When Jane finished telling Vincent the story she’d told Benjamin —albeit a much more limited version—he let out a long sigh and fell back onto his bed. “It sounds like something out of a book,” he said, staring at the ceiling. She sat down on the other side of the bed.
“Believe me, I thought I was going mad for a while.”“So you actually opened a portal to another world? Using these Morsecodes ?” She nodded. “You also knocked that creature aside like it was a leaf caught in a wind.” Oh, she hadn’t forgotten about that. Not for one moment had sheforgotten what it meant for him to have such raw power.“That was dumb luck.” She watched him, this kind, clever prince of hers. “I still can’t control it.”“In the tomb,” she said, “there is someone who might … offer you some advice on how to control it. Who might have some information about the kind of power you’ve inherited.” Right then, though, she didn’t exactly know how to explain Mort to him,The Captain twisted in his chair, then rose to his feet to face her. “I have suggested that we send you to Wendy to dispatch the king and his heir. While you are there, you will also seize their naval and military defense plans—so that once the country is in chaos, we will be able to navigate their impenetrable barrier reefs and take the country for ourselves.”The assassin looked at him for a long moment, and the king noticed that his son had gone very, very still. Then she smiled, a cruel, twisted thing. “It would be an honor to serve the crown in such a way.”He had never learned anything about the mark that had glowed on her head during the duel. The Wyrdmark was impossible to decipher. It either meant “nameless” or “unnamed,” or something akin to “anonymous.” But gods-blessed or not, from the wicked grin on her face, the king knew she’d enjoy this task.“Perhaps we’ll have some fun with it,” the king mused. “Wendy is havingtheir Solstice ball i
When the council meeting was over, Bolton did his best not to look at his father, who had been watching him so carefully while he’d announced his plans to the king, or at Vincent , whose sense of betrayal rippled off of him as the meeting went on. He tried to hurry back to the barracks, but he wasn’t all that surprised when a hand clapped on his shoulder and turned him around.“Wendy ?” Vincent snarled.Bolton kept his face blank. “If she’s capable of opening a portal like He did last night, then I think He needs to get out of the castle for a while. For all of our sakes.” Vincent couldn’t know the truth.“She’ll never forgive you for having her shipped off like that, to take down a whole country. And in such a public way—making a spectacle out of it. Are you mad?”“I don’t need her forgiveness. And I don’t want to worry about her letting in a horde of otherwordly creatures just because she’s missing her friend.”He hated each lie that ca
The docks were crowded with sailors and slaves and workers loading and unloading cargo. The day was warm and breezy, the first hint of spring in the air, and the sky was cloudless. A good day for sailing.Vincent stood before the ship that would carry her through the first leg of the journey. It would sail to a prearranged location where a ship from Wendy would meet it to take aboard refugees fleeing the shadow of Adarlan’s empire. Most of the women traveling on her ship were already belowdecks. He shiftedthe fingers of her bandaged left hand, wincing at the dull pain radiating outward from her palm.He had hardly slept that night, holding Fleetfoot close to her instead. Saying good-bye an hour ago had been like ripping out a piece of her heart, but the dog’s leg was still too injured for her to risk the journey to Wendy .He hadn’t wanted to see Bolton , hadn’t bothered saying good-bye, because He had so many questions for him that it was easier no
Jane ’s head went silent as Elain’s words finished sounding in the room.Faith had twisted in her seat, face white with alarm.Jane shot to her feet. “No.”Elain remained in the doorway, her face pale but her expression harder than Jane had ever seen it. “You do not decide what I can and cannot do, Jane .”“The last time we involved ourselves with the Cauldron, it abducted you,” Jane countered, fighting her shaking. She found the words, the weapons she sought. “I thought you didn’t have powers anymore.”Elain pursed her lips. “I thought you didn’t, either.”Jane ’s spine straightened. No one spoke, but their attention lingered on her like a film on her skin. “You will not go looking for it.”Amren said coolly, “So you look for it, girl.”Jane turned to the small female. “I don’t know how to find anything.” “Like calls to like,” Amren countered. “You were Made by the Cauldron. You may track other objects Made by it as well, as Briallyn c
Before Faith could reply, Azriel said, “What about Mor?”Faith smiled. “Elain was the only one who guessed. She caught me vomiting two mornings in a row.” She nodded toward Azriel. “I think she’s got you beat for secret-keeping.”“I’ll tell Mor when she returns from Vallahan,” Rhys said. “Given your reaction, Cass, I don’t trust that she can keep her excitement to herself if I tell her while she’s there, even if she doesn’t say anything to them. And I don’t want a potential enemy knowing. Not yet.”“Varian?” Amren asked. Jane had never learned the story of how the female and the Summer Court’s Prince of Adriata had become entwined. She supposed now she never would.“Not yet,” Rhys repeated, shaking his head. “Not until Faith ’s farther along.”Jane angled her head at her sister. “So you can’t do magic while pregnant?”Faith winced. “I can, but given my unusual set of gifts, I’m not sure how it might impact the baby. Winnowing is fine,
She strained her hands toward him, toward where he’d gone still between her legs. She needed him—now. In her hand or her body, she didn’t care.But Vincent only pulled away. Pulled up, and knelt before her. Surveyed her spread beneath him, her nightgown a bunch of silk around her middle, everything else bared to him. His own feast to devour.“I owe you a debt,” he said in that guttural voice that made her writhe. He watched her hips undulate, and braced his large, powerful hands on either thigh. He waited for her to signal that she understood what he intended. What she’d dreamed of for so long, in the darkest hours of the night.In a choked whisper, she said, “Yes.”Vincent gave her a feral, purely male smile. And then his hands tightened on her bare thighs, spreading them wider. His head lowered, and all she could see was his dark hair, gilded by the lamps, and his exquisite wings, rising above them both.He didn’t waste time with gentle touches and ta
Some small, quiet part of his brain whispered otherwise. He ignored it.Had ignored it for a long time now.“Morning, Az,” Vincent said cheerfully. He nodded to Nesta. “Nes. How’d you sleep?”Her eyes flashed with the anger that was like kindling to his own, but then she smiled coolly. “Like a babe.”It was to be a game, then. Which one of them could pretend that nothing had happened the longest. Which one of them might seem the least affected.Vincent threw her a grin that declared he was in. And he’d make her crawl before the end.Nesta merely began to unlace her boots.He jerked his chin toward Azriel. “Why are you up here?”“I thought I’d do some training myself before heading out for the day,” Az said, his shadows lingering in the archway, as if fearful of the bright sunlight in the ring. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”Vincent could have sworn Nesta’s fingers stalled on the laces of her boots. He drawled,
Vincent soared over the trees, riding and shaping the winds to push him onward, faster, their roar negligible to the bellowing in his head. He took in the passing world out of instinct rather than interest, his eyes turned inward —toward that slab of ruined flesh glistening in the candlelight. The gods knew he’d seen plenty of harrowing injuries. He’d bestowed plenty of them on his enemies and friends alike. In the grand sense of things, her back wasn’t even close to some of those wounds. Yet when he’d seen it, his heart had clean stopped—and for a moment, there had been an overwhelming silence in his mind. He felt his magic and his warrior’s instincts honing into a lethal combination the longer he stared—howling to rip apart the people who had done that with his bare hands. Then he’d just left, hardly making it out of the baths before he shifted and soared into the night. Maeve had lied. Or lied by omission. But she knew. She knew what the girl had gone through—knew she’d been a s