“Well, I’m certainly not going to stay,” she rasped, measuring her surroundings. She pushed against her elbows and nearly collapsed back, stars bursting across her vision before she swallowed them down. “Take me to your king. I don’t want his shadow.”
Something flickered across his face, the faintest ghost of a dangerous amusement. “You don’t look like someone fit for an audience,” he said, his gaze dragging slowly over her.
A shiver trailed her spine. Was he about to kill her, or was there something darker that lingered in the way he looked at her?
“You don’t look like a prince,” she shot back, her teeth flashing with a razor-edged smile that never reached her eyes.
One dark brow rose. “Disappointed?”
Ella’s throat burned with a cough, but she let her mouth curve sharper. “Very.”
A full smile broke across his face, like he was amused by her defiance, but it vanished as quickly as it came. His expression darkened. “What do you want with my father?”
She held her silence.
“Trust me.” His voice dropped lower. “You don’t want him anywhere near your blood when it’s spilling like that.”
He moved closer.
She couldn’t respond, couldn’t even keep her eyes open long enough to try, but even as the dark dragged at her, she swore to prove him wrong.
I don’t need the king. I need a way out. I didn’t come this far to break before the prophecy could be fulfilled.
Before her mind slipped fully into blackness, she fought to hold his stare. He looked back, head tilting slightly, eyesnarrowing as though she were a puzzle he could unravel by sight alone. His gaze was not entirely hostile. It gleamed with the curiosity of a predator deciding what to do with prey that had nowhere left to go.
Then, almost to himself, he murmured, “I have a feeling you don’t belong here…for more reasons than one.”
4
ENEMY’S TOUCH
Ella immediately noticed warmth, then the stillness of solitude. Her eyes opened slowly, and the same chamber greeted her. The fire in the hearth had burned low, casting shadows that danced like ghost-light across the room.
She blinked and sat up with a wince. Her muscles howled, but her mind moved faster now, more alert. Ella replayed her conversation with the prince, unable to understand why she wasn’t chained and tortured, though the pain tearing through her body was certainly a form of torment.
But this was not a dungeon, and unless Dravaryn had suddenly developed a flair for understated luxury, she’d woken up in the exact opposite of a prison. He’d said she was in his home. Ella couldn’t make sense of the bloodthirsty prince speaking of the castle with anything resembling reverence.
Dravaryn was rumored to be the most violent of the continent’s four kingdoms, so this fate-cursed palace had to have an entire wing dedicated to healing injuries. Because if the rumors were true, and the gods knew most of them probably were, Dravaryn’s military churned through blood and bone like fire through kindling, brutal and unrelenting. Soldiers dropped,and healers mended. That cycle likely repeated daily. She had now seen firsthand how fierce and unrestrained the guards were, even the female soldiers. She despised nearly everything about Dravaryn, but the sight of a woman so highly ranked in their military was one thing she begrudgingly respected. In Orchid, women rarely trained for battle unless they were nobles or wielded flame potent enough to turn the tide of battle.
The woman she’d stabbed in the abdomen upon arrival was named Savina. Hopefully she had survived. Not just because death felt like too high a price to pay, but because anyone who could take a blade like that and still nearly cut her down deserved another chance at life.
Why wasn’t she lying in the infirmary among the bleeding masses, or rotting in some dungeon awaiting judgment and execution? Especially after stabbing a high-ranking member of their military. Why was she here? In a chamber far too quiet, and that felt far too personal. The bed beneath her was deathly soft, the sheets exquisite, woven of dark green linen and edged in a thread that gleamed like gold.
She glanced around, heart ticking up a beat. The walls were carved with long, vertical grooves. Were these Dravaryn etchings ceremonial or decorative? A Dravaryn crest was displayed proudly above the mantle.
Something tugged at her memory. When she’d first woken, the walls had bristled with weapons. Now the racks hung empty, stripped bare.
Every last blade gone.
Shit.
She tore her gaze from the now bare walls. Heavy boots were positioned by the door, and on the far table, a silver ring glinted beside a leather wristband and a folded tunic. This wasn’t a guest room, and it certainly wasn’t a cell.
This was someone’s private chamber.
Ella’s breath caught.
Fuck. This is his room.
