“What?” Basten’s face twists.
“He’s right,” I mutter. “We need him.”
Rian grins wider, and Basten groans so deep in his chest it sounds like distant thunder.
“Fine,” Basten barks. “Here’s our offer, asshole. You send a message through your little spy network to call your generals to surrender. No more Cold Coins pillaging the city. Once they’re all arrested and the Sentinels have turned in their weapons, I won’t break the neck off this wine bottle and stab it through your black heart.”
Rian blinks, slow and unmoved. “That’s touching, Basten. And my freedom?”
Basten tips back his head and laughs at Rian’s gall. “Out of the question. You earn your life, not your freedom. Our offer won’t last long. You have…” Basten glances at the mantelpiece clock. “…until midnight.”
I don’t need to look at the clock to know from the moon’s light that Rian had better decide quickly.
As in,reallyquick.
In fact, in the next breath, the church clock outside chimes midnight.
Rian sighs, though it’s broken by rattling coughs. “Fine,” he relents. “Get me parchment and a quill.”
Basten releases him and strides over to the desk.
Rian rubs his throat, eyes locking onto my wedding ring before snapping back up with a gleam, and murmurs wryly to me, “Basten swore a vow to me, too, you know. And look at us now.”
Chapter 20
Basten
First order of business after discovering Rian Valvere is alive?
Get some damn pants on.
Second? Bind that asshole’s hands behind his back, smiling in dark satisfaction when he chokes out a pained cry, and dragging his ass to the castle infirmary.
My preference would be to let his burns rot and fester—serves him right for being dumb enough to hide in a fucking chimney. But Sabine made the point that we can’t let him succumb to his injuries before he’s able to call off the Golden Sentinels.
We exchange some heated words over his fate late into the night, it’s true. Hell, I even overheard the castle maids gossiping about us in the hallways.All is not perfect between the king and queen, they said.
Whatever. They don’t fucking know us.
While I’m dragging Rian to the infirmary, Sabine goes to wake Kendan and summon the other opposition leaders to the meeting chamber, middle of the night be damned. She moves with certainty, purpose.
Me? I’m just trying not to show that my hands are shaking.
Seeing Rian again wrecked something in me. I hate him, sure, but it wasn’t always that way. We were friends once. Almost brothers. We relied on each other in a brutal world that wanted to strip away our boyhood, forge us into unfeeling men.
He betrayed that trust…and yeah, I guess I betrayed his, too.
So now, with his weight slumped against my shoulder, I don’t know what I want more: to punch him again, or to beg him to tell me why.
Most of all, I hate that he saw Sabine exposed like that. Not just in her gauze-thin nightgown: he’s seen her far more bare thanthat. I mean the moment of raw vulnerability where she dropped her glamour.
A less cunning man would see a goddess in her full splendor and fall to his knees.
But Rian? I saw it in his eyes—he clocked her lack of control.
And I’m sure he’s already figuring out how to use that to his advantage.
“Go,” I bark, digging my knee into his ass to make him walk faster. “What’s the matter, your legs weak from weeks of hiding in fucking walls?”
