Red gave a deep sigh of disappointment.
“Luna,” I called, asking her to appear.
Light flickered and she appeared in an instant. She nodded at me, then shifted her gaze to the weapon, gleaming and crackling with energy. “It is a powerful weapon.”
Nik looked at it for a moment, then rose. “And one that shouldn’t be used by anyone.” He looked at Luna. “Can you destroy it?”
“No. But I can take it.”
He nodded. “Do so.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “Your Highness,” she said with a nod, and picked it up.
She hadn’t called him that before. Hadn’t acknowledged he was a prince, that he was royal, that he had any authority within this realm or out of it. But he’d saved me, and he’d given theweapon—a weapon that might have helped him win a throne—to the only person who should have wielded it. To the only person who could destroy it.
“Thank you, Luna,” he said quietly.
She looked at me, nodded, and disappeared.
Thirty-three
The time would come when a decision would have to be made. Our mission was done, and I’d have to leave the palace. But I deserved, and wanted, something for myself before returning to that life. So I ignored Catalaya and slept in the prince’s room, and woke to his beautiful face.
“Fox,” he said, his voice low, his words hoarse with hunger. He put a hand around my waist and pulled me against him. There was no hesitation in his movement. And when his lips found mine, the worry of the last few days melted away in the heat of our connection.
He rolled my body atop his, his arousal between us, and his hands settled at my lower back, pressing our bodies closer, his mouth eager and inciting. Need felt like a physical thing, a prowling monster that demanded satiating and wouldn’t give in to reason.
“I want you,” he whispered, pulling his lips away to press kisses along my neck. “I want to pleasure you until you’re breathless.”
So I let him.
“While I have you,” he said later, “there’s something we need to discuss about the Lady—and your bonds.”
“Our—” I sat up straight. “Why? What did you do?” The words were barely audible over the beating of my heart.
“I paid them off.”
I stared at him. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ll give you whatever I can. My life, if you asked for it. But I think you want freedom even more than that. So I gave you freedom.”
Joy and hope and fear blossomed together. “You’re serious?”
“Completely.” He rose and padded naked to a side table, every muscle highlighted by candlelight, power in every step. He picked up a leather portfolio, brought it back, and extended it.
My hands were shaking when I took it, the black leather slick and undoubtedly expensive. I opened it. There was a sheet of parchment—faded with age, work, misery, joy—setting out the terms of my service to the Lady.
“Lift it,” he said.
I glanced at him but flipped over the bond. And found Wren’s behind it.
I stared at them both, flipping back and forth between them to assure myself they were real. Then I looked up at him. “I can’t accept this. We can’t accept this.”
“Why?”
“Because…”
“Because I’m a Lys’Careth and you’d be indebted to me.”
