“None of your business, now let me through.”
He snorted. “I hope Ovir takes your head for this.”
To her surprise, he shifted out of the way without a fight. There weren’t many meetings she could interrupt where Ovir would actually gut her for, so without another thought, she shoved through the door.
Voices immediately quieted as heads snapped to her. Apparently this was a meeting with Ovir’s inner circle, the assassins she’d trained with growing up. Siobhan and Allesio had the good sense to jolt at the intrusion, or perhaps they realized they were the closest to her and wouldn’t stand a chance if she was here for a fight. Mulls only glared—well, tried to glare. He could never quite get it to be menacing with such a small nose and massive ears. Warner looked like a ghost had just interrupted them, the shadows revealing his flinch and the slight tremble along his right pinky finger. The finger she’d once shattered when he’d mocked her for being a girl amongst men.
Before she moved out, she would have been at this table, seated to the right of Ovir. Now, Pierce’s rotting soul sat in her chair, snarling at her. For a brief moment, she contemplated smashing him over the head with that chair. Ovir wouldn’t stop her… until the third swing or so. Maybe she could loosen the screws underneath before she left. Emril would laugh himself to tears if Pierce sat down and the chair splintered underneath him.
All other reactions became peripheral noise as she stared at the dark man at the head of the table. His hair had just been trimmed and combed, yet perfectly wild like always. And that gods-damned chest that always seemed to draw her attention heaved in and out with his tensing muscles.
Ovir blinked at her, in shock or in rage, she could never tell.
“Brela?” Emril gasped. “Four hells, you’re alive.”
She didn’t take her eyes off Ovir as Emril slid out of his seat and hurried over to her. She barely registered Pierce rolling his eyes and hissing something at Ovir while the redhead wrapped her in a hug.
Ovir didn’t seem to notice any of it either—seemed to forget he had been in a meeting—until he addressed the room.
“Out.”
That single syllable was the most powerful word in the world when it came out of Ovir’s mouth. No one argued.
It was such a strange sight to watch half a dozen men leave a room without so much as a boot shuffling. Deadly assassins trained for stealth, and if it weren’t for their shadows calling to her, she might not have known they were there.
It could have also been the fact that the world had slipped away while she stared at Ovir.
The door clicked behind her, echoing through her chest, and they were alone. The room pressed in, and the two coin purses attached at her belt became a burden. So heavy they rooted her to the spot.
Maybe she couldn’t do this after all.
Ovir’s blue eyes flickered. “Little nightmare,” he whispered.
Gods, that voice. That possessiveness. How many times had it haunted her? How many times had it soothed her?
He slid around the table, moving cautiously toward her. “Are you really here?”
Brela opened her mouth to speak, but the words died on her tongue. She didn’t know what to say, how to explain that she had been captured and forced to return to Valisea. How to warn him about the wall breaking and then pay off her debts. How to tell him she wanted to be free.
She’d never felt so small. So vulnerable.
His hands reached up and cupped her face, holding her to his gaze. Rough thumbs brushed over her cheeks as his eyes roamed over her face, neck, body, checking for injuries.
A breath passed, and then he wrapped her in a hug. Ovir never hugged, but despite the stiffness, it was desperate. Not cold or demanding, but still relieved. And yet, there was no heat in the gesture. There was nofire,unlike the embraces from her—thedragon.
Yet she still sank into the man. Clutched at his back like he might let go before she was ready to admit that she hated every second of his arms around her. She’d once loved this feeling. He’d destroyed who she was and turned her into something else—murderer, trickster, liar—yet she still wanted this because he sawherfor what she was. Helether be those things.
The fire wielder was right. She and Ovir were perfect for each other.
Perfect poisons. Perfect weapons. Perfect, vile monsters.
His hand wove through her hair and rested along the back of her head, keeping her close. “Brela, when I learned you had been captured, I tore through this forest looking for you.”
She dug her nose into his neck. Nutty and…wrong. Not hickory smoke.
“Some said it was Severinians, but I couldn’t believe it,” he whispered against her ear. “And then, when I heard that an Anfroidian Lord close to the king had been involved… my little nightmare, I thought you were dead.”
Slowly, Ovir peeled himself away from her, his fingers brushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “What happened?”
