murmurs, and for a moment, it almost sounds like understanding. Like kinship.

Maybe that’s why he kept Bastien and me around. Saw the empty space where most people keep a conscience and figured he’d found the perfect killers, loyal not because we love him but because he’s the only one who can give our grief purpose.

After all, Alexios knows intimately what it’s like to watch your whole world burn.

He steps over the demi’s body and plucks the muslin from my hands. “Final offering from the princess. Let’s put it to good use, shall we?”

The Shroud pulses. The colors have leached away, leaving only faded hues that are shot through with veins of necrotic black. Beyond the fraying weave, Vartena peeks through, the mortal realm little more than a heat haze.

I smell the stagnation and slow rot.

“This damage. Was it from—”

“From the Devaliant’s cult members?” Alexios’ lip peels back from his teeth. “Yes.”

He extends a hand and crooks his fingers, and the blood seems to sing in answer. It lifts from the fabric in ribbons, curling through the air as it pools above his upturned palm. The droplets dance, strung together by threads of power.

With a percussive snap of magic, Alexios flings his arm out in a sweeping arc. The blood streaks toward the Shroud in a glimmering spray. The veil ripples where it strikes, crimson tearing through the rot. Devouring. Cleansing. Slowly, new wards flicker to life in glittering veins of ruby and obsidian.

It’s a temporary measure—a scab over a festering wound. But it buys us time.

Alexios’ magic fades. He sways on his feet, a tremor running through him. Even an Eternal has limits.

“You’re burning too hot,” I murmur. “You need rest. If you keep pouring yourself into the Shroud at this rate—”

He gives a mirthless laugh. “I need a bottle of Black Ember and a good hard fuck, not necessarily in that order. But this barrier isn’t going to maintain itself.”

He turns to me, the dying light throwing the harsh planes of his face into stark relief. Deep bruises smudge the skin beneath his eyes, and I’m struck by how exhausted he looks. Less the untouchable god-king and more the battle-weary soldier.

“I’m at the end of my patience with mortals.” His words are flat, emotionless, and that’s when he’s at his most unpredictable. His most dangerous. “The Vartenans are complacent, and I can’t keep spreading tithes thin over the Shroud whenever some little princess distracts the idiots on the other side. If those sheep can’t manage themselves, and the Accords prevent me from interfering in their rule, then they need reminders of their place.”

“You want me to make an example of the oathbreakers?”

“Brutality is an art in times like these. No more half measures, no more clean kills for traitors and oathbreakers. When the masses grow lazy, it’s our duty to deliver a lesson.”

I incline my head. “Any other orders?”

Alexios goes motionless in the way of a predator poised to lunge. Slowly, deliberately, he leans in until his lips hover above mine and I can taste the spice of his breath.

“One more thing,” he says, lethally soft. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten or forgiven you for ignoring a direct command.”

I lift my stare to meet his. “Disobedience is part of my charm.”

“You’re right,” he murmurs. “Insolence is one of your more attractive qualities. I’ve always enjoyed how this mouth gets you into trouble.”

Alexios pushes his lips against mine, kissing me deep and filthy. There’s no tenderness in it. No real affection or desire. With the God of Storms, everything is about control. About the dizzying, destructive push-pull of power—who wields it and who bends to its whims. He’s not kissing me because he wants to.

He’s kissing me because he likes to fuck with my head.

Alexios breaks the kiss to run his lips over my jaw. “But I can’t help but wonder…” His tongue laves along my neck before his teeth clamp down punishingly hard. I swallow a hiss. “If you didn’t kill the princess as I ordered, what exactly did you do?”

“Played with her. Let her get a taste of my blade.”

“Mm. What was she wearing? Paint me a picture.”

Unbidden, the memory of the princess surges to the surface. Perched astride my hips in nothing but that bloodstained nightgown. Luminous skin and tousled hair and eyes bright with murderous intent. For a few minutes, I let myself forget all the reasons I should hate her.

“White silk,” I rasp out. “Hardly covered all the interesting bits. It looked even better soaked through red.”

He growls, a burst of breath shuddering against me, and his hands dig into my shoulders, demanding. Asserting his claim even as he makes me recount how I defied him. Still fucking with me.

“Tell me about your game.” He grazes his teeth down my neck, ending the movement in a kiss. “What did you play?”

I know what he’s doing; he’s reminding me that I let a Devaliant walk away. That I had my knife against her heart and chose entertainment over duty. He’s playing with me the way I played with her.

But I’m not a pretty little Anchor on your altar.

