“Teper’ ty tochno pytayesh’sya menya soblaznit,[*3]” he rasped.
“What does that mean?” she demanded in a shrill voice.
“It means, ‘Again, you have missed.’ ”
She gaped at him. “I stabbed your shoulder!”
A slow smile crept across his face. “It seems you have not the heart to kill me.” He glanced at the knife and tutted. “We must get for you better knives. Come with me to red room at end of corridor. There you can choose from many.”
Saga stored the detail about the red room away for later and made to yank her hand free from him, but Rurik’s unyielding grip slid to her wrist. His eyes darkened as they caught on something, but they met hers again and Saga couldn’t look away. Slowly, he lifted her hand to his lips, his tongue sliding along her index finger. For a single, disorienting moment, Saga felt the wet heat of his mouth in places she should not.
But then her senses swarmed back, and she yanked her hand away.
“You must be more careful,” Rurik said, nodding at her hand. A thin trickle of blood ran down her palm. Saga identified the source as a small nick on her index finger. The index finger Kassandr had just licked.
Cradling her hand to her chest, Saga backed away from him. He’d just licked blood from her finger, and it was the reminder she needed that he was half beast—that he was impulsive and violent, and always got what he wanted. Her despair returned with new force. She was in a foreign land without allies. She could not speak the language. Could not reach her sister mind-to-mind.
A small whimper broke free at the realization: She was trapped.
Rurik’s gaze was unreadable as he moved toward the doorway. “Tell to me when you are ready to say yes, Saga. I will marry you that very day.”
A scream built low in her throat, and Saga didn’t think. She reached for the bowl ofkasha.Hurled it at him with all of her strength. But it only collided with the closed door.
And as the sticky grains slid to the floor, the dead bolt scraped shut.
Skip Notes
*1My queen.
*2Are you trying to seduce me?
*3Now you are truly trying to seduce me.
Chapter 3
Kopa, Íseldur
Hekla trailed a serving woman through Ashfall’s corridors, each turn revealing more opulence than the last. From the black stone archways to the shimmering brass doorplates and crimson tapestries bearing House Hakon’s dragon sigils—it all made Hekla’s face twist in distaste.
Her bones were weary, yet her blood ran hot in the wake of her confrontation with Jarl Hakon and Istré’s chieftain, Loftur. She’d had enough of Loftur to last a lifetime. To think he still thought himself in the right when he’d fallen for the mist’s trickery, and all of Istré’s citizens had nearly paid for it with their lives.
She supposed relaying the news to Rey and Jarl Hakon had gone about as well as she’d anticipated. At the very least, Istré’s problems—Íseldur’s problems, Hekla corrected—were out in the open. The poisonous mist was a danger to every citizen in this kingdom. If left unchecked, it would spread and grow more powerful; it would feast on every human and creature in this realm and Turn them draugur.
The serving woman paused before a door, drawing Hekla from her dark thoughts. “Your chambers, miss.”
With a nod, Hekla entered the room, then paused. Her gaze bounced from the ornate chandelier, shimmering with dozens of candles, to the luxurious bed with crimson silk spilling from anutterly ridiculous canopy. A fire burned in an enormous obsidian fireplace to her right, fur-lined benches and chairs arranged around it, and at the back of the room, glass-paned windows stretched nearly to the roof.
“I think there’s been a mistake.”
The serving woman looked about nervously. “No, miss, this is the room His Lordship ordered readied for you—”
“Which ‘Lordship,’ exactly?”
“Why, the second jarl-in-waiting. I’m sorry, miss, if ’tis not to your liking—”
Though her insides prickled with irritation, Hekla did not want the serving woman to get caught in this mess. She forced a smile to her face. “No, no. It is lovely. My thanks.”
But as the woman curtsied, it took every ounce of Hekla’s willpower not to snort. Curtsied—toher? Thankfully, the woman departed, leaving Hekla alone in the monstrosity of a bedchamber. So Eyvind bloody Hakonsson was behind this. Did the fool truly think he could win her forgiveness with palatial living quarters?
