Page 59 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

Lunette was the most powerful distraction I’d ever come across. If I hadn’t known she was Fae, I might’ve suspected she was a siren.

Emrys studied the wound for a long second, lifting one eyebrow. “Doesn’t seem that bad.”

Coming from Emrys, that didn’t mean much. His curse kept him alive beyond what should’ve been possible. That was why he looked like a human pincushion.

Nisien, his twin, whacked him across the stomach with the flat of his blade for the comment. Typical of them.

“My insides were on the outside a week ago. She even put my damn ribs back together,” I snapped. “I’d be dead without her.”

“She can do that?” Emrys asked.

The gleam of avarice in his eyes made my spine go rigid. I’d seen that look on men’s faces before they did something reckless out of fear. Their mother had died not long after they were born. He was probably terrified the same would happen with Isca.

The irony settled over me like cold water. Emrys was the most powerful mage alive—nearly unkillable. The only living person who might actually be capable of ending him was a petite, red-haired woman currently sitting outside on a mossy log, completely unaware of it.

Still, I’d die before I let him take Luna unwillingly. My shadows stirred at the thought, testing the limits of my skin, eager to be unleashed.

The brothers noticed.

I braced myself to send my magic out to defend against an attack, for Emrys’s damned temper to rip the roof off the cabin or send his magic snapping toward mine.

Instead, they smirked.

I expected this from ever-charming Nisien. Yet this measured, almost amused version of Emrys unsettled me more than his rages ever had. He should’ve been huffing and puffing, violence barely controlled with every heartbeat, not…this.

Isca was clearly very good for him.

I shifted on my feet, trying to bleed off some of the agitation coiling in my gut. I trusted Isca to handle this situation delicately, but I hated how the truth of who I was had unfolded.

“Why are you here?” I asked, steel threading my voice.

“We have an alliance, you ungrateful shit,” Emrys growled. Back on familiar ground. “The Assembly made a move. We responded.”

“…Thank you,” I managed. I should’ve been thankful that they’d reached the same conclusion I had about the raid. “But why bring Isca?”

Emrys looked like a man who’d long ago stopped fighting the inevitable. “When you find your mate, you’ll see how hard it is to leave them behind.”

The words hit harder than they should have.

After the last time Isca hadn’t been at his side—a tale that ended in him slaughtering an entire battalion of Gelidian rebels single-handedly—I believed him.

Nisien pushed off the wall. “When we heard about the attack on your caravan, Emrys insisted on escorting our party to Tir Gelida himself. Isca wanted to see Princess Anwen before the baby comes.”

That pulled me fully back into the conversation. “So you’re going to Tir Gelida for the alliance?”

“Yes,” Nisien said simply. But something about the way he said it, maybe the slight lift in his voice, made me think he was excited about spending time with his kingdom’s greatest enemy.

Nisien had always been strange.

Emrys bared his teeth. “Because you failed to show up. My wife’s plan for peace requires the princess to have a suitor.”

Unfortunately, my instincts didn’t care about nuance. He was delivering good news, but they saw teeth and took it as a challenge. Relief should have been crashing through me at the prospect of not having to go to Tir-Gelida—possibly ever. Yet, the primal, very male part of me demanded I remove every obstacle between me and Lunette—including him. I could give Emrys the fight he’d been itching for. He’d frightened her, and that was more than reason enough to make him bleed. I’d have to—

What in all bloody Avanfell am I thinking?

A bit of clarity sliced through the irrational surge of violence. Either I was feverish again or I’d begun to lose my fucking mind.

Maybe both.