“Please,” she sobbed. “Please, don’t take my brother! He’s all I have left! He’s done nothing wrong. Please, I’ll do anything, any?—”
The silent slice of a black blade, and a weeping line marred her throat.
I reared back, hardly noticing Aiden’s hand clamping over my gasp of horror. The woman fell like a wisp of cotton that quickly became soaked in an inky puddle.
The man—Jerell—began to shout garbled words, but the boot of a Wolf silenced him. Then the Wolves continued to drag their prize as he trailed his sister’s blood.
Moments drifted past like dust in a wild storm. Chaotic, biting, fleeting.
Was this why Renwell kept me away from them? Why he told me to never interfere with them? Because they wouldmurderme if I did?
Slowly, Aiden released his hold on me, his features edging into my vision. But I only saw her. A woman trying to defend her family. A woman who got in the way. A woman who was now silenced forever.
“Kiera,” he whispered.
I didn’t want to hear my name on his lips. I didn’t want to hear that there was nothing we could’ve done. Or that he was gods-damned right that I might not survive without him in this city.
I tore away from him, stumbling toward the woman. I fell to my knees at her side. She laid there in the moonlight, her pale hair and limbs strewn about in defeat. She looked like one of the lullaby lilies Mother had loved so much. But crushed, broken.
I brushed my fingers over her cheek as a familiar, soul-deep pain unfurled its wings inside me.
Mother had looked like this woman when they brought her body back to the palace. Except she had been tucked away undera sheet, as if she were sleeping. But the cold marble skin, the rusty tang of blood that stained her clothes, her soul drifting ever further away from me. Those were the same.
“Kiera.” Aiden knelt beside me.
“I know,” I snapped. “We need to leave.”
His voice turned harsh and guttural. “No.”
I finally met his gaze. His eyes were like shards of green glass, sharp with silvery edges. It felt as before, in the prison, like I was finally seeing beneath his mask. Fury, grief... guilt? Or perhaps I was merely seeing my own emotions mirrored back to me.
“We’re not far from home,” he said. “I’ll lead you there and come back for her.”
My eyebrows slammed together. “What are you going to do with her?”
“I’ll give her what little peace I can offer.”
“Then I’m coming with you.”
His jaw hardened. “I can’t carry her and protect you. If we run into more Wolves?—”
“—then I will protect us both,” I said. I held out my hand, the one that had touched the woman’s cheek. “Give me what weapons you have, and we’ll see it done.”
He stared at me. I stared back.
This was an argument he wouldn’t—couldn’t—win. He was just going to have to trust that I wouldn’t stab him in the back.
Something shifted in his gaze like a key twisting in a lock, and he reached under his cloak to draw two curved knives out of his belt.
I breathed steadily through my nose as he slowly placed them in my hand. I clenched one in each fist, feeling their weight and balance. They were longer than the law allowed. Shined and sharpened steel meant for slashing and stabbing. They were not my usual short, spearhead-shaped throwing knives, but I knewhow to use them. In training. I’d never severely harmed or killed someone before.
But Aiden didn’t need to know that. I said I would protect him, and I meant it.
I slipped the blades into my belt. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 11
Aiden
