A scream tears up my lungs, and although I don’t want to give these men my tears, they begin to trip down my cheeks, liquifying the blood that beads from so many places on my body.
“Maezza, you must come NOW!” someone screams, and Dante pivots, taking the stairs two at a time.
Lastra runs, dragging me past the ashes of his friend’s fire so fast that it knocks the ground away from my feet and the air from my lungs.
I will murder this man, but first I’ll torture him. I will paint a ring of blood around his cock, then flog what hasn’t fallen off with his own damn thorny branches. AndthenI will kill him.
And rob me of the pleasure of avenging you, Little Bird?
“Send her down!” someone shouts.
Lastra bowls my nettle cage toward the stairs, then sprints beside it.
I squeeze my eyes shut as the stairs rush toward me.Lore, they’re—Water sloshes against my face.
I think it must be Dante, trying to quicken my fall, but when my lids pull up, I realize that the water is coming at me sideways, sweeping me away from the stairs and into Lastra, who flounders before slipping and skidding with me into the giant living room where Xema Rossi hosted that grand revel in honor of Marco’s betrothal.
I bang into an armchair, which drives the thorns deeper into my skin. Even though my body is flooded with adrenaline, I feel the bite of each one of Lastra’s barbs and whimper.
And bleed.
Gods, do I bleed.
Crimson rivulets leak from what looks like my every pore, dispersing like ink as they hit the liquid carpet beneath us that ripples from the fight Lore is waging on Tarespagia. As much as I want him to reach me, I’m covered in so much blood. Blood that’s lethal to my mate.
When the great doors rumble and shake but don’t open, Lastra scrambles to his feet and splashes past me.
They’ve warded the fucking house against us, Behach Éan!
What? Then how come Dante rushed back downstairs?
Meriam must’ve drawn it to keep me away from you! I swear, I will kill that woman—
You cannot, Lore. If you kill her, that’ll kill me.
I heard,he grumbles.I will still hurt her. A lot.
Lore . . .I sigh.
Mo khrà, she stole centuries from me, and then she stoleyoufrom me.
Deciding it’s no time for a debate, I say,I’ll come out to you. As soon as I get out of—
The Faerie I believed dead, or back in captivity, hobbles into Lastra’s path. “I believe you’re heading the wrong way, Soldati.”
Lastra’s complexion becomes as whitewashed as Xema’s furniture. “Y-y-you’re alive?”
“Thanks to my granddaughter and not to the garrison I handpicked to keep Meriam and me safe. Who swore an oath, inscribed on my skin”—Justus taps one finger against his bicep—“that they would heed my every command.”
A furrow forms between Lastra’s brows. “The king—”
“The king didn’t bring you into his home. Into his secret.Idid.”
Lastra’s neck moves with swallow after swallow.
“Who do you work for, Soldati Lastra?”
“For the crown.”
