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Wrath of the Invincible Billionaire Heir Chapter 219: Equal Stain
It was far too easy to lie to his men about the bruises and cuts on his face when Saul returned to the castle—an unfortunate incident with a drunk vagrant in Rifthold. Enduring the lies and the injuries was better than being carrion. Chaol’s bargain with Aiden and the rebels had been simple: information for information.He’d promised more information about their queen, as well as about the king’s black rings, in exchange for what they knew regarding the king’s power. It had kept him alive that night, and every night afterward, when he’d waited for them to change their minds. But they never came for him, and tonight, he and Aiden waited until well past twelve before slipping into Jane ’s old rooms.It was the first time he’d dared return to the tomb since that night with Jane and Vincent , and the skull-shaped bronze knocker, Mort, didn’t move or speak at all. Even though Saul wore the Elena at his throat, the knocker remained frozen. Perhaps Mort only answered to those with Branno
Wrath of the Invincible Billionaire Heir Chapter 220: Making Mistakes
The black eye was still gruesome, but it improved over the next week as Jane worked in the kitchens, tried and failed to shift with Vincent , and generally avoided everyone. The spring rains had come to stay and the kitchen was packed every night, so Jane took to eating dinner on the shadowed steps, arriving just before the Story Keeper began speaking. Story Keeper—that’s what Emmy was, a title of honor amongst both Fae and humans in Wendlyn. What it meant was that when he began telling a story, you sat down and shut up. It also meant that he was a walking library of the kingdom’s legends and myths. By that time, Jane knew most of the fortress’s residents, if only in the sense that she could put names to faces. She’d observed them out of instinct, to learn her surroundings, her potential enemies and threats. She knew they observed her, too, when they thought she wasn’t paying attention. And any shred of regret she felt at not approaching them was burned up by the fact that no one bo
Wrath of the Invincible Billionaire Heir Chapter 221: Hell On Earth
Jane's fire was still crackling, the rain still pounding beyond the cave mouth. But the forest had gone quiet. Those little watching eyes had vanished.She uncoiled to her feet, spear in one hand and a stake in the other, and crept to the narrow cave entrance. With the rain and the fire, she couldn’t make out anything. But every hair on her body was standing, and a growing reek was slithering in from the forest beyond. Like leather and carrion. Different from what she’d whiffed at the barrows. Older and earthier and … hungrier.Suddenly, the fire seemed like the stupidest thing she had ever done.No fires. That had been Vincent ’s only rule while trekking to the fortress. And they had stayed off the roads—veering away entirely from the forgotten, overgrown ones. Ones like the path she’d spied nearby.The silence deepened.She slipped into the drenched forest, stubbing her toes on rocks and roots as her eyes adjusted to the dark. But she kept moving ahead—curving down and away from th
Wrath of the Invincible Billionaire Heir Chapter 222
It was two weeks of training for Jane and her Thirteen. Two weeks of waking up before the sun to fly each canyon run, to master it as one unit. Two weeks of scratches and sprained limbs, of near deaths from falls or the Owl gang s squabbling or just stupid miscalculation.But slowly, they developed instincts—not just as a fighting unit, but as individual riders and mounts. Jane didn’t like the thought of the mounts eating the foultasting meat raised within the mountain, so twice a day they hunted the mountain goats, swooping to pluck them off the mountainsides. It wasn’t long before the witches started eating the goats themselves, building hasty fires in the mountain passes to cook their breakfast and evening meals. Jane didn’t want any of them—mounts or riders—taking another bite of the food given to them by the king’s men, or tasting the men themselves. If it smelled and tasted strange, odds were something was wrong with it.She didn’t know if it was the fresh meat or the extra l
Wrath of the Invincible Billionaire Heir Chapter 223
“Tell me about how you learned to tattoo.” “No.”Hunched over the wooden table in Rowan’s room a night after their encounter with the creature in the lake, Jane looked up from where she held the bone-handled needle over his wrist. “If you don’t answer my questions, I might very well make a mistake, and…” She lowered the tattooing needle to his tan, muscled arm for emphasis. Rowan, to her surprise, let out a huff that might have been a laugh. She figured it was a good sign that he’d asked her to help shade in the parts of his arm he couldn’t reach himself; the tattoo around his wrist needed to be re-inked now that the wounds from her burning him had faded. “Did you learn from someone? Master and apprentice and all that?”He gave her a rather incredulous look. “Yes, master and apprentice and all that. In the war camps, we had a commander who used to tattoo the number of enemies he’d killed on his flesh—sometimes he’d write the whole story of a battle. All the young soldiers were enamor
