IF MALACHI COULDwake up every morning buried inside a gorgeous woman, he absolutely would. Although he figured it was far from morning time. Judging by the fact that he hadn’t actually passed out until sometime close to dawn and the insufferable sun’s rays were now streaming too brightly into his bedroom, he assumed it was sometime around high noon. Which meant he’d missed the morning’s petitions from squabbling nobles with trifling concerns that were, regrettably, his job to hear and rule upon.Terrific.
As soon as he was more or less fully awake, his cock jumped, growing painfully hard inside his bedmate. It caused her to stir awake. She emitted a perfect throaty purr in appreciation of their position too. He floated among pure ecstasy. Then, his brain caught up with his dick and he rememberedwhohe was wringing the moan from. He cursed low and vicious. Kadeeshamade a similar alarmed sound, though it didn’t stop Her Highness from spreading those mouth-watering thighs even wider, locking her legs around his waist, and scoring his back. Her nails pricked his skin intensely enough to draw blood—a thing Malachi wasn’t sure she did in ecstasy or out of spite. Either way, he’d take it.
“You better have a good damn reason to be in here! This shit is becoming a pattern!” he barked at Trystin when he heard the door opening and then shutting. He didn’t bother to stop thrusting into Kadeesha. As with the former night, hecouldn’tstop.
A mocking chuckle filled the room. It carried a pitch that was distinctlynothis cousin’s. At least not the cousin he actually liked—mostly. He jerked out of Kadeesha while simultaneously hurling a void dagger at the male who had no business being in his private quarters. The shadow blade sank into his target’s thigh; it was a shallow flesh wound but made Malachi’s point all the same. If not for grating court politics, he would’ve aimed much higher and impaled his cousin’s heart. He cursed himself—he’d been too distracted, and there was no excuse for it. He should’ve sensed the threat the very instance his door opened. It shouldn’t have taken Cassius’s grating laugh to alert him to the presence of a trespasser.
To Kadeesha’s credit, she’d reacted as swiftly to the hazard as he had. Malachi felt the searing heat of aether flames licking along the right side of his bare skin—the princess had manifested the fire the moment he’d thrown the dagger. He didn’t dare turn and drink in how truly stunning Kadeesha was when she turned up the ferocity, though; that would’ve required him taking his eyes off his ever-scheming cousin, andthatalways had a high chance of resulting in a void dagger to his own chest.
“Who is he?” Kadeesha asked, on guard after having witnessed the animosity between Malachi and Cassius.
Trystin rushed into the room before Malachi could decide if he’d answer the princess. Trystin was holding a hand to his left shoulder, while blood seeped from between his fingers. “Shit, Malachi. I’m sorry. I tried to stop him, but this asshole got past me.” Trystin shot a murderous look at the fae male only Malachi was related to. He and Cassius were first cousins via their fathers. Both dead. Both assassinated during the Cleric’s Rebellion. Of all the people Malachi mourned who had been murdered, it was a pity Cassius wasn’t one of them. “Attack me again and you’ll be bleeding out of every orifice of your body until there is nothing left. Only a shell,” Trystin promised Cassius. It was then that Malachi noticed the semi-ragged manner in which Cassius breathed; it was a response no superficial flesh wound would’ve induced. Oh, he made a good attempt to mask his graver injury, but the too-stiff way he held his upper body gave him away.
Malachi arched a gloating eyebrow. “How many ribs did Trystin break, and did he even have to touch you? Or did some rune make your bones obey his command?”
The thunderous look on Cassius’s face had Malachi roaring in laughter. He sobered quickly, however, because there was still the matter of the asshole sullying his apartments. “You’re standing in my residences without an invitation. I’ve killed people for less,” he reminded Cassius.
Cassius shrugged. “Trust me, this is the last place I desire to be. It’s a waste of my time. I was in the Petitions Hall waiting to speak with you. You know, whereyouare supposed to be in the mornings since you’re in charge of running this court. But, of little surprise, ruling is of no real concern to you and you shirked your duties to do what you’re known best for.” Cassiusshifted his stare pointedly to Kadeesha. Malachi’s mind must’ve still been jacked up because he had to swallow the possessive growl that wanted to tear free. Plus, the salacious focus his cousin placed on Kadeesha brought Cassius dangerously close to being pinned against Malachi’s wall like an insect while Malachi let his darkness out to play.
“Get. Out.” Malachi warned his cousin in a tone that made his imminent death exceedingly clear.
Although not clear enough, apparently, since Cassius walked farther in the room and leaned against the bedpost at the foot of the bed. He folded massive arms over a chest that was nearly as impressively built as Malachi’s, though not quite—a fact that Malachi had never let Cassius forget over the years. “I think I’ll hang around instead, since this is where you’re currently doingnothingat. I’ve come with a petition that needs to be heard at once, and Nychelle insists I must stick to the old ways and deliver it in your presence,” Cassius said.
That was it—Malachi was going to relieve him of his head. A thing he would’ve done a long time ago if Nychelle didn’t always go on and on about him not being able to just extinguish the powerful nobles who annoyed him without weakening the court. It was only the thought of his auntie that stilled his hand.
“What the hell do you want?” Malachi snapped.
“Your throne, dear cousin,” imparted Cassius, clearly wanting his tongue ripped out. Knowing he was crossing a dangerous line, Cassius palmed the jeweled handle of the gaudy broadsword he always kept buckled at his waist as if that was going to intimidate anybody.
