Bohdan wipes his blade on his jacket sleeve and bites the fruit. The juice cascades down his smooth jaw and over the gorget protecting his neck.
I try to funnel magic into my freed hand, but none prickles my palm. I suspect that until my talisman knits my iron-torn skin, my magic will remain dormant. “How much of a dunce doyou believe me to be, Zaslofsky? You killed your own son and wife because they didn’t agree with your revolution. You’re never going to let me walk away.”
“I don’t have much of a choice in the matter. Ksenia doesn’t want you dead, and what woman wants, woman gets, right? We men are so weak when it comes to matters of the heart.” His long-suffering sigh is accompanied by a warped smile that makes him appear every bit the raving lunatic that he is.
“Tell me again how you plan on trapping a shifter sorceress?” I ask, chiefly to keep myself from sinking into oblivion as I wrap my broken fingers and hemorrhaging palm around my other hand and attempt to crush bone.
My vision spangles. I stop moving…take a fortifying breath. I need to heal, but how can I when so much iron is wedged around my body? Even the swelling on the right side of my head has yet to resorb.
“Same way wetrappedAodhan and that other Crow—with our Crow Tranquilizers. My wife didn’t have much going for her in the looks and charm departments, but her mind was brilliant. The air-propelled weapons she invented have changed the face of magical warfare forever.”
I slide my gaze over the weapons in question. “Your plan lacks logic, for if my mate is knocked out, then she can’t exactly release me from her bargain.”
He grins. “Do you know long it takes to drain a body of blood?”
My gaze slams back into his depraved one as he closes his kinked lips around the white flesh of the pear.
Still chewing, he says, “So, I actually don’t know the answer myself, but I’m excited to find out.”
“I’ll make mincemeat of you,” I whisper.
His grin reaches the other side of his mouth, which he closes around his pear once more. “I’ll be wearing your necklace.”
I pull in another deep breath. “What about Ksenia?”
Bohdan swallows another chunk. “We’re going to split your pretty medallion into several segments. One person shouldn’t have so much ascendence over death.”
“Planning on hawking hallowed jewelry now that you’ve lost access to your wife’s armament facility?”
“I haven’t lost access to anything. Her death was an accident. Her parents will see reason. And if they don’t”—he drags one finger across his throat—“off with their ugly heads.” He chuckles. “As for the reason I’ll be splitting your talisman…Ksenia and I have many to thank, and what better way of showing gratitude than with the gift of eternal life?” He addresses a reverent nod toward his cousin, who sneers at me.
“They’re here!” Timo’s oldest son exclaims.
My stomach grows cold, then hot, as though they’d shot me in the gut.
Bohdan discards his pear, then walks to the door, props it open, and yells at the rogues aboard to get the engine running. And then he lingers there, waiting, irises dancing with relief and lunacy. Actually, not relief. Just lunacy. He is a psychopath through and through—so arrogant that he believes himself infallible.
When Ksenia steps into the room, two guards holding up a battered and unconscious Isla between them, my ribs tighten, shredding both my lungs and heart. Where the fuck is Vance? He wouldn’t have abandoned her.
Except…
Except he would have…to go after his mate.
The train begins to glide forward, away from the castle. Ksenia winces as she shoots out one hand to catch her balance on the door frame. When I spot the gleam of my ring on her finger, I almost launch myself away from the wall to strangle her.
“Shackle the Crow Princess to the chair, then go find my future queen a healer!” Bohdan snaps to the guards lowering my mate into the armchair he’s just vacated.
Future queen…
Even Ksenia wrinkles her nose. Either she’s still disenchanted with him for having killed Lev, or she isn’t on the same page as he is concerning the future governance of Glace.
Where one of the human rebels regards the room and people in it with unnerving interest as he wraps Isla in obsidian chains, the other regardsme. I narrow my eyes, which widens his.
The one casing my royal trolley growls, “Tighter,” effectively tearing his colleague’s gaze off me.
As Ksenia scans the room, scrutinizing first her sister, then me, she says—with that muted lisp that makes me wish I’d knocked out more of her teeth, “It didn’t work by the way. They weren’t able to bring your daughter back from the dead.”
The news pleats my brow, angering the throbbing at my temples. I was there. I saw my niece resurrect. Could Ksenia be lying? And if she is, thenwhy?
