Nox looked back at him with wide innocent eyes and said nothing. Sevrin held her stare a moment longer than was comfortable before turning back to the proceedings.
She would deal with that later. The plain-faced woman, however, was another matter entirely. Nox filed her away quietly and thoroughly. She would be one of the first she killed when she returned.
"Stop."
Asharin's voice was cold and feminine at once, and there was something in it that made the soldiers hesitate before they had decided to. She smiled calmly. "Have it share a cell with my sister.” The dog prince looked at her approvingly.
Nox tried not to roll her eyes. The golden whore had the aura of someone who wanted to be villainous but was inherently good.
Villainy doesn’t suit you, golden whore. A real villain would have killed Yvara on the spot, or left her with a torturer who could slice her open cut by cut.
Amateur.
Sevrin frowned. "We know nothing about it. It could harm her?—"
"Fuck you, Sevrin," Colsar said.
Nox looked at him properly for the first time. She had always heard he was cold, rude, controlled to the point of cruelty, less powerful than his brother but somehow more dangerous for it. What he was in this moment was none of those things and all of them at once, and far more attractive than anyone had bothered to mention. The muscle alone was doing a great deal of work.
Asharin's eyes found hers one last time. Then she leaned in, close enough that only Nox could hear her. "We will get along just fine," she said, "so long as you do not touch what is mine."
Nox noted the red marks on her neck. She had the distinct bearing of a well fucked princess. Now she was even more curious. Teorin was masterful in bed. Sevrin’s cock was infamous in brothels for its girth.
She could take all three at once, if she chose, had Teorin not just angered her in a way that defied logic. Besides, Colsar and the golden whore had just dismantled her Matron Oramin plans. That alone made him undesirable.
Sevrin, on the other hand, was unwell in a way she found interesting.
If Teorin had truly betrayed her, then perhaps she will kill Asharin. An efficient way to vent her anger. Then wear her skin and fuck Sevrin until he gave her Morrath, Veynar, and anything else she wished for. The thought pleased her. Rumor has it Sevrin fucks his Morraks. She had done much, but never that. Wings and fangs and a dead woman’s skin in the bedroom all at once.
I do not need to be jealous of you, golden whore. I can take it all.
Colsar stared at Nox for a long moment, his face entirely cold.
Nox ignored it. “I am sure we will, Princess. Regretfully, I must leave Rathmor to handle some personal matters.” She smiles. “But no worries, I will return.”
She would be doing considerably more than handling personal matters.
Teorin fucking Rathmor had some explaining to do.
CHAPTER 76
Together
Colsar’s chambers are larger than I expected. I pause in the doorway and take them in. High ceilings. Wide windows facing the gardens. The room feels preserved exactly as he left it, as though the palace understood he was coming back.
"Your rooms are too small for all of us,” he says, moving past me.
"We will sleep here until the Moon Chambers are ready."
I cannot hide my excitement. "The Moon Chambers. Finally."
"There are three bedrooms off this main chamber. Cambra and Saurin will each have one," he says, his eyes on the children.
I look around. It is not a difficult arrangement to agree to. We have barely set the children down when a knock comes at the door.
Edrin. He is taller than I remember. Or perhaps I remember him differently, the red-haired page who used to wait in the outer corridor, uneasy as he delivered correspondence to me, his expression tightening whenever he looked at my hands or myface. He still flushes easily. He bows too quickly, the same way he always did, and something in my chest pulls.
"Highness." He straightens. "I am glad you have returned safely." A pause. "My father. General Rorin. You brought him home."