Wrath of the Invincible Billionaire Heir Chapter 224
It was selfish and horrible, but it was true. Nehemia, long ago, had once said as much—it was her most ardent and selfish wish to be ordinary, without the weight of her crown. Had her friend known how deeply those words had echoed in her?She waited for the scolding, saw it simmering in Rowan’s eyes. But then he quietly said, “What do you mean, another set of shackles?”He loosened his grip to reveal the two thin bands of scars that wrapped around her wrist. His mouth tightened, and she yanked her wrist back hard enough that he let go.“Nothing,” she said. “Arobynn, my master, liked to use them for training every now and then.” Arobynn had chained her to make her learn how to get free. But the shackles at Endovier had been crafted with people like her in mind. It wasn’t until Chaol had removed them that she’d gotten out.She didn’t want Rowan knowing that—any of it. Anger and hatred she could handle, but pity … And she couldn’t talk about Chaol, couldn’t explain just how much he had r
Wrath of the Invincible Billionaire Heir Chapter 225: Given Threat
As one the Thirteen flew; as one the Thirteen led the other Skull covens in the skies. Drill after drill, through rain and sun and wind, until they were all tanned and freckled. Even though Abram had yet to make the Crossing, the Spidersilk patching on his wings improved his flying significantly.It was all going beautifully. Abram had gotten into a brawl for dominance with Lin’s bull and emerged victorious, and after that, none in her coven or any other challenged him. The War Games were fast approaching, and though Iskra hadn’t been any trouble since the night Jane had half killed her, they watched their backs: in the baths, around every dark corner, double-checking every rein and strap before they mounted their wyverns.Yes, it was all going beautifully, until Jane was summoned to her grandmother’s room.“Why is it,” her grandmother said by way of greeting, pacing the room, teeth always out, “that I have to hear from gods-damned Cresseida that your runty, useless wyvern hasn’t
Wrath of the Invincible Billionaire Heir Chapter 226: Violation
To their credit, the sentries didn’t jump when Vincent shifted beside them atop the battlement wall. They had eyes keen enough to have detected his arrival as he swooped in. A slight tang of fear leaked from them, but that was to be expected, even if it troubled him more than it had in the past. But they did stir slightly when he spoke. “How long has she been down there?”“An hour, Prince,” one said, watching the flashing flames below. “For how many mornings in a row?”“This is the fourth, Prince,” the same sentry replied.The first three days she’d slipped from bed before dawn, he’d assumed she’d been helping in the kitchens. But when they’d trained yesterday she’d improved at a rate she shouldn’t have, as if overnight. He had to give her credit for resourcefulness.The girl stood outside the ward-stones, fighting with herself.A dagger of flame flew from her hand toward the invisible barrier between two stones, then another, as if racing for the head of an opponent. It hit the magi
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Chapter 251: Ego is the Key
Closing her eyes, Irene unspooled her magic into a gentle, probing thread, and laid a palm on that splattered star atop his spine.The cold slammed into her, spikes of it firing through her blood and bones.Irene reeled back as if she’d been given a physical blow.Cold and dark and anger and agony—She clenched her jaw, fighting past this echo in the bone, sending that thread-thin probe of power a little farther into the dark.The pain would have been unbearable when it hit him.Irene pushed back against the cold—the cold and the lack and the oily, unworldly wrongness of it.No magic of this world, some part of her whispered. Nothing that was natural or good. Nothing she knew, nothing she had ever dealt with.Her magic screamed to draw back that probe, move away—“Irene .” His words were far away while the wind and blackness and emptiness of it roared around her—And then that echo of nothingness … it seemed to awaken.Cold filled her, burned along her limbs, creeping wider, encirc
Chapter 250: Costly Adjustments
“Will it be hours every day that you work on him?” Nesryn’s words were steady, almost flat, and yet … The woman was not a creature who took well to a cage. Even a gilded one such as this.“I would recommend,” Irene said to Nesryn over a shoulder, “that if you have other duties or tasks to attend to, Captain, these hours would be a good time for that. I shall send word if you are needed.”“What about moving him around?”The lord’s eyes flashed at that.And though Irene was predisposed to chuck them both to the ruks, she noted the lord’s simmering outrage and self-loathing at the words and found herself saying, “I can handle most of it, but I believe Lord Westfall is more than capable of transporting himself.”Something like wary gratitude shot across his face. But he just said to Nesryn, “And I can ask my own damn questions.”Guilt flashed across Nesryn’s face, even as she stiffened. But she nodded, biting her lip, before she murmured to Vincent , “I had some invitations yesterday.”
