“She planned out a whole feast for you, Riyan!” Fury burned the edges of my voice. “And you just stormed off! Just like you stormed off from the carriage. And you stormed off after Grigory at the ball. Is thereanythingthat you do not ruin withyour temper?”
“I don’t follow plans.” Riyan’s deep voice was rough, filling the tiny room with the threat of his force. “Never have, and don’t expect me to start just becauseyou’re particular.”
How lucky for him—being so big and strong he could do whatever he wanted while others had to survive as serpents inthe shadows.
I nearly bit off the tip of my tongue with how hard I snapped my teeth. “And you called DerrickHyton spoiled?”
“What?”
“Youheard me.”
Riyan stared down at me for a moment with intense eyes set deep into his strong brow. Tallow dripped down the candle in his hand as the failing flame withered. My heart throbbed in my throat as I glared back up at him. I waited for him to tear me out of the blankets and carry me out of the room, or throw me against the wall, or reach down to try totake me.
The man who towered over me with shadows across his face was not the same man who playfully ran around the Bloodstone countryside and fed me apples or who spilled fat tears of regret in the Duke’s garden. He was just as Derrickwarned,impatient.
Riyan’s hissing breath sliced through the tension likea sword.
“Are you still in love with him?” He spat out the question like ittasted bitter.
I gritted my teeth. What I truly felt for Derrick was locked up safely in the dungeon of my mind. Riyan might take my chastity, but he would never get that secret outof me.
I lifted my chin. “None ofyour concern.”
Riyan’s jaw clenched at my answer. “Is this really how you want this to be, Ravenwood? I thought you wanted to get thisover with.”
He pinched the flame of his candle and enveloped us in darkness. My right arm trembled with the tightness of my grip aroundthe dagger.
My eyes adjusted to the dim glow of the waning moon and the familiar green lights of the night. The thin bands of light whipped across Riyan’s back as he turned away. His head bowed low and his shoulders slumped forward as he walked with heavy footsteps out of my room. He closed the door shut behind him with asharp thud.
My body unclenched and I let out a long,shaking breath.
I released my grip on the dagger and wiped the sweat off my right palm. I rolled over onto my back and listened to my heart pound as mythoughts raced.
Twenty-seven nights were left. “Getting it over with” had seemed like a simple task mere hours earlier—just one last hurdle before I could go back to pulling Derrick’s strings—, butnothingwas simplewith Riyan.
I had spent the day tip-toeing on a blade’s edge, not knowing whether the man who could snap my bones in half would be sweet or cruel. Silly or stoic. Ridiculousor ravenous.
I hissed out a breath through my nose. The longer I watched the waning moon slowly dip through the night sky like sand falling through the hourglass, the less probable consummating mymarriage seemed.
But why should I keep walking on the blade when I could wieldit instead?
I pressed my face into the pillow, letting the tiny horns from the dagger’s hilt poke me in the cheek despite the stuffing. I would not annul the marriage and be at the mercy of Duke Hyton. I would not shatter under the hands of mybrutish husband.
I might have lived in Bloodstone, but I was still a Ravenwood. Iwould survive.
I closed my eyes and remembered Derrick’s words as Ifell asleep.
One cut. That is allit takes.
Morning sunlight peeked behind puffy clouds and lit up my bedroom as I opened my wardrobe. The Bloodstones had left a few garments in the oak wardrobe, most of them shades of red, but some in gentle forest tones. I picked through the clothes and found a grey wool skirt and a light green linen blouse. Annalisa would sniff and call them peasant clothes, but I calledthem comfortable.
I took the lack of maids barging into my room as a sign I was supposed to dress myself. After three days of servants interrupting my private moments in Hyton, I relished in my impenetrable bubbleof privacy.
I secured the Hyton dagger to my garter just after I dressed. I had laced the leather waist cincher as tightly as I could to hold the baggy linen blouse in, but the sleeves still hung past my wrists. The skirt completely covered my leather shoes and swept the wooden floor. The Bloodstones had clearly expected Riyan to choose a bride of arespectable size.
My heart jumped when a loud boom rattled the glass panes of the window. I ran over to the window to see if a giant had stomped down the mountain’s peak to attackthe fortress.
Thankfully, no giants in sight, only Riyan storming away from a large tree trunk that he had dragged through the grass and slammed onto the ground. He crossed the courtyard to a rack of shining battle axes and grabbed one. In a blink, he growled and hurled the axe at the tree trunk. The blade splintered the bark and stuck into the wood. Riyan threw another axe, but missed the trunk and sent the spinning blade toward the eastern wall. Riyan had thrown the axe with so much strength that the blade sliced off a chunk of the stone wall before ricocheting toward a fleeing groupof soldiers.
