For a prince, there was no choice. The rite had to be endured while the king still lived. Only then could the throne be passed without fracture.
But it was not the thought of the ceremony that consumed him tonight. It was her. The way she refused to break in front of him made him want to drag her down to nothing, only to build her back up inch by inch. Every time she spat her venom, hereyes sparked with hate, and her bottom lip trembled as if she meant every fucking word. He longed to sink his teeth into that lip.
She had asked why his chambers, why his bed.
He couldn’t keep her anywhere else in this castle. No way in hell he would’ve allowed that. It would’ve been even more of a distraction than she already was. Even now, he was itching to check on her—craving the certainty that no man laid eyes on her while she was injured.
From what he’d gathered about her, she’d fucking hate that. Being checked on like that. Possessive. Jealous. Overbearing.
Not that he would call her fragile. She had more grit than most men he had bled beside.
Fuck, she was under his skin.
So far under he’d almost punched the stone wall when she glared at him with that sharp tongue ready to cut. He told himself the reason he’d kept her alive was to protect Dravaryn, to find out what she was doing here and what she knew.
Did she know the truth of the king’s failing state? Did she know what Jakobav was covering, hiding, protecting? Was she an enemy spy sent from another kingdom? Those were the reasons he repeated to himself, but none of them explained why he couldn’t stop toying with her.
Jakobav watched the girl sleep, breath shallow, brow damp with the kind of fever that burned too hot to survive. But her chest still rose, and her fingers twitched faintly beneath the blanket he had pulled over her ribs.
Gods, he shouldn’t have been watching over her at all; he should’ve been the one to take her out, to slit her throat, instead of ordering his soldiers to stand down.
Maybe the fever would do it for him.
The First Guard, the highest-ranking soldiers in his army, had seen him hesitate, and he fucking despised that.
By dawn, the corridor was scrubbed and the reports sealed. Another mess erased, another secret buried. Too often Soren and Thane had to clean up what should’ve never reached their hands, but Jakobav told himself it was the price of command, though it grated all the same.
Still, his friends hadn’t let it go easily.
Thane was the first to push him. “You drag an intruder out of a blood-soaked hallway and vanish for half a day? You’ve got to tell us if she’s a spy, a witch, or your long-lost conscience.”
Jakobav had only grunted, which only encouraged him.
“Don’t play stoic,” Thane pressed, smirking. “If she’s dead, say so. If she’s not, tell us what sort of miracle she pulled to get through the wards alive. Unless…” His grin widened.
“You’ve gone soft for a trespasser.”
Soren, quieter but far more dangerous in his curiosity, had only leaned back in his chair. “If you won’t tell us, I’ll find out myself. Maybe I’ll pay our guest a visit.”
That had earned him a look sharp enough to cut glass and a low warning growl that Jakobav failed to suppress before it escaped.
In the end, Jakobav told them nothing. Only Soren had pried loose one sliver of truth when Jakobav’s restraint cracked. He had confessed his theories about what she might be. Even then, he had left more unsaid than spoken.
He never thought he’d be grateful for a member of his First Guard to be confined to the infirmary, but thank the gods Savina was occupied. Otherwise, she would have questioned him until his ears bled about why the woman was not already dead or locked in the dungeons. That conversation was coming. So was the one with Maeren, his second-in-command. Jakobav guessed she would be tracking him down for answers any day now.
And yet, they had all seen it. Thane’s grin said it. Soren’s silence confirmed it. The prince of Dravaryn, the manwho commanded armies without blinking, had finally found something in his carefully planned existence that did not fit neatly within his control.
A few other members of his First Guard had witnessed him take the girl after she collapsed, but no one else had inquired about her state since. In their minds, she was already gone, lost to the dungeon or to execution and ash. That was the Dravaryn way.
No one breached the wards and lived, and anyone foolish enough to try was disintegrated where they stood, their body unmade by the ancient spellwork. The only exceptions were those carried through by blood or invited by oath. That was the law of the wards, older than language itself.
So to them, she was a fluke. Either luck or a ripple in old magic that was easily explained away and dismissed, not something to unravel or someone to worry about.
But he wasn’t so sure.
Wrong uniform.
That blood-drenched cloak she’d worn bore the Dravaryn crest, but it was too large for her slim frame. Had to have been a stolen soldier’s cloak, not hers.
