“She is no longer the one I wish to bruise.”
“Oh, right. His wife,” Ennis said with a cruel grin before biting into a round purple fruit.
Milani stared daggers at him and pointed a menacing finger. “Don’t ever say that again. We both know it’s not real.”
He rolled his eyes and chuckled, chewing on his bite of fruit.
She caressed the side of my head as if to smooth back my hair. “You really thought you stole him from me all those years ago. I hated you so damn much. He wouldn’t even return my letters because of you, and now I find out he tossed you aside, too. I pity you. We’re basically sisters now.”
If I could have recoiled, I would have. I wished I could speak or slap her hand from me or tell her the reason Samkiel didn’t talk to her and left her was how psychotic she was, how she tried to seduce him to secure a throne out of pure lust for power.
Ennis laughed at her insanity, nearly choking. Oh, how I wished he would just keel over dead.
She leaned closer to whisper against my cheek, “Now, he will be mine. Forever this time because Nismera gave me a very special gift.”
She pulled back and snapped her fingers, holding out her hand expectantly. Ennis sank his teeth deep into the fruit, holding it there as he pulled a sheathed dagger from his armor and handed it to her. She gripped it, her wings rustling in excitement as she unsheathed it. The blade shimmered, the entire knife pulsing with magic.
I had no clue what that dagger did, but if she was planning to use it on Samkiel, it couldn’t be good. My body remained impassive, despite my brain scrambling with panic for him. I wished I could warn him. This was all so wrong, a fate worse than any torture. They wouldn’t even let me die.
So as the hateful siblings prattled on, and I stood as an unwilling, silent sentinel as always, I let my mind drift to the murderer with hazel eyes and warm skin, wishing just for a moment that he would find me again.
44
SAMKIEL
“And kidnapping Miska?”
Kaden’s face held no remorse, not that I’d expected any. “Call her collateral damage.”
My hands flexed at my sides. Even the few hours Dianna and I had spent lost in each other hadn’t eased the frustration that boiled in my blood. I wanted to rip them apart, rip Death itself apart, for thrusting this on us, onher.I tried to cool my lethal hatred, but the moment we’d descended the stairs to the dungeons below the palace, it raised its head like a viper ready to strike.
“You’re disgusting.” Dianna’s voice was a soft, hateful whisper at my side. She dug her nails into the sleeve of her dark shirt. She had insisted on being down here with me, even if seeing them, being near them, was too much for her. My strong, beautiful girl. Death was right. I’d rip the world apart to keep her safe.
“What’s with the bullshit interrogation?” Isaiah called from the other side of the cells. “You can’t kill us.”
I stared at Kaden. He sat at the back of his cell, deep in the shadows. The darkness was a living thing, wafting off him to lick at the wall.
“He is right. I can’t kill you, but I’m willing to bet this link between you all only pertains to death. I bet I can hurt you just fine, and for a long while, without Dianna even feeling it.”
Isaiah stood straighter. “Oh, yeah? Let’s try it,” he said with barely contained fury.
I bared my teeth in an eager grin.
“I’ll ask again. Why take Miska, and why were you three in Whitcliff? It had been weeks. You should have been back with Nismera by then,” Dianna said, the rage in her voice startling all of us.
Isaiah’s eyes flicked to Kaden, but he only stared at us. Dianna and I had showered before coming down here, but hateful male pride made me hope he could smell me all over her, my scent coating her flesh like a second skin. Gods, I hoped it made him sick.
“Had you not reached her?” Dianna asked, her head tipped to the side.
Kaden remained silent, and I was half a second away from dragging him out to test my near-death hypothesis.
“She betrayed you,” Dianna said, her voice soft and thoughtful.
I looked at Dianna to see her gaze locked with Kaden’s. Isaiah’s back went rigid, and he stopped his taunting, the room growing silent.
“What?” I asked.
“She betrayed you,” Dianna said again, taking a step forward. “That’s why you were with Miska in Whitcliff. That’s what I felt,” she said, looking up at me. “I felt a slicing pain in my gut when I was kidnapped. I thought it was something else, but the bond was at play even then.”
