I shrug him off. “I am not tempering his actions. I want to join him.”
Nash studies me for a long moment before jerking his head in acceptance. Good, because I’m not afraid to beat his ass if that’s my only option.
Gwyneth recounts that fateful night weeks ago to a crestfallen Eron, Charming’s hand still clutching hers. I catch his gaze and communicate my willingness to end him if I suspect for a tempo that he’s taking advantage of a grieving woman.
He nods once in understanding. I hate him, but she’s all alone in this realm without her sister. At least I have my brothers.
Entering the corridor, I swing my head to the left and right.Where did you go, brother?
I turn right and hurry my steps. The castle bustles with staff readying for the huge celebration of Hart’s coronation and the final claiming of the throne. They press themselves against the wall as I pass. When did I become the scary one? Must be the violence driving my steps.
They shift their eyes ahead, meaning I’m on the right path. The scrape of metal against stone reaches me, and I know where he’s going.Wait for me.
I follow him through the open gate, down the stairs, and into the dungeon. A pair of guards nods as I pass them, and I let free a humorless grin. This will do as a distraction.
“Please, my prince, I did not do those things she accused me of. You know how they are—loose with their skirts, free with their affections until they are found out by their husbands. And then they claimed he forced himself on them.”
“I see,” Hart drawls. To the untrained ear, it might sound like understanding and leniency, but Hart embodies the term “calm before the storm.”
I pass the dark, dank cells filled with the worst of society. Some reach through their cages to plead for mercy, but I have none. Any softness within me died when the only woman I’ll ever love perished.
“You aren’t starting the party without me, are you?” I say as I come to the end of the row.
Hart folds his arms and leans against a post in the center of the circular room, decorated with notches from Theo’s ax. He lifts an eyebrow and smirks. We might appear to be opposites, but we are intrinsically the same—we just shield our darkness in different ways. No one grows up under the tyrannical rule of our now-dead father and comes out unscathed. It’s the stuff nightmares are made of.
He flicks his gaze to the cell beside me. He wants a fight, one that ends with bloodshed, desperate for the pain to drown out the darkness, if only for a tempo’s reprieve.
“Ah, my prince, you pardon the innocent on your brother’s coronation,” a man decides as he shifts into the flickering firelight.
“What crime are you accused of?” I ask. It doesn’t matter. Not really. But I enjoy giving them a spark of hope while they plead their case. It makes the beat down sweeter.
The guy is huge, both in height and breadth. He runs tattooed hands over his shaved head and meets my steady gaze. “My wife was pregnant with another’s spawn.”
Spawn? He deserves to die for that alone.
“I understand the suffering that may have caused,” I answer.
He bobs his head. “So I did what a real man would do.”
Realize she was never the woman for you and leave? Doubtful. “Of course.”
“She regretted the lies moments before she took her last breath,” he says with a wistful look. “It was bliss.”
The punch to my gut is visceral. He stole the lives of not one, but two souls because she strayed?
“How do you know it was another?” Hart asks.
“Because we tried for years to conceive to no avail, and then out of the blue she is with child. It didn’t add up.”
Fuck me. He threw away his family because he thought she may have found love in another’s arms?
“Did she confirm it?” I wonder.
He curls his lip. “Not even with her dying breath.”
I shake my head.
“She deserved it,” the other guy in the cell next to his agrees. “They all do. Fickle, dangerous creatures.”
