His grin morphed into a hate-filled scowl that promised death. The veins in his neck looked as if they would burst, and his grip on his sword tightened.
He took a step in my direction. “You will not touch her. However, it appears she’s already gotten you pretty good herself, asshole.”
My face dropped at his words, but as my eyes looked him over, my smirk returned. “Oh, Commander. What makes you think she even still lives?”
“I sense everything about her, Adler. I feel her in every fiber of my being because not only is she my wife and queen…”
My gaze narrowed in on him through furrowed brows. There was no way in any hell this fuck was about to say what I thought he was going to…
“Elianna Valderre, rightful heir and queen of the realm, is mymate!” he roared triumphantly. “And now, for all you have put her through—youwill sufferme.”
An all-consuming rage overcame me at his words, and then I commanded the beast to release its fiery blaze upon him.
Chapter seventy-two
Avery
The castle halls weredimly lit by torchlight as I navigated through its shadowy corridors. My dress flowed behind me as I darted down the halls, my steps barely making a whisper against the cold stone floor.
My race came to a skidding halt as the bloodied bodies of two guards were laid out across the corridor. My eyes flared, and I quietly went to move past them, stepping over their ruined corpses that someone had left behind.
Nausea threatened to consume me at the sight of them, but an overwhelming sense of hope crashed into me, realizing that someone from Lia’s court or army must’ve been the one to have killed them.
My heart sang at the thought of Gage coming to rescue me if they had breached the castle, but knowing the possibility of him running into the vile witches or my mother made me panic.
I reached the grand staircase leading to the lower levels, where the main entrance and throne room awaited. My steps halted at the top of them, contemplating the best way to sneak out of the castle, but my thoughts were interrupted when a wicked cackle from the western tower staircasecaught my attention. Chills ravaged my body at the sound, but something in my gut was telling me that was where I needed to go.
I blew out a breath and took back off into a run, gliding up the spiral stairs of the tower. As I ascended the upper level, I sought refuge in the shadows as I spotted one of the staff’s rooms—where the crone’s sinister chuckles echoed from.
My eyes scanned the dimly lit hall for any sign of movement. As I approached the door, a sliver of hope surged within me, masking the danger that lurked in the room’s depths.
I could make a difference. I could fix everything that I had accidentally destroyed for my sister, Gage, and our friends. Not only that, but the kingdom we desperately wished to rebuild.
I stepped into the sunlight that peered in through the room’s window, where the crone’s back was to me while she gazed out at the scenes of war. Her arm reached through the window while she weaved a powerful spell of wards, fortifying the city against Lia's army.
My mind raced, and I wasn’t even sure if I was breathing as I tiptoed silently toward her—pleading to all the gods that she didn’t hear me enter or sense me behind her.
I glanced down at my hand, where one of the curved daggers remained, and my grip tightened around its hilt. My hand trembled as I realized how insane what I was about to do was, but this was my chance.
Once at her back, I lifted my arm high above my head. The shadow of the curved blade cast off the wall next to her, and I sensed her awareness a moment too late.
My arm moved to plunge the dagger down into her back, but in the same breath, she whipped toward me, her glowing crimson eyes blasting a pulsating fear through my entire body as they narrowed in on me.
While she looked ancient and decrepit, she was entirely too fast for even me to react to andstrong. Her taloned, withered hand shot out at me, grabbing me by the throat.
The crone’s sharp nails dug into the skin of my neck, and I felt my blood slip from the wounds. My breath caught, gasping for air as she lifted me up by my throat. My arm was still frozen above me in the same stance I had been in when I went to kill her—but now she was going to kill me.
“I see inside this heart of yours, Princess.” Her ancient voice echoed through me before she spoke aloud. “You will never be like the heir. You believe yourself to be brave, but it is stupidity that runs you, making you think you could sneak up on an all-powerful sorceress.”
A whimper left me, but it wasn’t sadness that I felt—it was anger. I had been trapped my entire life. In the castle, in Isla, beneath my mother’s manipulation, and now here, trapped within the clutches of a witch. When would it end? Certainly not this way. I had plans. I had a kingdom to deliver to my sister, and a man that I promised I would come back to.
“I could smell you the second you took the first step onto the spiral stairs, hear you the second you slipped that blade from the library. And now, you will die. All because you just couldn’t listen. Once I am through with you, I will send your body through this window behind me. It will be such a shame that you fell to your death trying to sneak from yourbedchamber. The queen…she will be so very sad. Her only daughter.”
Her talons dug further into my flesh and I tried to gasp for air as she held me above her, but my vision was darkening.
My eyes drifted upwards to my hand that still levitated high above us both with the dagger in its grasp, unable to move.
I glanced down to my hip, where the second dagger remained tucked in the belt of my dress, and slowly placed my other hand on its hilt. Carefully slipping it out from its makeshift sheath, I prayed to every god imaginable that she didn’t notice the movement as she continued her speech on my impending death.
