He did his best to keep his tone reasonable. “This is the best plan we have. We can’t put the body back on the mountain without risking all the repercussions we’ve already discussed. We can’t keep her here and simply hope no one notices that Lady Kaliska’s companion has disappeared. And, as Shane has pointed out, as soon as we acknowledge what’s happened, the treaty is at risk. Batlok will want blood. The best thing we can do is give it to him on our own terms.”
Izabel took a slow sip of her wine, considering. And then she nodded, a quick tip of her chin, as if she’d reached some internal agreement. “Fine. Then let’s put her back in her bed, safely behind the protection of the Kwanam guards. When she doesn’t wake up tomorrow, we’ll examine her and ‘discover’what happened. Then you can put a squad together and have a public investigation without the threat of an immediate war hanging over our heads.”
Luka barked out a laugh. “We’ll just put her back, will we? In the Imperial guest suite. On the third floor of the castle. With multiple guards in the corridors. Ladies in waiting in the adjoining rooms. And a view over the castle gardens and the sheer rock face of Mount Nabas!”
“Yes,” Izabel said calmly. “And in the meantime, Shane, Aiden, and Kai should go drinking. Somewhere very loud and visible. And Cori can go see her friend, Iona. All without raising suspicion.”
“I’m not going drinking while Iona and the queen are in danger,” Kai grumbled.
Izzy rolled her eyes. “Kai can go with Cori, if that makes everyone happy.”
Izabel is a genius,his beast crowed.This gives us a way out. At the very least, it gives us time.
Luka pinched the top of his nose. Izabel had… some merit to her idea. She usually did. There was still just one small problem. “And how, exactly, do you plan to get into Narya’s rooms?”
The expression on Izzy’s face told him the answer before she opened her mouth. “You know how, Luka.” And then she made it even worse by putting her hand on his arm and murmuring, “I’ll help.”
Gods.
He twisted away and stalked to the window to stare out at the dark night, looking toward the mountain looming behind the castle. His beast twisted, uncoiling deep within him and extending its claws. It’s smug pleasure at Izabel’s words was now woven through with a driving, primal need. The need to stretch and feel and roar and finally take their skin.
The last time Luka shifted, he’d been searching for his best friend. Desperate to find Rayan before it was too late. But it was already too late.
The time before that, he and Rayan had spent the afternoon catching the thermals over the mountain. Flirting with the heat and call of its depths, only vaguely aware of the fleeting sensations of a great—and terrible—presence slumbering far below. He’d been trying to figure out how to tell Rayan that he wanted to court his sister. That he wanted Izzy to be his. That he loved her. But before he could confess, Rayan told him he’d left the guards and joined the castle healers. They’d argued bitterly as Luka tried to change his mind, but Rayan told him it was already done. Without once discussing it, or even hinting that he was thinking about it, Rayan had simply walked away.
Luka had already lost every member of his family. At that moment, his only thought was that he was losing Rayan too. The person who’d made his childhood bearable. Who’d been by his side and given him a family.
When he was brought to the castle, only ten years old, just days after his first chaotic, terrifying, glorious shift into drake, he’d been alone. His mother left when he was five. His father died at sea. His grandfather spent all his time at the docks, drinking with his old naval friends and offering the sailors unwanted advice. And after Luka shifted, the old man hadn’t wasted a second before bringing him to the castle and leaving him at the gate.
Everyone had a beast, but full drakes were rare. Luka was the same age as the prince and the son of a decorated navy man. So the king took him in. He was given a tiny room in the castle, a chance to join the prince’s lessons, and—for the first time—to eat regular meals, wear new clothes, and bathe daily. But he was still a young boy in an unfamiliar, and often incomprehensible, world. And he was completely, utterly alone. He lived at thewhims of the surrounding adults. His already well-honed need for control grew into something even more relentless. He was a driven, dedicated perfectionist with an unrivaled work ethic.
Rayan found him sitting alone one day and followed him to his box-room behind the kitchens. Rayan, with his huge heart, never-ending generosity, and the warmest family Luka ever met, immediately adopted him. Soon they were as close as any brothers. And they grew even closer after Rayan’s father—the physik general—succumbed to the red-scale sickness he’d treated so many times.
And then Luka took all that loyalty and threw it back in Rayan’s face. Rayan wanted to leave the guards and become a healer… and Luka told his best friend that if he abandoned everything they’d worked so hard to achieve, he could fuck off.
He took Rayan’s decision as a rejection of everything they were. Everything they’d planned since they were ten years old. A rejection ofhim. He behaved like a selfish asshole. He knew it, even as the words spilled out of his mouth. But he never had the chance to take them back.
Rayan had died alone, without Luka there to help him. And it didn’t matter what Izzy said, it was definitely Luka’s fault.
He hadn’t shifted since the days of searching the Nabaspath for Rayan. He’d ruthlessly held his beast back. Held himself back from everyone and everything. He’d known, in that moment, that he couldn’t be trusted with other people’s safety or their hearts.
And now Izzy wanted him to open it all back up again. Worse, she wanted tohelp.She was going to be the death of him, guaranteed.
I’ll take it, his beast rumbled.Better than this living death you’ve forced on us.
Maybe, Luka acknowledged quietly. But not if it killed her too.
Chapter
Six
He checkedthe needle blade was safely in its sheath, leaned back against the cold stones of the castle wall, and breathed deeply, rolling out the stiffness in his shoulders. The last few hours had been exceedingly fraught. But he’d done it. He wanted to laugh, but he swallowed it down. Now was not the time.
Narya was a typical spoiled girl. Too rich, pretty, and entitled to realize that the world was dark and dangerous. It was easy to make sure she heard the rumor of something forbidden and exciting. It was easy to entice her. And now she was dead. Because he’d killed her.
He’d done it swiftly and painlessly. Kindly even. More than the woman fucking the prince behind her cousin’s back deserved. Unlike Prince Shanrick,hewas not a monster.
And now her soul was already lifting over Aobna. Would it make its way back to the sands of Kwanam, to her home? Would it follow the heated vortex around the Nabasberg, pass the darkness of Order, walk the fires of Chaos, and rejoin the Mother of the Weave as one of the ancestors? Or would it become trapped in the misty clouds that spilled down the mountainside, never to settle, never to find a home?
