Except, I already know the answer.
Please, don’t let Lanlin find out the truth.
Is Heka hoping that I will tell Lanlin? That it will sow discord between us because I’m attacking his favorite tutor?
If he’s arrogant enough to believe that Lanlin would side with him over me, then he’s seriously overestimating the power of hismethods. Lanlin would rip out Heka’s tongue if he spoke badly about me or claimed that I was lying.
Yet is it worse than that? Does he know that I could never tell my Alpha this truth without shattering him?
That I never will?
Suddenly furious, I pull out the Night Sky blade and turn around. I launch myself at Heka.
Taken by surprise, he only has time to twist back to me, before I am pressing the blade to his throat.
Heka’s eyes are wide with alarm. “What are you…?”
“Don’t you fucking dare think that you can talk about my Alpha like that to me,” I growl.
The knife is resting against the diamond collar that Lanlin bought for his old tutor.
I crave to slice through it — destroy it — fucking wreck this symbol of his unearned status.
Except, that would give away to Lanlin that something was wrong.
And I don’t want to take away his one good memory from him.
That would be too cruel.
Heka’s chest is rising and falling satisfyingly fast like this is finally an outcome that he couldn’t predict, which isn’t something that happens to him often. “You didn’t see what he was like when he was given to me to tame him. He was feral.A little monster.”
I press the knife hard against Heka’s throat, until the blood beads.
I also use the movement, along with his gasp of pain, to mask my hand slipping downward, as I pickpocket the Bone of the Gods from him.
I slide the tiny beetle from his pocket into mine seamlessly.
Vampire mage does not beat wolf thief.
“Lanlin believes that you’re the one person who didn’t treat him badly.” I meet Heka’s wide eyes. “He holds onto the time that he spent with you as his happiest memory, which is fucking sad. Yet that’s the only reason I’m not cutting off your paper dove murdering head or telling your King what you said about him. But don’t ever call him a monster again.”
“Why are you so emotional? He would agree with my assessment.” Heka arches his brow. “Lanlin Sin knows what he is. He always has. It’s why his own brother carved the words into his flesh.”
Bile rushes up my throat. “Sobek.Is that why Lanlin attacked him and scarred him back?”
“Would you like that to be the story? Would such a narrative make him less of a monster?” Heka’s smile is coldly cruel. “That feral creature attacked and scarred Sobek, his own brother,first. It is whyHoruscarved those words onto him. Here is some advice, my future Queen, if you wish to rule or even survive in the Blood Court. Don’t make the error of thinking that just because Lanlin Sin has been gentle with you so far, you are safe.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Diamond Ballroom, Blood Kingdom
Lanlin
Lies feedmy royal House of Sin, as much as blood. I have known this since I was the monster prince who was betrayed by his mother and torn apart from hisgoodtwin. Yet tonight, when finally I am no longer alone at the Night of the Shades, I am the one who is lying.
I am hiding from my nest mates that this ball isn’t simply to remember our long dead but is also my living funeral.
Tonight, I grieve my own death because I refuse to choose to sacrifice Freya on the Blood Moon.
