I waved up at Krait. “Him? Why would he care?”
Krait crossed his arms, glaring down at us like we were an inconvenience despite the fact he chose to be here.
“Because ofthatlook,” Ryn teased.
I snuck into the King of the Sahlms’ head. His thoughts wandered to carrying me back to Umber House himself and then down into the underground baths. He imagined flashes of peeled fabric and revealed flesh.
For once, the heat offered me a reprieve; there was no way in the realms I wasn’t deeply flushed from having intruded on the fantasies in that man’s head.
So he wasn’t as unimpacted by that encounter in the library as he’d been pretending. I could use that.
“You look like shit,” Krait said.Pleasant.“Take tomorrow off from training. I have business to attend to with the lords and will be back late.”
I searched his stare and then lifted my chin toward Ryn, who shook his head, unwilling to disobey his King’s order. “Fine…I will occupy myself then. Maybe with anice, longsoak in the bath.Alone.”
Ryn appeared, rightfully, confused, but Krait’s brow quirked up with interest.
“You do that,” he grated out.
Chapter 29
Emmerick
It was late. I couldn’t sleep, so my hands busied themselves, polishing Sybilla’s blade as my mind wandered.
I needed to rename this fucking sword.It seemed awkward to own a weapon named after a former lover while my mind thought so frequently of someone else.
A crown that I didn’t want lay on a velvet cloth on the desk before me. Of course, it shined gold and was lined with gaudy black gemstones—the most hideous thing I’d ever seen. It mirrored the one that the late Mattock’s ashes were entombed with.
A knock came at the door.
“Come in,” I said as I palmed the hilt of my soon-to-be-renamed sword. Maybe I would name it Bryanna, or Chrysteen, or Thorne, or...
“Elsedora?”
“Shoo!” Fenris’ sister swatted away a sniffing Lynx as though it were merely a house cat. She swaggered into the room andtouched countless priceless things as she entered. I swore she might have pocketed something.
“Hello, puppy.”
“Would you stop calling me that?” I ground out.
She smirked. “Sorry—Your Majesty.”
I ran a hand down my face. Fenris’ sister was bold and too much like him. She lacked a certain subtlety that I liked in a woman; today, her leather corset was laced in the front with nothing beneath it, exposing her down to her navel. I tried not to let my eyes wander.
“Fine. Call me whatever suits you.”
Wondering why she was here, I nodded to the chair across the desk from me. Her visits were becoming worrisome.
Whatever she’d come for today couldn’t be good news. I’d angered Sybilla at the last council meeting. It had been as though the words were both mine and not, and I was falling into alliances I’d never expected orwanted. Yet I couldn’t retake the reins.
I waited for Elsedora to tell me that the Sahlms would wage war on the North, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she kept looking around and running her hands over things as though searching for something.
“Who let you in this time? I assume you used the Egress.”
Instead of sitting in the chair, she rounded my desk and sat on it, right in front of me. “Your Egress guards are easy to distract. Andincrediblyhorny. You should let them out more. Panting dogs—the lot of them.”
I snorted and pushed my chair back to put distance between our thighs. “Who do I owe thanks to for this visit?”
