“Ugh. One of the idiots in our employ must’ve pulled the slumbering gas lever,” Ksenia carps.
“Slumbering gas?” Timo bellows.
“Yes. My brother doesn’t care for people to see the route his trains take. Wouldn’t want misfits and lessers to try and enter the castle unannounced.” She smirks as her fingers hop to the next coil of chain, while I consider trying to fit my broken fingersback into the manacle. “Gust your air-magic against the sealed door for a couple minutes. It’ll keep the mist from penetrating.”
As he straightens, Timo stares at her, then at the door, then ascribes the responsibility to the gray-eyed son not currently snoring on the floor and resumes his post at Izolda’s side.
As Ksenia’s ex, Vasily, begins to stream air at the paper-thin interstices, my sister says, “Bohdi, check Isla’s wrists to see if they’re still bleeding.”
Bohdan drags the chair out, then grips Isla’s soiled jacket sleeves and pushes them up. Ribbons of blood drip from gashes on her wrists.
“Still bleeding,” he confirms.
My chest scuds with such anguish that I feel like I’ve managed to enlarge the chain wrapped around me.
“I heard the most ridiculous thing tonight,” Ksenia says.
“What did you hear, treasure?” Bohdan asks.
“I heard Isla has a birthmark shaped like Glace on her cunt that gave my brother the delusion that she’d someday be his mate.”
My throat clenches. How does she?—
“Mind hiking up her skirts to check?” Ksenia nods toward my betrothed.
“Do NOT put your filthy hands on my wife,” I snarl.
Ksenia cups my jaw with the hand not traveling down my spine, forcing my stare off Bohdan, who is tugging up the black slip I poured over Isla’s head mere hours ago.
“Your wife, huh?” My sister’s throat jostles, but not with disgust…with?—
I suddenly suck in air, and not because Isla’s thighs are on display, but because one of the coils of chainhasslackened.
“So?” Ksenia calls out. “The birthmark?”
As I clutch her gaze and she clutches mine, warmth swathes my clammy, aching skin.
“It actuallyisshaped like our kingdom,” Bohdan remarks. “Incredible. Take a look!”
Timo’s sons rush over to peer at the birthmark, but not Timo and not the woman kneeling before me.
She doesn’t even turn. Because she knows that mark by heart.
She’s beheld it every day of her life.
“Not interested in copping a look?” my little witch asks the Volkov patriarch, her fingers trailing lower. When they bump against my cuffs, her pupils widen.
“I don’t care for demons and don’t believe in fate marks,” Timo sneers.
She hooks the manacle still wrapped around my wrist. “I never thought of birthmarks as divine imprints. Is that how you perceive congenital smudges, Kostya? As symbols of fate?” she asks, basting the iron with her magical blood.
“Yes.” My voice is husky with emotion.
Tiny beads of sweat glisten on her upper lip. She licks them away. “Such a quixotic man you’ve become,” she says, sawing through my cuff. Once done, she presses her hands against my shoulders and stands.
I crane my neck. “Love will do that to a person.”
Her lips tremble. Her throat rolls. She carries a shaky hand to her face and scrapes away a lock that’s tumbled across her bejeweled stare. How I wish the features were hers and not Ksenia’s.