Chapter 249: Bad Habits
Vincent shot Irene back an equally displeased look the moment Kashin paused to sip his wine, and then launched question after question to the prince regarding his life. Helpful information, he realized, about their army.He was not the only one who realized it. Arghun cut in while his brother was midsentence about the forges they had constructed near their northern climes, “Let us not discuss business at dinner, brother.”Kashin shut his mouth, ever the trained soldier.And somehow Vincent knew—that fast—that Kashin was not being considered for the throne. Not when he obeyed his eldest brother like any common warrior. He seemed decent, though. A better alternative than the sneering, aloof Arghun, or the wolflike Hasar.It did not entirely explain Irene ’s utter need to distance herself from Kashin. Not that it was any of his business, or of any interest to him. Certainly not when Irene ’s mouth tightened if she so much as turned her head in Vincent ’s direction.He might have calle
Chapter 248: Braids of the Table
Vincent waited until Nesryn had been gone for a good thirty minutes before he summoned Kadja. She’d been waiting in the exterior hallway and slipped inside his suite mere moments after he’d called her name. Lingering in the foyer, he watched the serving girl approach, her steps light and swift, her eyes downcast as she awaited his order.“I have a favor to ask you,” he said slowly and clearly, cursing himself for not learning Halha during the years Levi had studied it.A dip of the chin was her only answer.“I need you to go down to the docks, to wherever information comes in, to see if there’s any news about the attack on Rifthold.” Kadja had been in the throne room yesterday—she’d undoubtedly heard about it. And he’d debated asking Nesryn to do some searching while she was out, but if the news was grimhe didn’t want her learning it alone. Bearing it alone, all the way back up to the palace. “Do you think you could do that?”Kadja lifted her eyes at last, though she kept her head
Chapter 247: Sorting Out the Chaff
She’d known his age, but Irene had still not expected the former captain to look so … young.She hadn’t done the math until she’d walked into that room and seen his handsome face, a mix of caution and hope written across the hardened, broad features.It was that hope that had made her see red. Had made her ache to give him a matching scar to the slender one slicing across his cheek.She’d been unprofessional in the most horrific sense. Never—never had she been so rude and unkind toward any of her patients.Mercifully, Hasar had arrived, cooling her head slightly. But touching the man, thinking of ways to help him …She had not meant to write the list of the last four generations of Towers women. Had not meant to write her mother’s name over and over while pretending to record his information. It had not helped with the overwhelming roaring in her head.Sweating and dusty, Irene burst into Hadiza ’s office nearly an hour later, the trek from the palace through the clogged, narrow str
Chapter 246: Fist Mystery
He tried not to flinch. Even Nesryn blinked at the frank question.“Yes,” he said tightly, fighting the heat rising in his cheeks.She looked between them, assessing. “Have you used it to completion?”He clenched his jaw. “How is that relevant?” And how had she gleaned what was between them?Irene only wrote something down.“What are you writing?” he demanded, cursing the damned chair for keeping him from storming to rip the paper out of her hands.“I’m writing a giant no.”Which she then underlined.He growled, “I suppose you’ll ask about my bathroom habits now?” “It was next on my list.”“They are unchanged,” he bit out. “Unless you need Nesryn to confirm.” Irene merely turned to Nesryn, unruffled. “Have you seen him struggle withit?”“Do not answer that,” he snarled at Nesryn.Nesryn had the good wits to sink into a chair and remain quiet.Irene rose, setting down the pen, and came around the desk. The morning sunlight caught in her hair, bouncing off her head in a corona.She
Chapter 245: Next Dimension
So Vincent had, half paying attention to the meal unfolding before him, half monitoring every word and glance and breath of those around him.Despite their youngest sister’s death, the heirs made the meal lively, conversation flowing, mostly in languages Vincent did not know or recognize. Such a wealth of kingdoms in that hall, represented by viziers and servants and companions—the now-youngest princess, Duva, herself wedded to a dark-haired, sad-eyed prince from a faraway land who kept close to his pregnant wifeand spoke little to anyone around him. But whenever Duva smiled softly at himVincent did not think the light that filled the prince’s face was feigned. And wondered if the man’s silence was not from reticence but perhaps not yet knowing enough of his wife’s language to keep up.Nesryn, however, had no such excuse. She’d been silent and haunted at dinner. He’d only learned that she’d bathed before it thanks to the shout and slamming door in her chambers, followed by a huff
Chapter 244: Damages
Hadiza ’s face darkened. Not with ire, but memory. “I was once asked to heal a man who was injured while evading capture. After he had committed a crime so unspeakable … The guards told me what he’d done before I walked into his cell. They wanted him patched up so he could live to be put on trial. He’d undoubtedly be executed—they had victims willing to testify and proof aplenty. Eretia herself saw the latest victim. His last one. Gathered all the evidence she needed and stood in that court and condemned him with what she had seen.”Hadiza ’s throat bobbed. “They chained him down in that cell, and he was hurt enough that I knew … I knew I could use my combat to make the internal bleeding worse. They’d never know. He’d be dead by morning, and no one would dare question me.” She studied the vial of blue tonic. “It was the closest I have ever come to killing. I wanted to kill him for what he had done. The world would be better for it. I had my hands on his chest—I was ready to do it. Bu
Chapter 243
Of all the rooms in the Torre Cesme, Irene Towers loved this one best.Perhaps it was because the room, located at the very pinnacle of the pale-stoned tower and its sprawling complex below, had unparalleled views of the sunset over Antica.Perhaps it was because this was the place where she’d felt the first shred of safety in nearly ten years. The place she had first looked upon the ancient woman now sitting across the paper- and book-strewn desk, and heard the words that changed everything: You are welcome here, Irene Towers.It had been over two years since then.Two years of working here, living here, in this tower and in this city of so many peoples, so many foods and caches of knowledge.It had been all she’d dreamed it would be—and she had seized every opportunity, every challenge, with both hands. Had studied and listened and practiced and saved lives, changed them, until she had climbed to the very top of her class. Until an unknown healer’s daughter from Benjamin was appr
