“Might we move this along?” Stryder asked. “I have places to be.”
“We’ll be finished when I say so,” Cedric snapped. “If I still allow you to take him, that is. Filthy pebble or not, he has royal blood. Perhaps I no longer wish for him to leave here with his head.”
A dangerous gleam surfaced in Stryder’s golden eyes. “We had an arrangement. You dare go back on it?”
“You’re the one who failed to meet expectations,” Cedric countered. “The poison was supposed to kill my father, yet he lives.”
“He’s as good as dead,” Stryder responded in a threatening tone. “The poison paralyzed him to the point where he will never again sit on the throne. I fulfilled my side of the bargain. You get to be king, and I get the boy.”
“True.” Cedric’s hard gaze landed on me. “How I wish I could watch you die, just as I watched the others. There’s a certain beauty in it: death. The finality of it.”
“Don’t worry about the boy,” Stryder told him. “He will be dealt with, suffering a great deal in the process.”
“Very well.” Cedric flicked his hand. “Take him. Our business is concluded. See to it that he never steps foot in this kingdom again.”
Stryder bowed his head before grabbing me by the arm and dragging me toward the balcony. The chilly night air gave me goosebumps. Or maybe it was my fear that did that. Now that the humor of my obviously fake backstory faded, the gravity of my situation settled over me.
“Wait,” Cedric said.
A glimmer of hope blossomed in my chest. Was he having second thoughts? Showing a bit of humanity?
“What is it now?” Stryder asked over his shoulder, stopping in the doorway with me still in his grasp.
“Once you leave, I’ll wait a moment or two before calling for the guards and telling them he escaped.” Cedric withdrew my dagger from his pocket. “But it will be more believable with a little… bloodshed.”
He then ran the blade over his forearm. Blood beaded to the surface before dripping to the floor. The psycho didn’t even flinch while doing it. If anything, he seemed to get off on it. He sliced at areas of his clothes and made more cuts on his skin.
“Are you finished?” Stryder asked in a deadpan tone.
Cedric smiled and waved the dagger. “I can’t be the only one harmed in our scuffle. It would make me seem weak.”
“No.”
His smile fell. “Pardon?”
“You heard me the first time,” Stryder said. “Hurting him wasn’t part of our arrangement. Besides, his body is still weak from the wounds I inflicted. Any further damage and my pay will be cut, not to mention the tarnish to my reputation.”
There was a tic in Cedric’s jaw.
“I will take this though.” Stryder snatched the dagger from him. “Consider it payment for listening to you ramble on this evening like a villain from a poorly written novel.”
Without another word, he dragged me farther out onto the balcony. Part of me wanted to laugh at the insult, but fear still had me in its grip. The moon shone above us, full and bright. Dark water stretched beyond the cliff a short distance away, reflecting the night sky.
“Interesting.”
I looked to find him staring at the dagger. “What?”
“It’s nothing.” Stryder pocketed the blade and grabbed my waist. “Don’t scream.”
“Why would I—”
He leapt from the balcony, taking me with him. As we spiraled through the air, quickly approaching the ground below, I didn’t make a sound. Heights were nothing compared to what awaited me now.
Through the haze of uncertainty, one thing was all too clear. The storm that had been on the horizon, slowly moving toward me over the past few months, had finally hit.
Chapter Twelve
Into the Woods
