Page 32 of Bride of Ash & Dust

I take a step closer, until the point of my dagger brushes his chin.

“Fucking another man’s wife,” I say, low and slow. “You know what the punishment is for that?”

The man’s neck bobs again. “P-Prince Zarek,” he replies in a high, tight voice that’s paces away from the growl he was using with my wife. “I— I can explain.”

I step back and frown, like I’m actually going to listen to this man explain away bending over my wife with his pants down and his tiny cock out. I slip my dagger into its sheath. Some of the fear fades from his eyes. He opens his mouth.

And I punch him in the face.

Lilias gasps from behind me. The man stumbles backward, staggering into the desk and making it rock. I shake my hand. Fuck, that stings.

The man looks up at me. Rage flashes in his pale eyes. Blood trickles down his chin from his split lip.

“Wait!” Lilias cries.

She stands up from the bed. Her bodice is loose, showing the top of what really is a very fine pair of tits, but other than that, she’s still fully dressed. What kind of asshole fucks a woman while she’s still wearing her dress?

“This is my fault,” Lilias says.

She turns to me. Her eyes shine in the light spilling through the windows, but hells, she’s not crying.

“Don’t hurt him,” Lilias says. “Please. I’m the one who pushed him past the stopping point.”

For one horrible moment, the room is completely silent. I wait to see if this limp-dick bastard is going to explain what in the nine hells that’s supposed to mean, but of course, he doesn’t.

The stopping point? I turn toward the man. Rage simmers in my chest. Is that what you tell a woman so she’ll think it’s her fault you’re shoving your cock inside her? Is that how you deflower a princess without even telling her what might happen if her future husband finds out?

“You filthy, fucking son of a bitch,” I growl.

The man raises his hands like he’s trying to protect his face. My hand closes around the hilt of my dagger.

This one’s easy. No one’s going to question why I killed the man I found fucking my wife. Hells, I won’t even have to clean up the body this time. Maybe I could even use this to angle for a better room⁠—

Something closes around my arm. I turn and see my wife’s hand pulling me back.

“Please,” she whispers.

I yank my arm out of her grip. The man flinches as I approach. Blood trickles down his chin and leaves crimson spots on the white ruffles of his shirt.

“I can explain,” he stammers. “Prince Zarek, I meant only to test her fidelity to you⁠—”

“Shut the fuck up,” I growl as I point my blade between his eyes.

He shuts the fuck up. I drop the blade, tracing a path down his neck. He’s wearing a ruffled white silk shirt with a tight black vest. But I don’t see the pocket. Not yet.

I slice the buttons off his vest, and he gasps with a sort of horrified shock he really should have reserved for me discovering him half-naked with my wife. I slip my blade under the black fabric, pulling his vest open.

“Prince Zarek,” he says. “Really, that’s not⁠—”

I lift my eyes and meet his gaze. He shuts the fuck up again.

And there’s the pocket. I sink the edge of my dagger into the slit of the hidden pocket. The black silk makes a little ripping sound as I slice it open. The man’s body trembles, but when I meet his eyes again, I don’t see fear.

No, I see rage. That whisper of intuition pulls across the back of my neck again. There’s something else going on here, something more than just fucking. But I have no clue what it is.

A small, tightly folded piece of parchment falls from his vest. It hits the floor at his feet. He tries to step on it. I lift my blade to press against his neck.

“Lilias,” I say, in as even a voice as I can manage. “Pick that up, if you would.”