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If I move, Laura will be burned by Yedina’s magic, but if I give in? If I surrender to Yedina and go with her plan, then I will contend with not only an insane mate, but a death sentence at the hands of my father.
“Yedina,” I say slowly, turning to face her.
She’s glowing with a quiet rage of her own, her pale skin luminous as sparks of chaotic energy dance around her crown as she stares up at me with hard eyes. She is a fearsome image of the Goddess of Destruction, Herself. I’d be an idiot to defy her in this moment, but the pendulum of my heart swings in a different direction. She has never understood the annals of my passions, and even now, she wishes to impose on me a future I do not want in exchange for her own sick urges. “I have no desire to challenge my father. If he heard of your intentions, he would sanction your death, himself.”
Yedina’s dark eyes flash with glee. “Then it is good there are no witnesses.” Her gaze strays to Laura, which is shielded by my body. “Well… just the one, I suppose.”
This is no longer a bargain.
She means to kill my Laura to get what she wants.
“You need me, Rej’thorek. You just can’t seem to figure it out.”
At that, I flash her a hateful grin. “No one needs you, Yedina. That’s why you delight in taking what doesn’t belong to you.”
56
REJ’THOREK
“Is that so?”
Yedina finally breaks our shared gaze, feigning at melancholy as she cools from whatever has possessed her. “I suppose I should have expected…” Her laugh is soft, wistful. “That you would see it that way.”
What is she on about?
Even if Laura were just a plaything, as Yedina assumes, taking that which belongs to another is a crime even a matron cannot avoid. Theft is not tolerated in Ti’lith, as it wasn’t before we came to Protheka. Unfortunate for Yedina that Laura’s not just a fixation, she’s mine.
“You came into my home,” I say softly, encouraging the wild demoness to raise her gaze again. “You stole my human to be used as fodder for your evil designs.
“You must be mad to blackmail me, a Prince of the Burning Throne, fourth son of King Asmodeus. Do you think my whispers don’t hold sway in my father’s ear?
“If I tell him what you’ve done, he would have you dragged into the square and made example of, matron or not. You forget that the old ways no longer hold sway in the current state of things. You matrons have grown complacent in your few numbers, and now your control is being threatened by those you deem beneath you, like Laura and the rest of her kind.”
A small sneer forms on her face. “It has a name?”
“I made a mistake giving into you, Yedina.” My words are as effective as any blow, sufficiently stunning her. “This place,” I say of her room, her house beyond, and the circle of matron dwellings beyond that. “I’s a den of dark covenants, forged out of necessity of our race, but you cannot stand not being the arbiter any longer.
“I can see why my father has outmoded you.”
Her slap leaves claw marks chasing over my cheek, the lines burning with a hateful verbena. “You will have me!” she shrieks, baring her teeth at me, her face drawn long in a dark sort of agony. “Or you will not leave here alive!”
My ears prick at the sound of a muffled whine, and shackles jangling. I’ve not forgotten you, Laura, I want to tell her. Just let me quell the beast, first.
“You poisoned your claws to torture her, didn’t you?” I ask, tracing the burn along my jaw, blood coming away on my fingertips. “Even now, every word you speak is a perjury. The Burning Throne will never be yours, and no matter how many Princes you may ensnare.” I put a hand to my chest. “This one will never belong to you. Now, release my woman, or my father will hear about your treasonous claims.”
Revulsion overcomes her porcelain features.
I think my words may have broken her when she devolves into a cackling laughter, holding her stomach with the weight of her ill humor. “Your… woman?” She breathes between another bout of laughter. “Leave it to you, Rej,” she cools, sweeping tears from her dark eyes. “To fall for an animal instead of a proper mate.”
A frosty chill courses through me, but can I blame her for thinking such? I thought the same for a time, before I witnessed Laura’s many emotions, her heavy grief and regrets, and the depth of her passions, so eager and willing.
I cannot put it all into words under Yedina’s derision.
But something deeper rises up, an instinct to protect my own, with words or fists, it doesn’t matter. I measure her up, reminding myself that she is a matron, and as powerful as they are, she is not of royal blood.
She could not take the full focus of my ire.
“You are mad,” I say instead, quiet and even. “And broken.”
