Page 187 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

I moved before I had a plan, shadows hauling Thibault from the wall and dragging him behind me like a fish on a line. His body caught on the stone as I climbed, each jolt tearing another broken sound from his throat. I smiled and pulled harder.

The iron rungs carried me toward the latch. Whoever waited beyond it would be prepared. The noise and tremors had made certain of that.

So Thibault would go first. If there were blades, spells, or men waiting to strike, they would spend themselves on him. He would buy me one heartbeat. One opening. One chance to reach her.

I paused at the top and flung him through. He struck the floor with a satisfying crack. I hoped he’d broken something essential, dooming him to a slow and agonizing end.

I came through the opening fast, rolling clear of the entrance and rising to my feet in a single motion. My gaze was drawn inevitably to her.

Alive.

Relief didn’t hit all at once. It splintered through me in sharp, disbelieving pieces, too immense to be contained in one coherent thought. Lunette was the only thing in this world I hadn’t been able to talk myself out of wanting. She’d become the very foundation of my continued existence—the thing my magic, blood, and every feral, territorial instinct I possessed had recognized long before my mind caught up.

The other half of my heart was standing fifteen feet away.

But Vaustin Maeron’s dagger was poised at her throat—one shift of pressure from ending my world. And Lord Coryanthus was smirking like he’d won something. I wanted to tear out his throat with my bare teeth.

“Owain.” My name—not my title—came out of Coryanthus’s mouth. An insult. “You took longer than expected.”

Across the room, Lunette’s lilac eyes found mine, burning with a banked anger. She choked back her fear, but as the blade pressed nearer, the terror slipped through.

I knew her. She wasn’t anywhere near done fighting.

Then my eyes dropped to Vaustin’s other hand.

The device was cradled in his palm. Yet it wasn’t faintly humming with stored magic like it had before. It lay silent—too silent.

Dread arrived like a knife to the gut, parting something vital on its way in.

He’d already used it. The Assembly had their weapon.

And I had to go through him to get to my mate.

Chapter 50

Lunette

One moment I held Coryanthus’s life on a thread of my will. The next, Vaustin Maeron had an arm around me, a belt dagger pressed to my throat, and eyes the color of pond scum fixed on mine.

Cold streamed through the open balcony doors, lifting gooseflesh across my skin. Vaustin had seemed to appear through the opening rather than enter it. Perhaps it had been magic. Perhaps the violence rumbling beneath our feet had swallowed every warning.

I hadn’t sensed his aura until his arm was already around me. By then, reacting was all I had left.

So much more dangerous than he seems.

Vaustin didn’t say a word as he peered down at me with an unnerving glint of salacious anticipation for the pain that awaited me.

Everything went unnaturally still inside me. My heart beat. My lungs worked. But the familiar place where Owain existed beneath my thoughts had become a void.

I reached for my rending magic. But nothing came. No. No, no, no!

Vaustin’s smile widened a fraction. He knew. He’d felt me try to attack him.

I tried to reach for Owain, but our connection was severed too. Even during my years of isolation in Selmont, I’d never felt so alone.

“A little something from the family,” Vaustin offered, his voice easy and conversational, as if we were back at that first luncheon and he was talking about something as mundane as his bloody hair color. “Don’t be alarmed. The Assembly has no interest in harming something so valuable.”

Something?