“A game where she cuts me open,” I say roughly. I tip my head back, baring more of my throat to his mouth. A silent fuck you. “And I take her measure. Decide if she’s amusing enough to keep around for another night before finishing the job.”

“Was she?” he asks, kissing along my collarbone. “Amusing?”

“Vicious. Spitting mad. The kind of girl who goes straight for the throat and shakes until something snaps. Prettiest damn thing I’ve seen in centuries.”

Intended to provoke. To irritate.

His lips skim the shell of my ear. “Did you beg her to hurt you a little deeper?”

And a little harder.

“I enjoy seeing how violence brings out the beast in sweet things. I decided she deserved an encore performance before her final bow.”

For a few moments, cradled between my body and the blade, the princess had burned incandescent. She’d wanted to make someone—anyone—choke on her agony. A girl like that, with a mouth made for sin and a heart like a black hole…

I’d wanted to see how far she went until she broke.

Alexios chuckles and presses his lips hard to mine again, whispering, “I hope your little indulgence was worth it.”

Then his power lashes and clamps tightly around my throat. Crushing. Choking. Dark spots swarm my vision, my lungs burn, and my senses dull until the roaring tide of my pulse drowns out all else.

“I warned you that if you disappointed me again, I’d remind you what happens when my leash becomes a noose.” He skims his thumb over my cheekbone. “Disobedient subordinates get put down. And liars? Liars get their tongues ripped out.”

His grip tightens as he forces my head back. His other hand digs between my lips and pries my jaw wide. Then he pins my tongue between his fingers.

And draws his dagger.

I feel the sharp edge of the Turpori steel, the blooming sting as he cuts off my tongue. I taste metal and blood as it gushes over my chin. The pain is distant, drowned out by the thunder of my heartbeat and the throbbing pressure of the king’s power.

He shoves my severed tongue down my throat and slaps his palm over my mouth.

“Swallow it,” he hisses against my cheek.

Fuck you.

I glare up at him even as black spots crowd my vision, my bones creaking beneath the crush of his will.

“Swallow. It.”

Alexios’ collar keeps my strength leashed to half what it is naturally—without it, we’d be equals. One day, I’ll sever it. And when I do, it’s not bones I’ll settle for breaking. It’s the base of his fucking spine.

But today isn’t that day.

So I swallow.

Alexios releases me, and I crumple to my knees.

“By the time that tongue grows back,” he says coldly, “I hope you’ll learn to use it more wisely. I’d hate to take your wings next.”

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11

BRYONY

YOU’RE ALIVE.” A woman’s voice cuts through the static. Gentle but firm. “Just breathe through it.”

I try to focus on her, but everything feels distant and hazy as if I’m deep underwater. My body hurts. The sort of pain that makes you wish for death—except I was dead. Wasn’t I?

My fingers move on instinct, shoving past the cloak to trace the scars on my inner elbow. Each one is a tether pulling me back from the brink.

I feel for the first notch. Breathe. You’re breathing.

Two notches. Feel the jagged rock beneath you, the bite of the cold.

Three. Your name is Bryony Devaliant.

Four. You’re on the Duehavn Ridge, where your uncle tried to kill you.

Five. This is real. You survived when you shouldn’t have.

I crack my eyes open. Blurry wings fill my vision, charcoal dark feathers with violet undertones that shimmer in the light. A demigoddess stares down at me with pale irises that are almost colorless save for the darker flecks of blue. She’s slender and fine-boned, with a heart-shaped face and shoulder-length lavender-colored hair. Her lips press into a line as she looks me over.

“I spotted you when I was flying over the Osbu Sea.” She lightly taps my stomach, where bandages peek out from under the cloak. “Good thing I know some field medicine because you were dead for about half a minute there.”

“Thank you,” I say hoarsely.

“Don’t thank me yet. You’re still pretty fucked up.” She tugs my cloak tighter around my nakedness. She’s brusque but gentle with me, the way you get when you’re used to handling broken things. “I noticed an oathbreaker’s mark on your wrist before the Void took you. This an Enforcer’s work? They usually go for cleaner kills.”

My heart stops when I see my bare wrist. Alexios’ Claim is gone, with no sign of his judgment. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen my skin there without the glow of his symbol. I’m Unclaimed now, defenseless—anyone’s for the taking.

“It was my uncle,” I manage. “Emperor Idris. An offering to the Eternal.”

She snorts. “Never seen a precious Royal of the Blood marked for death.” Rising, she stretches those massive wings. “We need to get you somewhere warm before shock sets in. Can you stand?”

The world slips and slides, refusing to stay put. My vision won’t settle. “No.”

