A snap split the air, a whip lashing his legs. He stumbled, crashing at my side. I sucked in a breath, but his eyes never left Elva. Not once.
All his life he had sworn to protect three women: his mother, the sister he’d found in the woods, and the princess who had turned his heart to gold.
Now all three stood before him, shackled, bruised, broken.
Obrann knew exactly what he was doing. This wasn’t punishment, it was bait. And Callum had stepped right into it.
My focus left Callum, catching on Fritz, standing just behind Elva’s shoulder, his posture rigid, hands clasped too tightly to be steady. He wouldn’t look at me, wouldn’t even lift his lashes.
As if my eyes were a noose and he’d already stepped off the ledge.
Obrann waved a languid hand, dismissing Callum. Then that same hand drifted, pointing lazily at me. “What is this?”
“Your Majesty,” the guard croaked, still pressing his boot to my skull, bowing as far as the motion would allow. “I was merely preparing her for you.”
“Preparing her for what, exactly?” Obrann’s sigh slinked through the room as he fell back into the throne. A servant slipped a goblet into his palm. Another laid out a tray of cheeses and fruit at his elbow. “She’s no good tome with a broken jaw, you imbecile.” He plucked a strawberry by the stem, dangling it between his fingers as he sipped.
My eyes flicked to the empty seat beside him. His heir’s chair. Vacant.
“Let her up,” he ordered.
The boot lifted, air at last flooding my lungs. I forced myself upright, limbs unsteady, jaw aching. Not dislocated. Not shattered. But something was wrong. The ache stayed. My body wasn’t knitting itself back together.
My spine knotted as my fangs tried to press free.Let me out,the whisper coaxed.
No,I begged.Not yet.
When I lifted my head, Obrann was watching, his lips curved, a brow arched. Like he’d peeled back the skin of my thoughts and was admiring exactly what raged inside me.
But all I could see was Elva. Her trembling. The bruises shaped like fingers along her arms. He wanted us to see.
She was a living exhibit of his power, and we were the audience.
“Do you three know why I’ve summoned you?” Obrann asked at last, but his glare stayed on me as though the others didn’t exist.
I swallowed the urge to bare my teeth; he’d only relish in that. “To beg for Gemma’s secret lamb soup recipe?” I asked, with only a knife-tip of sarcasm.
He chuckled, almost delighted. “That’s what I admire about you, Verena, is it?”
“If you admire me so,” I said, “I’d assume you already know my name.”
The incline of his head was faint, acknowledging a rival rather than a captive. He continued. “You pretend ignorance. You hide behind your rebel friends as a lamb. But really…” The black in his eyes glinted, catching some secret light. “You’re the wolf.”
Oh, I’m something far scarier than a wolf.
My voice slipped from velvet into iron. “You think too small. I am none of those titles.”
We never called ourselves that.Rebelswas a story the crown fed the masses, a name steeped in failure and fear.
We were not its aftermath, but its resurrection.
“Well.” He clapped once, the sound loud, theatrical. “We know at leastoneof those is a lie.”
All of them were lies.
“I suppose you’ve heard the news,” he went on. “The unfortunate and sudden death of my son.”
Not a question. Or a statement. Another snare. I gave him nothing. No gasp, no grief, not even a shift in breath.
