Page 97 of Blade of the Nightking

I shrank back as he approached, every instinct screaming at me to get away.

He stopped in front of me. His magic pressed against me, simmering beneath his skin, immense and perfectly controlled. The air between us crackled with it.

For one suspended heartbeat, he simply looked down at me. Then, slowly, the Dark Prince lowered himself to his knees in the dirt.

This couldn't be real. The blood loss had to be playing tricks on my mind.

His hands closed over mine, firm and sure, peeling them away from my side. My blood immediately stained his fingers. Without a word, they moved to the woven bodice of my dress. There was a sharp rip as he tore the fabric open, exposing the wound beneath. His dark eyes swept over the injury, his expression unreadable.

His fingers brushed the bare skin of my side.

My magic exploded to life. It tore free of whatever corner of my soul it had been cowering in and raced toward him with startling urgency, drawn irresistibly to the vast power banked inside him. Warmth spread beneath my skin, gathering around the wound. The pain dulled until it became little more than a distant throb.

Rìan rose. "Come," he said gruffly, already turning away.

I managed only a few unsteady steps before my knees gave out. The alley lurched sideways, darkness crowding the edges of my vision.

Strong arms caught me before I struck the ground. One slid behind my back, the other beneath my knees, lifting me as though I weighed nothing at all. His scent surrounded me—leather, warm skin, something wild, like the charged stillness before a storm. It invaded my lungs, steady, grounding, undeniably male.

Every instinct screamed at me to shove him away. To fight. To recoil from his touch. But my body refused to obey. My magic reached toward him with a hunger that made bile rise in my throat, even as I wanted nothing more than to tear myself from his arms.

My eyelids grew heavier. As we passed the male from the tavern, my gaze drifted downward despite myself. His face had been sliced open, two deep slashes running from the corners of his mouth toward his ears. Yet his chest still rose in shallow, uneven breaths.

Alive.

The others lay farther back, sprawled where they'd fallen, half-swallowed by the fog. One let out a low groan as we passed.

Then, just as the world began slipping away entirely, the shadows in the far corner of the alley stirred, thickening into something unnaturally dense. A figure stepped free.

A familiar face. Pale, almost luminous against the darkness. One side sagged grotesquely, twisted as though it had begun to melt from the bone beneath. Those swirling eyes settled on me, faintly amused, otherwise unimpressed.

He clicked his tongue.

Then darkness claimed me.

CHAPTER 20

It was barely dawn when the bedroom door burst open.

I jolted awake, clutching the sheets to my chest as I blinked blearily at the figure silhouetted in the lanternlight.

“Rise and shine, Eidra,” Segolayne announced loudly, clearly delighted by how badly she'd startled me.

She swept into the room carrying a precarious pile of clothes with a pair of boots balanced on top. She dumped the entire armful onto the bed. Not my bed.

I froze. I lay beneath the canopy of an enormous four-poster, large enough to sleep an entire family, its wood carved with swirling suns and crescent moons. The room rose around it, the ceiling soaring overhead beneath intricate crown molding. One wall was almost entirely glass, revealing the Virellan Sea beyond, the dark water stretching toward a horizon just beginning to lighten.

Where... was I?

I frowned, looking around the unfamiliar room once more. Then the memories crashed into me.

The tavern.

The alley.

The knife.

Rìan.