Then I wave at the musicians, who are raised on a wooden platform and are nervously sweating. The harpist bends over her golden harp, beginning to play again, along with the lutist, although they sound more strained than before.
“Someone knows how to kill a party,” Dove mutters.
I take a cup of pomegranate wine from a tray that a servant holds up shakily to me.
I press the cup to Freya’s lips, enjoying the bob of her throat as she swallows the wine. “I know how to make an entrance.”
Casually, I stroll further into the hall.
I scrunch up my nose at the intoxicating scent of lotus and myrrh, which is tinged with coppery blood.
The crowds hurriedly part for me, ducking their heads and avoiding my eye.
“Maybe people wouldn’t look like they’re about to piss themselves every time you walk close to them,” Freya offers, “if you didn’t have two demonic lions behind you.”
“Ones who are growling,” Dove adds. “And who ripped off your brother’s knot.”
“Half-brother,” I reply, automatically. “The court are used to my lions. That’s not why everyone’s…”
Ignoring me.
I stop, offering Freya another drink of wine.
It satisfies me deep in my soul to care for my Omega like this.
Freya inches closer to me. “So, why is everybody acting like you’re about to choose them as the blood sacrifice? Wait, that’s not what happens, right? The King chooses someone from the ball to…?”
She mimes slitting her throat.
I bat away her hand.
Ruin’s secret offer rings in my mind:The other is for you to break our deepest laws and instincts and offer up the blood of your bonded Omega.
“Don’t do that, even in jest,” I command. “Absolutely not. They are treating me as if I’m damned and about to be dragged to the hottest part of hell because I am. I killed the High Priestess in her inner sanctum. No soul comes back from that. I also attacked Horus, the most beloved of all the Fang Born, before killing Sobek on the Hunt. The House of Crocodile is themost powerful and admired faction in court. If I was mocked before, then I am detested now.”
Dove wraps his arms around the three of us, as if he can shelter us from the rest of the guests and create a private world for us alone.
I wish that was true.
I drag him close, unable to resist the draw to his blood. I graze my fangs along his tantalizing throat. I lick up a dribble of nectar scented blood from the bite that I made before we dressed for the ball.
“You bloody idiot.” Dove pulls his neck away from me with a snarl. “I didn’t want you to… I asked for revenge but…Your soul?”
I tilt my head. “Nebet hurt you. She cut you with the Night Sky Blade, my mother’s own weapon, trying to turnyouinto a blood sacrifice. Didn’t we agree to let go of the past? You don’t deserve to be punished for the sins of your people or King Daire’s sins.”
“How do you know what I deserve?” Dove’s feathers tremble. “I would never have asked you to?—”
“You don’t need to ask.”
“ButI’m?—”
“Grateful,” Freya hurriedly cuts him off. “He’s just upset that you’d risk yourself like that. Surely, if you explained...?”
“I have spent my lifeexplainingmyself. It has led to nothing but disgust, words carved on my flesh, and punishment. I am done explaining. This is who I am. I had my reasons for every action. I stand by them. I will bear the consequences.”
“But I should bear them when you did it for me,” Daire protests.
“I didn’t kill Nebet for you alone.” Rage rises in me. Shadows trail from my hair, curling it up like tendrils around me. The nearby Fang Born shrink away. “She tore away my twin. It hastaken me many years to fulfill my oath, but I swore then that no matter how long it took, I would take my revenge for Laz. In fact, that I would feast on this kingdom’s blood for what they did to my brother and me.”
