Teddie nods from the head of the table, but his eyes flick to me. They’re different from the way they were before, my brother’s eyes. Sharpened by five years of wearing a crown that never stops trying to crush him. He sees something in my face—I don’t know what—but his pen stops moving. His brows furrow with concern.
“Bry?” he asks.
“Brylee?” Kylian’s hand is on my shoulder, warm and heavy. “You’re gray.”
“I’m fine,” I whisper, but the words taste like copper.
As Teddie’s Chief Security Advisor, alongside my mates, I need to hear this. Help plan. But…
Ridge leans in from my right, his chair creaking. He’s been my shadow all morning, which should have been my first clue. Ridge doesn’t hover unless something is wrong.
“Breathe,” he says quietly. “Slow. You’ve been pale all day, baby.”
I try. I really do. But the ambassador’s perfume—something floral and cloying—suddenly fills my lungs like smoke, and my stomach lurches with such violence that I’m standing before my brain catches up to my body.
“Excuse me,” I manage, but it sounds like a croak.
The door. I need the door. The carpet sways beneath my heels, and I can feel four sets of eyes burning into my back, can see Teddie rising from his chair, can hear the sudden halt of conversation as the king’s sister bolts from a high-level security meeting like the room is on fire.
The hallway tilts. I catch myself against the wall, my palm slapping cool plaster, and then I’m running—stumbling—toward the restroom at the end of the corridor. My heels echo like gunshots. My throat burns.
I crash through the door just in time.
In the stall at the end of the restroom, my body empties itself into the porcelain bowl with a violence that leaves me shaking, my hair falling loose from its knot to curtain my face. I heave again, and again, until there’s nothing left but bile and panic and the metallic taste of fear.
“Brylee!”
The door bangs open. Multiple footsteps. Too heavy for the women’s restroom, but I don’t have the energy to care about protocol.
“Fucking hell.” Colter’s voice, rough and terrified. “Brylee, look at me.”
I flush, trembling, and lean back on my heels. The stall door opens—Kylian, always the one to ignore boundaries when I’m involved—and four men hover at the entrance to the small space, filling it with their fear, their bodies, their love that feels like a physical weight pressing against my skin.
“Call the castle physician,” Ridge barks into his phone.
“No—”Another wave of nausea rolls through me, and I grip the toilet seat until my fingers cramp.
“Was it the salmon? It was the salmon, right? My sweet obsession…I told you it smelled funky.” Kylian chews on his nail anxiously. “Maybe we should ban fish from the kingdom forever. Can we do that? We can do that, right?”
Luka kneels beside me, his nearly acquired medical training kicking in, his fingers finding my pulse with practiced precision.
His face goes pale. “It’s racing. Brylee, when did you last eat?”
“Three hours ago.” I gasp. “I’m fine. I just?—”
“It’s the goddamn salmon,” Kylian growls.
"You’re not fine," Colter grunts, ignoring Kylian completely. He stands behind the others, his big frame blocking the light, his hands clenched into fists at his sides like he’s physically restraining himself from picking me up and carrying me somewhere safe. “You’re white as a sheet. You ran out of there like?—”
“Like someone poisoned her,” Luka finishes quietly.
The word hangs in the air, poisonous itself.
Poisoned.
“Check her food,” Ridge snaps into his phone, voice clipped, professional, terrified. “I want the kitchen sealed. I want?—”
“Stop,” I whisper, but they don’t hear me.
