Page 221 of The Crown’s Temptation

"I didn't say you'd never have her. I said I don't know whether you will."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have." She shrugs one shoulder. "I know you'll come near to marrying the other sister. I don't know whether you go through with it. And if you don't, I can't tell you whether that's because you want my sister or because you're waiting for me."

He looks at her a long time.

"Do you care?"

"I have one purpose. One thing I have room left to care about, and that's keeping what's left of the people I love out of my father's reach." She says it without heat, which makes it worse. "By the time I'm finished with him he won't be able to rape or kill or torture anyone again. Not anyone. Least of all my sister." She draws in a breath. “She is the last thing I have left to protect.”

On the last night in the Bloodhaven, he lies back and looks up into the red.

"Bloodhaven takes memory. I may not remember any of your...instructions."

"We may not remember each other at all."

"Then what?"

"Perhaps we'll meet all over again. Or, perhaps some part of you will do what I've asked without understanding or remembering why."

"What do you get, in this thing you've seen? What's left for you?"

Nox thinks about lying to him again and finds she's used up the last of it.

"Our daughter."

He turns his head.

She doesn't explain it. He doesn't ask.

Neither of them carries it out of the Bloodhaven.

Blood Calls to Blood

NOX

Nox stepped in front of Teorin.

A second ago she had barely noticed he was there. Then she caught him from the corner of her eye, arm around an old man, leaning in. Feeding.

He was weak.

Teorin was many things but weak was not one of them.

Asharin had been frighteningly strong, Nox had to admit. But Asharin possessed no power that could drain Teorin that way.

Another jolt of power threw her to the ground.

Between Asharin and this bitch I am going to wake up with bruises tomorrow, she thought, annoyed. She wished she had been able to get to the Bloodhaven. Strength would be useful right now.

"You bitch," Nox said. "What have you been doing to him? He did nothing.”

“You are right," Dali answered calmly. "He did nothing. That was exactly the problem."

“Iavis wanted to escape my father. To escape you. He thought he was in love and found instead that he was imprisoned by a sociopathic ruler and a sick, twisted Siren.”

“Teorin did not know who you were,” Nox shouted. “He only knew that Iavis wished us to help him convince both of you that he was dead.”