“Why don’t we take this food into the next room,” she said to Elric, still trying very hard to laugh and sound positive when all she wanted was to shriek.
She’d been so close! He knew something. They all did. She could feel it.
They trailed into the next room, which appeared to be where everyone would go if they wanted to drink. Feminine servers flitted through the room in tiny gold outfits that were little more than chandelier chains dangling from their shoulders and hips. Each one had tiny diamondsencrusted all along it, and they swayed with their movements. They all held massive serving trays with drinks in every color, shape, and size.
“I could use one of these,” Elric said, snagging a glass before handing one to her as well.
“No,” she muttered, narrowing her gaze on the crowd. “I don’t want it.”
She handed off the plate to a servant because she didn’t want to keep thinking about that old man’s grubby hands. There wasn’t anyone familiar in this room either, so they moved to the next.
This one was a pleasure room. There were courtesans, both women and men, in various states of undress, even some completely nude reclining on the sofas. It was the most crowded room, full with people of all ages wandering around the models. Apparently, this room wasn’t for sex, but it was for looking and touching. She watched as an older woman walked right up to a nude man and ran her hands down his rather chiseled stomach. She looked away before she could see where those hands were heading.
“See anyone here?”
“No,” she murmured, but then a flash of blond hair caught her attention.
A grating laugh filled the room. Or maybe it was just that she would recognize that laugh anywhere. It was the same laugh she’d heard when she got her first bruise from his grip on her arm, and the same laugh after he’d given her a matching one on her ribs. It was the laugh that haunted her dreams, and the same one she’d heard in her ear before she was tossed off a cliff.
And then he turned. That handsome face didn’t look in her direction, but she’d know it anywhere. The perfectly coiffed blond hair. The blue eyes that were just a shade too light for warmth. The easy grin on his face that he used to get his way. All he ever had to do was smile and people fell at his feet to do his bidding.
“Farah?” Elric asked, his voice pitched low. Then he stepped closer to her and lowered his voice even further. “Jessamine, what’s wrong?”
She swallowed hard, trying to get her mouth to open so she could voice her fears. All she could croak was, “Leon.”
Just saying his name made the entire world tilt. She wanted to run. She wanted to hide. She wanted to turn around and never come back because this was the man who had killed her. He’d killed her mother right in front of her, and laughed as it happened.
All she could see were ropes of rubies around her mother’s neck that bled into wounds that could not heal. She felt the pain around her own throat, the sensation of her skin parting as she felt the sword slash through her. The wind whistled in her ears as she fell countless stories to the sea, knowing it was going to hurt even worse when she struck the waves.
“I think I might pass out,” she whispered, before the world started going dark at the edges of her vision.
It took Elric a few seconds to catch up as Jessamine pressed back against his chest, her eyes wider than he’d ever seen them before. He followed her gaze to see the man standing in a crowd of people. Leon looked exactly as Elric remembered seeing him in her memories. Handsome. Calm. Confident. He had the entire kingdom in the palm of his hand.
No one would dare stand against a king like that. They all bowed before him, fawning over this man on a stolen throne who had no right to all the respect they threw at him.
Elric wanted to murder the man right now. He wanted to let all of his power seep out of his body and send his shadows racing across the room. He’d enjoy watching them tunnel into Leon’s eyes, popping the orbs with a satisfying squelch.
But no, that wasn’t what he wanted. Elric had used his powers so many times to kill people that such a death no longer felt personal, and it was personal with this idiot. He would walk right up to the king and wrap his hand around the man’s throat. He’d use his power to make sure none of the guards could get to them, that much he would allow. But Elric wanted to sink his own thumbs into the man’s eyes and watch as the blood poured out of his skull while he writhed beneath Elric’s grasp.
“I think I might pass out,” Jessamine whispered, and his attention snapped back to her.
All of his care. All of his worry. None of it meant anything withouther. In that moment, Elric realized that her reclaiming the throne had become important to him. Not because he owed her or because he… felt strongly for her, but because he believed that she deserved that throne more than the idiot over there did.
“Do you want me to kill him?” he murmured in her ear, holding on to her elbows as he steered her away from the crowd that was gathering.
“No.” She paused, and then added, “Yes. I don’t know. I can’t think straight. I’m seeing black and white spots, Elric.”
“Just keep pretending you’re fine. Lean on me more, nightmare.”
He kept his hand at her waist so it appeared that she was walking in a lover’s embrace, not because she couldn’t stand on her own. It killed something inside of him not to set her against a wall and then rush back in to destroy the man who had harmed her. He’d never wanted to hear someone scream in pain more than he did in this moment. But he had someone else to look after.
Jessamine’s breaths were coming in little pants. Even though she was trying her best to keep her face from showing her distress, he could see through her paper-thin skin how fast her heart beat. Her heart thundered against the back of his hand where it was pressed to her ribs, and he could practically feel the panic rolling off her body. Her jaw was clenched so hard he feared she would crack her teeth.
But worse than all of that was the fear in those dark eyes. The way she looked at him to help, even though both of them knew there was nothing they could do in this moment.
Leon was here, and there was nothing either of them could do about it. They’d walked into a trap, he was certain of it, and their opponents had wanted Jessamine to see that Leon was unfazed by her return. And it killed him that he couldn’t help her more than simply removing her from the situation.
Growling low under his breath, he couldn’t help but send a small wriggling shadow to cause problems. It sank into the skin of one of the performers, a man so well-endowed that Elric wondered if the gods themselves had blessed him. That performer immediately started botheringLeon. First by hitting on him, and then later he would just follow Leon to remind the king that even though he might have a throne, he would never have as impressive a weapon as that performer.
