Page 112 of Queen of War and Ruin

Our lips meet. My body sings with a different kind of magic, something deeper and older and far stronger than the caged energy hissing in the silver chains. Her mouth opens for me, and our tongues dance together, slowly and sweetly, like we’ve done this a thousand times before. The heat of her body sinks into me; I start to remember what it feels like to be alive.

Petrys coughs again. Louder this time.

“Great,” he says. “Okay. Now, we need to go.”

Lilias stares at me as she pulls away, her dark eyes burning with a promise, and gods, my cock starts to thicken.

“Can you stand?” Petrys asks.

His face looms over me as Lilias leans back.

“Petrys?” I reply. “What in the hells are you doing here?”

My voice sounds thick and slow, like I’m trying to speak underwater. Petrys rolls his eyes, then grabs my arm.

“Come on,” he says, nodding at Lilias.

Slowly and painfully, the two of them drag me to my feet. The room sways around me like I’m very, very drunk. My legs ache in strange ways when I try to move them. Lilias wraps her arm around my waist. I let my head rest on her shoulder, breathing her in.

“Gods, you smell good,” I say, because, apparently, I don’t have a lot of control over the things that come out of my mouth right now.

“Let’s move,” Petrys whispers.

We shuffle across the room like wounded soldiers fleeing a losing battle. Fear spikes in my chest when Petrys reaches for the door. For a heartbeat, I’m sure he’ll open that door and see Varitan standing on the other side. Smiling.

That strange, magical energy crawls over my skin again, radiating from the silver chain in my pocket, filling my body like air in my lungs or blood in my heart. And the fear recedes like shadows before the approach of dawn.

I won’t let Varitan hurt them. No matter what it takes. I know how to stop that bastard.

The door swings open, and lamplight spills over the floor. Petrys glances down the hallway, then gestures for us to come with him. The buzz of magic slowly sinks back into my body as I realize Varitan isn’t here, waiting for us in the hallway with a cold, hard smile.

No, Petrys is rescuing me.

Gods above, what a crazy thing to do. I stare at him as Lilias and I stumble out of the room.

“This is a terrible idea,” I mumble.

“Yeah, yeah,” Petrys mutters, his eyes on the hallway. “Fuck off.”

He pulls the door closed, cutting off the lonely sound of the wind through the broken window.

“I told the guards I’d give them a break,” Petrys says. “I need to be here when they get back, or they’ll get suspicious. We don’t want suspicious guards. The longer we can go without raising an alarm, the better.”

Lilias nods. I frown. This is a terrible plan. I open my mouth to tell him that, then clamp my lips shut. Petrys looks pale and exhausted, like he hasn’t slept in days.

Damn it. My brother knows this is a terrible plan.

But he’s desperate.

“You can’t make it far,” he says.

“I can⁠—”

“Shut up,” he snaps. “Lilias can’t drag you all the way to the stables. That would attract too much attention.”

I shut up. The man has a point.

“Go back to the servants’ hallway and wait for me,” Petrys says. “And, for the love of all the gods, don’t make any noise.”