Page 35 of The Blood Queen

I lift my arms, my sleeves falling back, showing the bright-white lines of the scars the High Blade carved into my skin. My mouth is grim as I watch my father trace them, realize the map she sliced into me.

“Your hands can remain clean only as long as mine are soaked in blood,” I say. “And if you don’t rally the princes and bring this war to the High Blade, I will hold the door open for her to bring it right to you.”

It’s a bluff, but I know he’s bought it.

“Tonight,” he says. He slinks away from me, languid as a cat, emanating an air that this was his idea all along. “The princes will all be at the ball tonight. And you will be there.” His eyes flick to Samson. He doesn’t explicitly say he can attend as well, but he also doesn’t forbid him. “A more…subtle means will need to be raised to appease their nature. But we will sway them to your war, daughter.”

I roll my shoulders back. “See that you do.”

9 Samson

It takes all my resolve to keep my composure until Alyth’s father is out the door.

The moment it shuts behind him, I turn on her with a cracking whoop, punching a fist to the ceiling.

“That was bloody brilliant! Holy shit, you let him have it.”

She grins, her cheeks pinking as she shrugs. “It was long overdue.”

“That gobsmacked look on his face? Like he was really seeing you? That foolish git didn’t have a clue what was happening, and you just—you just—”

I can’t contain it; I grab up her face in my hands, my levity tempering at her nearness, both our breaths catching.

“You’re magnificent,” I whisper. “And it’s about damn well time everyone in this place knows it.”

“Figured I had to,” she says just as softly, our lips drifting nearer. “Else you’d go off half-cocked and scream at the wrong fae, and I’d have to work out how to free you from a curse under a barrow or some such.”

I grin, the smile transferring from my mouth to hers, like we’re both keeping it aloft. “Taking my job from me, Alyth? Can’t have that.”

“I’ve got a better job for you anyway.” And she pushes up onto her toes to lock her lips with mine.

Only I stiffen, fingers braced on her jaw.

She feels my sudden tension and drops back. After a beat, she rolls her eyes.

“My father’s gone, Samson.”

“You don’t know that.” I eye the door warily.

The sheer numbing mortification of Alyth’s father interrupting…that is still fizzing in my veins, probably will be for the foreseeable future. Which puts a frustrating limit on wanting to devour her whole, on how I could lock the door and push her back on this table and resume what’d been so rudely cut short earlier.

But for all I know, locks don’t even work here. Wasn’t our bedroom door locked?

Damn paranoia has got me all upside down. Which was probably her father’s intent.

Effective bastard.

Alyth chuckles, a breathy, teasing sound, and it drags a smile across my face. She threads our fingers together. “Come on. We should find some breakfast, then prepare for the ball.”

Soon as she mentions it, I realize I haven’t eaten since…Christ, can’t even remember. And Alyth’s just as bad; we left all that food on the table last night. With everything else that’s clogged the morning, I let it slip.

I step forward, intending to drag her to a kitchen and get whatever treats her heart desires, but I stop. “Uh, perhaps you should lead the way.” Seeing as I don’t know where in the blazes we are.

She takes me back into the hall. Whatever spell had been on us to confuse our route seems to have lifted, the halls no longer changing every time I glance back. Alyth leads us up the way we came, and as we pass that intricately carved door, she stops, tugs me to bow to it again. A guard is doing the same, as is a passing faun. They bend respectfully to the closed doors and scuttle off.

We rise up and carry on, and I lean over to her. “Wanna explain what that was about?”

“The Faerie Queen’s throne room,” Alyth says. “She ruled the Seelie Court ages ago, but—” Her voice trips, and her face pulls in an exhausted smile. “The last attack of the Red Caps on fae soil happened here, in that room. No one could ever figure out what Red Cap item the High Blade used to destroy the Faerie Queen, so they sealed the room off. The Seelie Court has been run by a group of vain, vapid princes ever since.”