Malachi heard the choking noise Kadeesha made. Trystin was scowling, but his expression didn’t bear any surprise, which meant he’d already heard this little revelation once.
Malachi lost it; he was pitched into a complete and utterly dark void. There was no light or mercy or restraint. Roiling shadows cracked out of him like thunder, a terrible darkness pouring forth as violent and destructive and glacial as a winter monsoon. Its target was Cassius, the so-called duke prime of the Apollyon Court, third in line for the throne, and lord prime of Bloodline Diamundis, since Malachi’s crown meant he couldn’t sit at the head of his cardinal bloodline. Malachi caught Cassius moving to counter his attack, but judged his cousin would be too pathetically slow.
However, Trystin wasn’t. Malachi’s darkness met an invisible wall. When the light cast from the wall sconces around the room hit it just so, the protective shield glimmered like Cassius was sealed inside a prism. It was the tell of Trystin’s favored protective rune. Trystin held up his hands when Malachi snarled his cousin’s way.
“We both know you cannot kill him in the privacy of your rooms when he has formally arrived at court and stated the intention to issue a very public challenge for the throne.”
“Like hell I can’t!” Malachi thundered. Yet reason returned in increments. He drew in one breath. Then another, each one slicing through the thickest part of the cold killing rage that sometimes consumed him when he was truly pissed off. “You kill him, then,” Malachi told Trystin when enough reason had collected for him to bite off the words.
Trystin returned the look that order deserved. “I am too close to you. Believe me, I’d love to end his grimy existence for the sodding wound in my shoulder. However, me killing him in your private quarters will yield much the same results as you killing him, cousin. There’ll be talk that our king murdered a would-be challenger to avoid facing the possibility ofusurpation. If that happens, you’ll look weak, your right to rule will come further into question, and it will vividly remind people of the prophecy spoken at your birth because you will have then breached one of our most ancient laws.” Trystin stated this as if Malachi didn’t already bloody know it.
“I’ve heard your challenge,cousin,” he said to Cassius. Then, as calmly as possible, battling being plunged into the black void again, Malachi said to Trystin, “Get that fucker out of my face.”
Trystin sketched a rune in the air, the space around Cassius shimmered, and he vanished. “He’s back in the throne room,” Trystin said. “I’ll go and make sure he stays there this time. Don’t take too long to arrive. Ma has more patience and wisdom than you, but when he was there the first time, he declared she never had the right to be queen regent or queen mother, and you know there’s only so much disrespect she’ll tolerate. If she yanks out his entrails and feeds them to him, that will be a political catastrophe too.”
Malachi snorted. “Maybe Iwilltake my sweet time dressing for court. Nychelle’s wrath wouldn’t kill him, only put the shithead in his place.”
“Good point, cousin.” Trystin chuckled as he teleported away.
“That was quite the interesting family spat,” Kadeesha crooned. When Malachi turned her way, her grin was predatory. Malachi saw the wheels turning behind her dark amber gaze, considering how she might use what she’d learned to her advantage.
He returned a smile that was just as vicious, and let her know so she had zero doubt, “When our arrangement is over and we return to trying to kill each other, Cassius will not be around to use as leverage against me. He’ll be dead long before you and I face off.”
Chapter Eleven
AS CASSIUS HOOTED ON, MALACHI SAT ON THEthrone at the front of the Petitions Hall and took stock of which nobles listened to his treacherous cousin’s challenge too eagerly. He also noted which nobles didn’t usually have a taste for court but had decided to be in attendance this day. The Stone Warden, Lady Remi Niyarre, a notorious recluse, was one of them. The tall, bronze-haired woman with a crane-like frame stood among the gathered lord primes watching the proceedings as if she was superior to it all. Lady Niyarre’s presence especially left a bitter taste behind. Her daughter, Arrenia, had been in his bed a few nights ago. Had been there onseveralnights, actually. Had she merely been angling for a queen’s crown that she’d never get, or had she intended to weave a different trap? Malachi despised not knowing the full scope of the enemies he had and the political schemes happening around him. That ignorance had gotten the former king and queen killed, and he wouldn’t make the mistakes of his father.
In addition to Arrenia’s mother and the lord prime of her cardinal bloodline, the heads of cardinal bloodlines Uma, Tareek, and Windemyr also didn’t frequent court often unlesssummoned. They were among the lot who hadn’t relished Nychelle, someone outside of the ruling Diamundis bloodline, taking the reins of the kingdom after the former monarchs’ deaths, and they were having an even harder time digesting Malachi’s ascendancy. However, the four lord primes had shown up for Cassius’s challenge. As for the seven lord primes who kept themselves immured in the games of power and rank that were a permanent fixture at court, three of that group had an air about them that was too keen on hearing out Cassius’s challenge and his claims that he should wear the mantle of Apollyon king. Which totaled seven lord primes across both lots who Malachi was near sure wanted to be decapitated, disemboweled, and have whatever remained of their corpses hanging from ropes along his palace walls. The remaining four of the ones who were consistently embroiled in court politics … where their loyalties, and thus their fates, resided remained to be seen. The only lord primes Malachi was certain were not scheming against him were the members of his absent Cadre, who’d been elevated to the heads of their bloodlines themselves after the massacre of his father’s inner court during the Cleric’s Rebellion. His Cadre was loyal to him unquestionably.
