“Hello, beautiful,” I say, forcing my gaze to meet hers. Every instinct in every cell of my body screams at me to run, to flee, as I peer into her eyes. Her normally white irises are surrounded by a band of black flames. I can’t look away, fixated on the way the flames flicker and writhe.
The corners of her eyes crinkle with her smile. “Better.” She leads me into the bedroom, white sheets rumpled and pillows askew.
Cora’s sexual appetite is nearly insatiable, but an unmade bed always indicates she’s not interested. She likes order and cleanliness when we defile each other. She perches on the bed, then cuts her gaze to the floor in front of her. I kneel, hoping that I didn’t misread the room. I almost send a prayer to the Mother, then think better of it. She’d probably receive it and force the opposite to happen.
It’s what I deserve, after all.
Thankfully, Cora doesn’t spread her legs. She crosses them and leans back on the bed, surveying me with a disinterested gaze.
“Have there been any reports on the girl?” she asks.
“Who?” I know exactly who she’s talking about, but my back still stings and I’m in a foul mood.
Her gaze narrows. “You know who.”
My hands clench behind my back. Mae. “No, there have been no sightings of her since the last update,” I say, even though the last update was the same—Nobody has seen her since Asmo dragged her from the throne room and vanished.
“Hopefully she’s lying dead in some ditch after that injury. It was enough to kill her,” she says with a smile, even though she fumed for days afterward about the fact that it, in fact, didn’t kill her. The one fucking objective of attacking during the wedding. “Anyways. I called you here for a differentreason. We need to establish them as a High House.”
I blink. This time, I truly don’t have a clue who or what she’s talking about. “Who?”
Her hands clench as she grips the sheets, and I fight back a flare of panic. The last time I pissed her off, she thrust a fire poker into a blazing hearth and then pressed it to my ribs. Every time it was about to heal itself, she’d do it again. And again. And again. I still have the scar, now smooth and white. I breathe through the panic, force it down. I can handle pain. Father made sure of it.
“The witches,” she says through gritted teeth.
This again. I shake my head. “Canis and Ursidae will never vote in approval.”
The black aura around her swells. “Make them.”
I rein in the sigh I was about to let loose. “It’s not that simple,” I say for what feels like the hundredth time. Cora is cold, calculating, manipulative, and cruel. But she does not understand the Woodland Kingdom like she does the underworld. Mae’s botched assassination is a perfect example. I told Cora we should do it after the wedding, when Mae was alone. But she wanted the show. She wanted the other High Houses to see. To learn who was really in control. And what it would cost them if they didn’t fall in line.
It didn’t matter how many times I told her it wouldn’t work.
“I grow tired of this, Marik,” she says, tapping her foot on the ground beside my knee. “We’ve been circling around this for months. You promised you’d be able to get them to agree, yet here we are. It’s time to consider the other options.”
“What you’re suggesting will destroy the kingdom and is the very opposite of the goal,” I argue. “We’re supposed to have a kingdom to rule. Not destroy it.”
“Not if we contain it.”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “And how do you suggest we do that?” Despite my attempt to not sound like an asshole, it doesn’t work. My knees ache from kneeling before her, and my mood only worsens the longer I stay here. I brace myself for the sting of her hand on my cheek, but it doesn’t come.
She leans back onto her palms, raven hair cascading over her shoulders like a glossy wave. “We’ve planted the witchesin their courts. We need to start using them. Start forcing them to comply. They vote in agreement or we begin implementing the back-up plan.” It always comes back to this, to threatening the kings’ and queens’ children. “I’ll give them one more opportunity. Arrange the council meeting. If they don’t agree, we give them the ultimatum.”
My mind reels. Even with the ultimatum, Canis and Ursidae won’t submit. “Cora, they won’t respond well to that. Up until now, we’ve been a peaceful kingdom. We have to try to sell them on the witches, make them believe that the witches aregood.Scare tactics won’t work.”
Her face contorts into a sneer. “Then we’ll wipe them from the face of the kingdom. I won’t tolerate their disrespect, and neither will you. You’re High King. Your word is law now.” She stands abruptly in one eerie motion that forces me to scuttle backward. “Arrange the meeting.”
The door to Mae’s—now Elle’s—wing clicks open. I swear it takes longer this time, as if the ancient magic embedded inside revolts against my presence. Or maybe it’s the ring on my finger that reeks of dark magic. The ring that connects me to Elle’s necklace, that allows me to speak inside her mind, that now beckons me closer and pulls me toward the bedroom.
The knife comes from nowhere, flying through the air with the speed of lightning.
I slow its trajectory with a burst of wind and pluck it from the air. I descend into the bond that connects me to Elle. The first time I reached for her, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Of all the times I’ve used this magic to control another, I’ve never been able to see into the other person’s mind.
And Elle’s was a blistering inferno of rage. But underneath it all was fear. And yet, she didn’t show an ounce of it.
That was something I was never able to master. And Father made sure I knew I fell short.
Now, when I look down the bond, Elle’s rage is once again burninghot and bright. The last time I saw her, she was torturously silent, reminding me of myself from long ago. But now, she reminds me of a different, newer version of myself. The version that relies on rage to get out of bed.
