Grim watched this display of power in horror and fascination. Cronan had used the Threads of Time to summon different time periods with portals. He was combining his power with the threads...
Cronan released his hold, and the man fell through the first portal. He surfaced a second later—looking ragged and wounded. But not dead. Grim didn’t know how long it took the man to slaughter one of Cronan’s knights, but to their eyes, he was gone for only an instant. The man fell into the next portal. When he emerged again, he was wearing different clothes that were covered in blood. Still alive, though.
The next time he appeared—twenty blades pierced his back. The rest of the portals collapsed together, then vanished.
The man fell forward onto the floor, a puddle of blood forming beneath him.
Cronan sighed. “Not even three lifetimes...A pity. For your world, too.”
The man’s aura was lifted off his skin and turned into the shape of his planet, with various rings of energy around it—
And it swept across the room, melding to his crown. His eyes closed. Cronan inhaled deeply, as if invigorated with the power of the planet. Above, one of the worlds in the crown formation vanished.
When Cronan’s eyes opened again, they were hard. “Anyone else planning an assassination?” he asked. He looked over each man, saving Isla for last.
Unlike the men...she held his gaze. She did not flinch beneath his study.
He was the one to glance away. Toward Grim. “Take her back to the cells,” he said, before sitting back down.
Grim took her arm and hauled her to her feet. But before they exited the room, she looked back at Cronan one last time—her gaze still defiant.
As Grim marched the Wildling through the ornate castle halls in silence, he wondered if giving Cronan the Threads of Time was a mistake. His ancestor was more powerful than he had ever thought. But had he truly had a choice? There were no secrets here, with Cronan’s mind abilities being what they were and his control over everyone in this castle. The discovery of the poison only proved that.
This Wildling, on the other hand, still seemed intent on deceit. The fool.
As soon as they reached the dark lower levels of the dungeon, Grim turned and pinned her to the wall.
His fingers slid down her sides, and her lips parted in a gasp. He frowned. Her skin beneath his hands was warm and prickled in awareness. When he felt around for her aura, he did not sense fear from her at all. No. Only waves of desire.
“If you wanted to see if I was wearing underwear, you could have just asked,” she said, her voice a husky rasp.
He glared at her, and she held his gaze, those green eyes challenging him. He bared his teeth at her, just as he found what he had been looking for.
A reminder of exactly what she was. His murderer.
He slipped the knife from the band of her undergarments. He had noticed it was gone the moment she collapsed back into her seat at the table. The stunt with the fork had been a distraction. To get this.
The knife was made of powerful bone. But it wasn’t going to break her out of the cell. So why did she go through all of that to steal it?
“What’s this?” His grip tightened on its hilt. “Ready to stab me through the heart?”
“Why don’t you let me keep it and find out?” she said, her voice still that breathless whisper that had him leaning toward her mouth. This close, her feelings were overwhelming, spilling into his, and he gritted his teeth against them.
No. He wasn’t a weak fool who would fall for a temptress’s tricks.
He slipped the knife into his own pocket in response. That seemed to fascinate her. She must have expected he would run back to Cronan and report the prisoner’s infraction.
That would have relied on the assumption that he wanted anything to do with his ancestor’s plans to destroy their world. He was still ironing out his own, but he was starting to think she didn’t fit into them at all.
She was transparent. Emotional. Not half as clever as she thought she was. It was almost an insult to believe she could, in any future, be the death of him.
He reached toward her to drag her back to her cell. Before he could, she slipped from his grip, turning so quickly that she blurred. In a moment, his spine hit the wall. The breath was knocked from his lungs. And the Wildling was on her toes in front of him, still nowhere near close to his height, her green eyes fierce and bright.
The knife he had slid into his pocket was now trained against his throat.
ISLA
“Aren’t you supposed to stab me in the heart, Wildling?” he said, his voice a mixture of mocking and irritation. “I would think that would be easier for you to reach, anyway.”
