I rubbed my shoulder, the pain a welcome distraction from the mess inside my head. “You like her.”
“Oh, Iloveher,” Riordan said with a grin. “She stabbed you and still walked away with her head held high. That’s queen material.”
I gave him a dry look.
“She’s fire, Ryker,” he said, tone softening. “And not the kind you douse. She’s the kind you sit beside or burn trying to tame.”
I looked away, jaw tight.
“Don’t let your pride ruin this.” Then, a steely resolve I had never seen in my brother before entered his eyes, and he straightened. “If you can’t make this work, Ryker, I’ll free her myself. I won’t let you break her. You’d never forgive yourself.”
He spoke the last part so quietly that I couldn’t tell if his words were meant for my ears or his.
“Get that cleaned up,” Riordan added, turning to walk away. “You’re dripping all over the damn floor.”
I waited until his footsteps faded, then looked down at the blood pooling beneath me. The crimson slowly spread, seeping into the cracks between the stones as if it belonged there — just another offering to this cursed place.
I flexed my fingers. The pain in my shoulder pulsed with each breath, but I welcomed it. It kept me grounded, made me sharp. I bent to pick up the knife and turned it over. My blood coated the blade.
That fact shouldn’t have excited me, but it did.
My conversation with Riordan replayed in my mind as I continued to rotate the dagger. I knew he’d made some valid points, but he didn’t know Cadence as I did.
She wouldn’t accept a truce between us. She’d vowed to bring about my demise, and she’d meant it.
Something happened while she was gone. I had seen the edge that glinted in her gaze when she first peered up at me in the forest.
Something had shifted. I just didn’t know what.
Turning, I made my way down the hall, each step leaving a smear of blood in my wake. When I reached the healers’ quarters, I pushed the door open without knocking. Odette’s eyes widened as I walked in.
“Your Majesty,” she said, but I cut her off before she could ask me what happened.
“My shoulder.” I sank into the nearest chair with a wince, pointing at the bloody wound. “Now.”
As Odette rushed to grab her supplies, I had to wonder if enticing Cadence’s fire, coaxing it to the surface, was exactlywhat was needed to destroy the distance she was fighting to maintain.
Chapter Three
Cadence
Sunlight filtered through the narrow gap in the drapes, soft and golden, but my body protested the simple act of waking. Every muscle throbbed in a dull reminder of the hard forest floor I had slept on during my brief escape from Ryker.
I rolled over with a groan, expecting solitude.
Instead, I foundhim.
Ryker sat at the end of the bed, elbows on his knees, watching me with the same unreadable intensity he always wore like armor. The light glinted off the blond waves of his hair, casting a halo where it did not belong. His eyes tracked me as I shifted under the covers, and for a moment, neither of us spoke.
I hated the way my heart kicked at the sight of him. “Do you ever knock?” I said, scowling.
“Good morning to you, too, Cadence.”
“It would be a good morning… if you were nowhere in sight.”
Ryker smirked. Because of course he did.
“Five minutes,” he said.
