Page 46 of Heart of the Villain

Ivelle’s eyes lit up, a twinkle of hope and understanding dawning.

“All you have to do is play by my rules, and I’ll make sure you get everything you’ve ever wanted.” Marlena twirled her wrist. “Within reason.”

Ivelle spoke quietly. “And how do I know I can trust you? That this isn’t some test our mothers set up to see how I’d respond?”

“Are you really willing to trust our mothers over me?” Marlena raised a perfectly shaped brow, watching Ivelle’s head shake side to side very, very slowly. “If you don’t pick me, who’s going to protect you when I make good on all my promises? We both know it won’t be our mothers, and I don’t think you’ve got an ally in your back pocket that I don’t know about, do you?” A slow smile spread across her face. “I have all the allies we need. I just need you to act like nothing is happening, to act like I fixed you, and if you can do that, if you can fall in line behind me, I’ll give you Amora.”

Because I won’t need the cold fucking hellscape when I’m finished with it.

Twenty-One Years Old

“I think at this point, if there’s an alliance being formed, we should all be a part of the decision-making. Bringing in strangers right now could be a little risky, don’t you think?” Zetta’s tone wasn’t harsh—it was borderline endearing.

Marlena rolled her eyes, pushing herself off the desk she’d been leaning up against. “I don’t need permission to bring anyone into the alliance I have created.” Her eyes scanned over the people in the room. Zetta and her husband, Miklov, stood side by side. Miklov usually stayed quiet, allowing his wife to do all the talking. After all, she was the Curia member, not him.

Dacian Viator stood by himself, keeping his distance. Fraus-borns tended to watch out for themselves, and only themselves. “We have been at this for a lot longer than you, girl.”

Marlena turned quickly, a snarl on her lips. “Yes, and you’ve done a great job doing nothing up until now.” Everything they’d done had never worked out. Their lineage had always been failures when it came to the important parts.

Lucius and Katrin shared a glance before Lucius spoke. “We haven’t really been doing nothing, maybe biding our time as much as we can, but we have people ready to take what is rightfully theirs.”

“Perfect. As do I.” Marlena motioned to Ivelle, who was sitting with her long legs draped over the desk Marlena had been leaning on. She twirled a piece of her long auburn hair, raising a brow and letting the hair fall back into place as she wiggled her fingers in a snarky hello.

Their conversation after Ivelle caught her and Arlet together had been a week ago, and things had started to settle between the two. While they weren’t ready to spill their deepest, darkest secrets, something Marlena would probably never do anyway, they were at least beginning to figure out exactly what they both wanted.

Just last night, they had been standing in the hall before going to their bedrooms. Ivelle stopped before twisting the doorknob to her room, turned to Marlena, and said, “I don’t want my mother to survive.”

But would she be willing to kill her herself? And how far was Marlena willing to go?

Death wasn’t a line she’d crossed yet, but she knew she would.

She could.

I will. To get what I want, I’ll do worse.

Marlena looked around the room, catching the eye of a passerby through the open door. Who the fuck didn’t close it? And why had she just now noticed?

Khort hesitated for a second, their eyes locked on one another's. Before he continued his forward motion, his eyes scanned the rest of the people standing around the room… and then he disappeared.

Marlena cursed under her breath. “You are all a bunch of fucking idiots. If you can’t trust me, then I don’t see why you’re still here.” Before she slipped through the threshold, she turned behind her and said loudly enough that the people in the room were the only ones to hear her, “We strike on my induction night. Everyone will be distracted by the party. Start preparing.”

Two months. She had two months to figure out her exact plan. Two months to tell Vega. Arlet. Khort.

Fuck, Khort.

She slipped out of the room and quieted her feet with the air around her, making sure Khort didn’t hear her coming up until she was right beside him.

He jumped, gasping in a sharp breath. “Gods, Marlena. You really need to stop doing that. It’s freaky.”

Marlena laughed a little, turning the corner with him. “Where ya going?”

Khort side-eyed her, slowing his pace. “Dinner with my parents and Delori.”

They were all in Fortis today, preparing for the next recruitment of soldiers for the army. Marlena had asked for more protection around her home in Amora. After the announcement of her succession and the introduction of Ivelle as her second, much to her own parents’ dismay, there could be backlash—people didn’t always agree with who was next in line to lead. “You can’t be too careful,” she’d said when her parents shot daggers her way for making decisions without consulting them.

Khort’s parents had him around over the last few years for different things, teaching him slowly about all the ins and outs of what running a territory looked like… and today was both of their first times seeing the way Lucius ran his army from the frontline.

He was fucking brutal.