Page 47 of The Poison Princess and the Lord of Misrule

I wait in the dusty dark, pacing the length of the dead queen’s shelves, and every minute stretches into an hour. I count my own footsteps. I run my thumb over the spines of books I can’t read. I think about Sera’s face that first day in the throne room, the way her smile cracked through her sadness like the first thaw.

Then the door opens.

And she’s here.

Sera slips inside and closes the oak door behind her, and for a moment she just leans against it, her eyes finding mine across the room. She’s in a simple lavender gown, no crown, her dark hair falling loose. And gods, the sight of her undoes me the way it always does, the floor tilting, gravity giving way, everything in me sloping toward her.

I cross the room, eating every bit of distance between us. “You’re here.”

“I’m here,” she breathes.

I reach for her. My hands find her face, her jaw, and I tilt her head up and just look at her, drinking her in, this woman I’ve been half-convinced I imagined. “I waited,” I say, rougher than I mean to. “After the feast, I waited all night. I thought—” I swallow. “I don’t know what I thought.”

Her hand rises to cover mine against her cheek. “Ren, I promise I wanted to come. I swear it on Morrishan. I tried.”

What Isolde told me comes back to me, and I’m almostafraid to ask, but I need her to tell me the truth. “What stopped you?”

She doesn’t answer. Her eyes drop.

And that’s when I see it.

The collar of her gown has slipped at the shoulder, and in the pale light of the window, a bruise is apparent against her skin, at the swell of her breast. The ringed imprint in the shape of teeth.

The world goes very quiet.

Her throat works on a hard swallow. “Ren?—”

But I’m already searching her, pushing her other shoulder down, finding the scatter of dark, finger-shaped marks down her collarbone.

My vision blazes red at the edges. “He did this to you.”

It’s not a question. It’s a demand scraped out of me raw and painful.

She tries to pull the bodice up. “It looks worse than it is.”

I catch her wrist to stop her—and she flinches, a sharp hiss of breath, and I look down and push her sleeve back. Her wrist is a ruin of bruises. A perfect, livid bracelet of fingerprints sunk into her skin.

I know exactly what kind of marks these are. And my body is a riot of violence.

“What did he do to you, Sera?” I demand. “Did he—” I break off, the words tasting like ash.

The heat that’s been climbing my neck for days finally crests, and it’s well past anger. The rage eruptinginside me is a clash of fire and ice as it breaks my chest in a dark growl. “Did he force himself on you?”

Her beautiful eyes sheen with fear, with worry. “That’s not what happened.”

I’m barely hearing her, my blood roaring in my ears.

“Ren, please. Look at me.”

I’ve backed her against the door, moved her aside without realizing, reaching for the handle. To leave—to commit a far more diabolical act than one of simply murder.

I want him to feel pain, to suffer.

Sera takes my face in both hands, forcing my eyes to hers, and her voice is low and fierce. “Stop. Look at me, Renick Ashbourne. He didn’t do anything like that, just… You will not do anything to him. Do you hear me? You cannot.”

My fist meets the oak, my jaw clenched so tight it aches. My eyes close as I breathe hard, breathing in her scent, reining my anger in for her. But I know I’ll find him. I’ll find him tonight, and I’ll put my hands around his throat and I won’t stop until I’ve choked the last, vile breath from his lungs.

“Ren…your hand.” Sera takes my hand in hers, urging my fist to unclench to reveal the wound from the glass shard reopened. “Goddess, you’re bleeding.”