“Killing intent,” he said. “Breaching the wards.”
He pulled away from me. I saw the muscles of his back shift beneath his shirt…and then the shirt tore.
Wings.
Erupting from his shoulder blades. Massive. Dark. He was through the doorway before I could see more.
“Stay here.”
Then he was gone. Moving faster than any human could move, his wings folding tight against his back as he disappeared into the dark corridor.
The clan scattered. I could hear them, the thunder of feet, the shouts of alarm. Cador’s orders echoed down the corridor, guards pulling guests away from the courtyard, creating a perimeter. The attack had come too fast for organized response.
I stood alone in the alcove, piecing together the chaos from sound alone.
My heart was silent again. My skin was cold. The petal had spent itself completely, leaving me hollow and still and obviously, undeniably wrong.
If anyone saw me now, if any of those sharp-eyed shifters caught a glimpse of me in this state…
I fixed my dress. My fingers were clumsy, numbed by the cold creeping back into my limbs.
The laces were ruined; I tied what remained in a loose knot that would hold the bodice in place, barely. My hair had come undone during our coupling; I left it. No time.
I should stay here. Should hide in the shadows until whatever threat had breached the wards was dealt with, until it was safe to creep back to my chambers and pretend none of this had happened.
But the scream had come from outside.
And Cador had gone alone.
And something in my chest, something that shouldn’t have existed at all, some ghost of feeling that death hadn’t quite managed to kill, pulled me toward the courtyard.
I ran.
The corridor was dark. I navigated by memory, by instinct, by the distant sounds of chaos echoing from the great hall. Shouts. Running feet. The clang of metal against metal.
The banquet had dissolved into panic, guests scattering, guards mobilizing.
I slipped past them all.
My bare feet made no sound on the stone floors. My cold flesh cast no shadow in the torchlight. I was a ghost in a borrowed gown, moving through the castle like I belonged to it, like I was part of its ancient stones and cobwebbed corners.
The main doors stood open.
I burst through them into the night.
The courtyard was dark. The torches that normally lined the walls had been extinguished. Whether knocked over or snuffed out, I couldn’t tell.
Glass crunched beneath my feet. Oil pooled on the flagstones, slick and dangerous. The only light came from the moon, pale and cold above the mountain peaks, casting silver shadows across the black stone.
And in the center of the courtyard, I saw him.
Not the man I’d danced with. Not the king who’d kissed me in the alcove, whose skin had been pale and almost human beneath my fingers. This was something else. Something other.
Cador stood with his wings spread wide, a wall of feathers that caught the moonlight and iridescent in the gloom.
Feathers traced the line of his jaw, crept up his temples, threaded through his wild dark hair.
His eyes were black pits in that inhuman face, and when he moved, the wings moved with him, mantling, spreading, a threat display that made every instinct I had left scream I should cower, should hide.