With an exasperated sigh, she unbuckles her belt and loops it around my cloak, cinching the fabric tight over the bandages. “There. That ought to keep you decent for the trip. One of my wings is weaker than the other, so it won’t be a smooth ride carrying you. If you throw up on me, I’m dropping you into the sea. Are we clear?”

I give a feeble nod, lacking the energy to say anything else.

She leans down and gathers me into her arms, and then we’re airborne. The ground falls away with dizzying speed. My stomach lurches as she banks hard left to avoid a jagged outcropping. I feel the strain in her shoulders, the flex and bunch of muscles working to hold us aloft.

I make the mistake of glancing down and immediately slam my eyes shut again. Blackness drags me down and pulls me under.

This time, I let it sweep me into the dark.

*   *   *

“Hey. Wake up. We’re here.”

I open my heavy eyelids to find the demigoddess looking me over, her pale purple hair dancing along her cheek. Past her is an arch of trees. A hot breeze rustles the leaves, thick and humid, prickling my skin with an unfamiliar energy.

“Where?” I manage.

“Somewhere I figured could handle the mess you’re in.”

I turn my head and blink to clear my vision. There’s nothing but a misty forest extending in all directions, not a trace of civilization in sight—until a dark shape emerges from the fog.

At first, it looks like a lone spire knifing up from the ground. But then the haze shifts to reveal towers—plural—in a sprawling mass of black stone. Some are thin and tall, and others are shorter and wider, linked by arched bridges and winding paths to one primary edifice that stands the tallest.

And roses. Thousands and thousands of red climbing roses with branch-thick stems that twist carelessly around everything, as if the owner couldn’t be bothered to prune or tame them. No part of the building is spared from the foliage—even the front walkway is framed in briars bristling with glowing scarlet roses and thorns as long as fingers. They crawl up the walls, tangling together until the masonry disappears beneath them in places. They look less like they’re climbing and more like they’re strangling.

Dread turns my muscles to water as I catalog it all: the unnatural glow of the flowers, the structure of that building, the luminous quality of the plants, the heavy pressure in the air that I now recognize as magic.

I’m in Scillari. She took me through the Shroud.

Oh, gods.

Fear washes over me. Pain shunted aside in favor of something worse—blind panic. My thoughts narrow to a single, pulsing imperative: I have to get out.

“Fly me back.” I claw at her shoulders, ignoring the agony ripping through me. “I don’t care where you leave me, just—”

She sets me on my feet with a huff of irritation. “Sure thing, Princess. I’ll take you right back. And when you bleed out somewhere over the Azureian Sea, I’ll give your corpse a proper send-off. Maybe a touching eulogy about your great decision-making skills.”

Hysteria claws up my throat. “It’s illegal for me to be here—”

“I’m aware. And blood loss is making you hysterical, so I’ll keep this simple. You’re going to drag your ass over to that door, and when the asshole on the other side answers, tell him Amara sent you. Think you can handle that?”

“But the Accords—”

“Won’t mean anything if you’re dead.” She nudges me forward and then, with a snap of her wings, launches into the air. “Door. Knock. Amara sent you,” she calls over her shoulder. “Good luck.”

I watch, frozen, as she fucks off and leaves me there. Just like that, I’m alone, and my thoughts are shouting.

I need to run as far as I can. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and it’ll end fast when my body gives out.

But some stubborn part of me that’s kept going through all those deaths on the altar whispers: Not yet. Just a little longer. I’ve died too many times to give up now. Theodora needs to know I’m alive.

I limp through the trees to the tower, gritting my teeth against the pain stabbing into me with each step. Keep moving. One foot in front of the other. The briar claws at me as I push through it to the front door. There’s a huge knocker shaped like a wolf’s head with its jaws open in a snarl.

My hand trembles as I reach for it. Glowing sigils flare in shifting patterns across the wood, and the door swings inward. Beneath the pervasive thrum of magic, spice and incense tickle my nose.

I lurch over the threshold. The light stabs my eyes as the atrium swims into focus. There are roses everywhere in here, too. Crawling up the walls, around the pillars, and looping up the staircase. The wildness contrasts with the ostentatious architecture. Tall, arched windows frame the entire hall, at least twenty feet high, curving up to a vaulted ceiling covered in black and gold filigree.

Plush couches are shoved together haphazardly alongside dark wood tables filled with books and candles. Despite its grand decor, the space has a cozy, lived-in feel. There are odd little statues poking out from the chaos, objects used to track the stars, and random nicknacks I couldn’t even begin to guess the purpose of.

