I forced my numb brain to work out how this male—the Dark Prince—could possibly know Varian and Ryland. But at the moment, I was far more worried about that dangerous glint in his almost-mad eyes, the eager way his fingers played along the honed edge of that blade.
“She doesn’t look like much,” he sniffed. “She looks more like a drowned rat.”
“Show some fucking respect,” Varian growled, eyes narrowing to slits, that smear of bright red blood shining on his cheek. “She’s the only reason we reached the island alive. Be glad we’re here to save your worthless ass. You could very well have rotted away until you were a pile of bones.”
“Be glad?” The Dark Prince purred, something hopeless simmering behind that furious gaze. “You abandoned mehere without a word and you expect me to be fucking glad? What’s next, Varian? You’ll tell me everything isn’t lost and your delay didn’t just cost me my entire future?”
I didn’t know this male and I sure didn’t like him.
Yet I understoodeverythingabout his anger.
Understood the uselessness of dwelling on the past, yet how he dwelled anyway.
How Ryland and Varian had left him behindand now they’re back with their excuses and it’s just not enough. It will never be enough.
How it felt to be alone. Your failures are eating you alive, spending your days asking yourself how to move past your own bitterness, and all that anger stems from the fact that…
You can’t.
Looking at him was like looking into a mirror, seeing all my infected, scabbed-over wounds from the outside. They weren’t pretty.
Not at all.
No, he thought he was hiding his pain so well, but there it was, shining in his eyes, in the bitter half-smile, the way his arrogance was a shade too bright.
And gods, I felt exactly the way he looked.
Like I was staring straight into a godsdamned mirror.
16
LYRAE
No, this wasn’t right, sympathizing with the enemy.
I was here to kill the prince, not commiserate with him.
He’d killed my soldiers. Declared war on Valarian. He was a threat I had to remove.
“You’re the Dark Prince?” My damn teeth just wouldn’t stop chattering.
“Kaden Rooke, at your service.” He offered me a mocking bow, too-long hair falling over his aristocratic face, a pair of thin silver cuffs glinting at his wrists before his sleeves fell down and hid them.
“The last of the esteemed Rooke bloodline, and master of this once-beautiful estate.”
Well, that was a bald-faced lie.
“My history might be rusty, but the Rooke bloodline died out a millennia ago when Carex Centaria took the Fae throne and wiped your ancestors from the history books during the First War for transgressions against the crown. That’s a known fact.”
“Well, he might have missed one, as you can clearly see.” He preened, before turning back to Ryland as if I was a minor problem he’d just dealt with and dismissed. “Tell me we don’t need her, and I’ll dump her under the ice withthe rest of my enemy’s bones. Then we’ll get down to business.”
Panic shot through me like a bolt of lightning.
How poetic I’d had the very same plan for Varian and Ryland, and given how much tension charged the air, Rooke would have no problem following through. Flinging myself out of Ryland’s arms, I landed like a frozen fish on the floor, numbed fingers clawing at my boot to reach my knife.
But my fingers were worthless, and I’d never make it in time.
Rooke was already coming for me, dagger gripped in his hand, and I threw my hands up in front of my face, too exhausted to put up much of a defense, but determined to make this bastard work for every drop of blood.
