“It’s Jules. She’s in the foyer.” Vora’s tension-filled words were quite possibly the only thing that could’ve dampened the moment, and all at once we both slackened in each other’s grasp.
“We’ll be down shortly.” Carefully, he slid off me and straightened his shirt.
“We will? Both of us?” I stood and brushed my hands along my clothes, though the action did nothing to smooth the wrinkles Orin’s iron grip had formed. “Are you sure?”
He raised a single brow at the question before extending his arm. “Of course I’m sure. You have nothing to fear when it comes to Jules, and she needs to know the error of her family’s ways.” He guided us toward the door, and a tendon near his temple flared as ire settled into his gaze. “No one touches you, Edira. Not like that.”
The wet gurgle of Dagas’s final breath flooded my ears as an image of Rorik holding Dagas’s throat flashed before my eyes. I could still see the way the blood oozed between Rorik’s fingers, still hear the sickening, soft thump of Dagas’s larynx hitting the floor. As horrifying as that moment had been, a dark part of my soul was thankful he’d never have the chance to kidnap me again. I hadn’t seen what’d become of Zelyria and Briar. I imagined it was just as brutal.
When Orin and I arrived in the foyer, the air was already thick with unfettered rage. Lydia and Clesian were leaning against thebanister of the stairs, keenly watching Jules scream at Seville without any signs of intervening. Fortunately, Amalyss and Tasia were nowhere to be seen, but I doubt that meant they weren’t listening somehow. Mavis was as absent as the girls, and Rorik was missing, too—which seemed to be the main point of Jules’s rampage, at least what snippets I could gather from the barrage of curses and foul language. Seville weathered the brunt of her verbal attack with a practiced look of disdain, but there was a twitch to her manicured brows that suggested her patience was wearing thin.
Thankfully, Orin seemed to notice that as well, and he released my hand to step in front of his sister and glower at the screaming Ever in his entryway. “Jules. You’re not welcome here.”
“You,” she spat. “Haven’t you done enough?”
She went toe-to-toe with him, and if she was scared, she didn’t show it. Or maybe she simply didn’t have the emotional capacity to do so. Her eyes were puffy and red, the color intensifying the violet shade of her irises and giving her a panicked, unhinged appearance. Her dark hair was unkempt and tangled with leaves. She still wore the same gown from the fete, and the edges were caked in a reddish brown that could only be dried blood. I spied patches of it on her fingers and smeared along her neck. As if she’d screamed in horror after trying to hold her family close, only to come away with the stench of loss.
She reeked of death. She didn’t care one damn bit. “Where is he? Yourdog?”
“My dog?” Orin asked.
Beside him, Seville chuckled darkly. “You meanyourlover. The oneyoushouldn’t have trusted.”
Jules only had eyes for Orin. “I smelled him all over the place. I know he does your bidding. You and your sick—”
“Silence.” Orin’s voice boomed with the kind of authority one would expect from a king. And damn if he didn’t command the room like one. The candles lining the hall tables wavered as magicflooded the space, and Orin drew himself to his full height. The angles of his face sharpened, and he took one menacing step toward her. I expected her to cower, to buckle under the weight of his presence.
Instead, she met his eye. A single tear streaked down her cheek. “Go ahead. I have nothing left to lose.”
“Oh, let her be, Orin.” Lydia sighed, and it was the most demeaning sound I’d ever heard. “Your prize is safe, and they’ve more than paid the price.”
Prize.I knew that’s what I was to Lydia and Clesian, and while none of them knew about the intimate moment Orin and I just shared, it chafed just the same. It must’ve bothered Orin, too, because he pivoted in place and delivered Lydia a lethal glare that would’ve made normal people crumble.
That shift in Orin’s attention was enough to break Jules’s focus, and she peered around his wide frame to look at me. A flurry of emotions raced through her expression, each one more terrifying than the last. Stars began to fester around her fingers, and they snapped with a magical energy that promised to singe the very skin off my bones. With bared fangs, she took several steps in my direction before lunging in the air.
But Orin was faster. He barred her progression with a clean sweep of his arm, and she went flying into the wall. The wooden planks splintered from the impact and showered the space in a spray of shards. She howled as she slumped to the floor, but the magic in her hands never wavered.
“I’ll kill you!” she screamed. Her gaze bounced between Orin and me, and I couldn’t tell if she was cursing Orin’s existence or threatening mine. Either way, he snarled. He crouched as if he were about to pounce and pummel her into oblivion when sharp, heated footsteps sounded at our backs.
“Jules.” Rorik prowled into the space as if he owned it. His boots crunched against the debris, and he kicked aside a ratherlarge piece of wood that skittered across the floor until it crashed into the opposite wall. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” she sputtered. “You expect me not to come for retribution after what you did?”
Rorik appeared positively bored. “If you’re here to challenge me, then I accept. You’ll lose, though, and you know it.”
“I don’t care!” she howled. Then she sneered up at him from her place on the floor. “At least I’ll hurt you as much as I can before I go.”
He flexed his hand by his side, and all I could see was blood dribbling through his fingers. Ringing his knuckles. Coating his nails. As if he’d already forcibly removed an organ from her body. I imagined him tossing it loosely to the side with the same bored efficiency as he’d kicked the stray piece of broken wood.
She doesn’t deserve that.
I was moving before the rational part of my brain could step in and tell me to stop. When I pushed myself in front of Rorik and turned my back on Jules, on the very person who wanted to shove a knife between my shoulder blades, I nearly shocked myself into silence.
Rorik blinked as he looked down at me, and Orin went incredibly still. His gaze bounced between me and the collapsed Ever at my feet. Seville’s mouth had dropped open, and Clesian and Lydia... dreadful, wide-eyed fascination.
“Don’t.” It was all I could say as I focused on Rorik’s bewildered face. Then, softly: “Please.”
Pain flashed through his steely eyes, and he actually stepped back. Stepped back fromme,as if I were an Ever with the ability to bring him to his knees. His lips parted as he studied every inch of my expression, and I willed myself to keep my breathing steady. The agony in his stare suddenly became so immense and vast that it went far, far beyond that moment. I saw want and ache in his eyes, and it rocked me to my core.