There’s no mistaking the message it all screams: someone important lives here. Someone with power and money and way too much of both.

That’s when I hear it. A voice, slicing through the hush like a weapon unsheathing.

“Now this is interesting.”

Oh no. Oh no, no, no.

I know that voice. Smoky and resonant, a lovely accent curling around those syllables.

I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the universe to fold in on itself. To swallow me down and remake itself into a shape where this isn’t happening, where I’m not—

“Alexios told me you were dead, Devaliant.”

This is a nightmare, right? I’m about to wake up any moment. Right?

“Yet here you stand,” he continues, closer now. “Mostly intact, though you look like a stiff breeze could do you in.”

I finally gather the courage to open my eyes and turn.

The Wolf lounges against a pillar a few feet away. His head tilts as he studies me, golden eyes gleaming and a smirk of amusement on his lips like he’s trying not to laugh at me. His gold feathers catch in the light falling through the glass dome overhead. The bastard is perfectly at ease, as if he’s been waiting for me to stumble in and ruin his day.

Damn my life. Of course this is where I’d end up, injured and barely conscious. Trapped in the home of the most lethal, depraved creature I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet.

“Amara knew.” My voice comes out flat as I grit my teeth through a new flare of pain. “She knew exactly who she was dumping me with, didn’t she?”

The Wolf chuckles. “Amara brought you here? Oh, she knew. I guess she decided she’d send me a gift. Wasn’t that thoughtful of her?” He pushes off the pillar. “So. Who was it?”

I blink, struggling to concentrate past the spots dancing in my vision. “Who… what?”

The Wolf steps closer, closer, until only an inch remains between us. His smell invades my senses—rain, smoke, a hint of citrus. A lure that urges me to approach and let down my guard even as rational instinct shouts at me to flee.

His eyes flick to my throat, catching on my scar and what I’m sure is an impressive ring of bruises Idris left on my neck. “We’ll come back to that scar,” he says, “and whoever got close enough to give it to you. But first, let’s focus on the piece of shit who bloodied you and took your clothes to the temple. I want a name.”

His expression makes me go very, very still. The amusement is gone, replaced by a cold and merciless stare. I picture myself throwing Uncle to this monster and letting him do his worst.

But no. Idris is mine. At least, he will be if I can get out of this.

“It’s my score to settle,” I say, forcing my voice to stay steady. “Are you about to kill me?”

If I’m going to die, I’ll do it on my feet.

“You and I talked about this before,” the Wolf says with a smirk, “but I made you forget. Want it back?”

His power slams into me. A deluge of images sears through my mind, fractured sense-memories tumbling over each other: his skin under my hands, slick with blood. The copper taste of his lip between my teeth. His voice at my ear, telling me to hurt him harder.

Make me bleed for you, vicious girl.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” the Wolf drawls with a smile. “Oh.”

Heat stains my cheeks. But before I can tuck my shame out of sight, his hands land on my hips and keep me pinned, preventing retreat. He’s back to watching me with the interest of a predator toying with his prey.

My heart stumbles in my chest. “Wolf—”

“Wolf, what? Let me guess, ‘Wolf, please spare me’? ‘Wolf, please have mercy’?” He leans closer, whispering, “Or maybe ‘Wolf, please let’s do it again’?”

“Wolf, go… fuck yourself,” I gasp, catching myself before I sway.

He grins. “Every night, sometimes twice if I’m ambitious.” His hold tightens a fraction. “Here’s the thing, Devaliant. Your family and I don’t have a glowing history, and Alexios wants me to deliver your corpse. He was very specific about the corpse part. But I’m thinking…” His eyes rake over me. Slow. Deliberate. “I’ll take my time with you. Really plan it out. I want to enjoy every second before I watch those pretty eyes go dark.”

Sick bastard. My fingers curl into fists as I fight to keep standing. I can’t believe I survived getting stabbed by my uncle only to end up here.

“Then can I rest while you… plan?” The room won’t stop spinning.

Something in his expression shifts. Sharpens. I brace myself for the blazing onslaught of his power.

Instead, he exhales on a controlled breath. “Down the corridor on your right, there’s a bedchamber beneath the tapestry of a white hart. Get some rest. Don’t touch my shit. I’ll decide what to do with you later.”

I nod, my throat tight.

Without responding, he releases my hips, wings tucked close to his back as he walks away.

“Why did you want a name?” I call after him. “The one who hurt me.”

The Wolf pauses. “Because I accepted your execution terms. I get to choose how you die. No one else.”

Then he’s gone, stalking down the hall in a streak of gold feathers.

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