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I descended on the glass, preparing to—
Something flew across the horizon, soaring straight at my face. I shrieked as a flash of scales and teeth roared past my vision—snatching whatever it was out of the air.
“What was that!”
“An assassination attempt, most likely.” Alisdair couldn’t have sounded more bored if he tried. “There were many who opposed the treaty and are taking this opportunity to ambush me while I’m away from my kingdom. It is no matter,” he said. “My guards will protect you, little bird. Most fervently from the ones who did want this peace treaty. They will not be pleased to know you’ve broken it not ten minutes after it was signed.”
“Ibroke the treaty?” I gaped at him. “Oh, how terrible it is when age addles your mind and rots your memory. If you think real hard—really strain until you hurt yourself—you will find,old bird, that you broke the treaty when you threw the king of Lyrica through a wall.”
He grinned. Once again, I was amusing him, not irritating him. Certainly not enough to force him to turn the carriage around. “The terms of the treaty were that all acts of aggression between my kingdom and yours cease—”
“Exactly. You—”
“—therefore, plunging a sword in my chest, unprovoked and before a hundred witnesses, counts as an act of aggression,wouldn’t you say?” His grin was terrible to behold. “Do tell me, my queen. You know how age rots the mind.”
My lips pressed into a thin, numb line. “What does this mean? What will you do?”
“Now you ask?” He cocked his head. “Now you inquire about the treaty? Only now you mention your father, and not even to ask if he’s still alive? Why is that?”
“Because I’m not—!” I choked on Emiana’s name, strangled by curse and frustration. I sighed. “I don’t care what happens to that man. In the end, he was no better than a broker—selling his own daughter to warm his enemy’s bed. That’s all I was to him in the end. A pawn to sacrifice.”
He gave me a long, leveling look. “I see. So that was not the first time he’s struck you.”
“I—” I started to say I don’t know, then memories that weren’t mine rose to the surface. “No, it was not the first,” I replied, knowing it to be true. “Nor was it a common occurrence. He’d have had to spend more time in my presence for that—barring the one night a month I was allowed to sit beside him during the Meya’s Moon feast.”
Impossibly thick lashes cast long shadows over his unnatural eyes. They were beacons that kept drawing me back to them, no matter how much I wanted to look away.
“Take heart, my queen, for your plan worked.”
“My plan?”
“To break the treaty and therefore remove all barriers and excuses... for me to kill him.”
My eyes narrowed. “That’s not going to work. Although I will say, your seduction techniques are quite unique and advanced. Pretending that you care so much for my honor, you’d kill the man who hurt me, is a nice sentiment, but it doesn’t erase the fact that if you truly wanted my happiness and freedom from aman who’d rule and control me... you’d turn this carriage around right now and take me home.”
“No.”
Anger welled in my throat. It was everything in me not to leap across the divide and claw the boredom off his face. “Why?” I cried. “Why do you want me? I know of you. I know kings, queens, and emissaries from the four kingdoms have offered you money, land, brides, and grooms all in hopes of you lifting the beast curse off the land.
“You turned them all down by way of severed heads and mangled limbs sent back to where they came from. Why now? Why say yes to this marriage? Why force me to go back with you when you want this marriage even less than I do?”
“I have answered this question, but if you wish to hear it again, I will oblige,” he replied. “I have mastered the magical arts, created a superior race, conquered my kingdom, and amassed wealth that rivals the coffers of this and the human lands. But...
“It’s not enough.” He snapped his fingers and the torn curtains vanished from my grip and reappeared whole and intact over the window. “There was one more horizon to conquer. One that’s always been out of my reach... until a little bird plunged a sword through my chest.”
He smiled, and for the first time, I felt I’d done something very wrong.
“There is something we must do, and at first, I did not believe you were the one to stand at my side. But I see now I was wrong. When you’re in my presence, there’s no fear in your eyes, tremble in your chin, or deference in your speech. You do not fear me, though you do revile me, and yet, arousal wafts thick and heavy from your lethal pussy—telling of your desire for me.”
My face heated. “That is not—!”
“That wasn’t a question,” he growled, slicing in. “Merely a fact that ever more intrigues me. I demanded the All Mother aid me, and she gifted me you.” His voice was barely more than a whisper, lulling my lids heavy once more. “A beautiful little enigma wrapped in venom and violence.”
He laughed—full and free. “Of course I’m not going to give you back, little bird. I’m going to trap you within my cage and watch you squirm. Listen to you scream. Delight as you buck and fight and defy until I have conquered the most interesting challenge yet—claim of your life, your soul, and your heart.”
I wanted to rage. To give him exactly what he asked for—screaming, fighting, and bucking—but I could do no such thing. Darkness claimed me again, dragging me under to where I would not wake.
THE CARRIAGE BUCKED, jolting me out of sleep and off my seat. I fell flat across a hard, sweet-smelling body and was immediately captured in his arms.
