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REMY
It isn’t long before we’re left alone in the privacy of our much larger suites, with nothing but the chiming of the clock to fill the silence.
Aika tours the space, taking in each window and door and candlestick.
She studies every possible exit and every potential weapon. I’m not sure how that should make me feel, but I can’t deny the small part of me that finds it fascinating, if not disturbing.
When she reaches the final doorway, she freezes, her fingers clutching the wooden frame so tightly her knuckles go white. My eyes linger on the way her body tenses as if in pain, the way her eyes go distant.
I move closer to get a better vantage point on the room, regretting it almost immediately.
A small antique crib rests in the middle of the room, a family heirloom passed down through the generations. It had been Louis’. Mine. My sisters’. And now…
“This is what she wants.” Aika’s voice sounds unnaturally loud in the silence.
“Madame?” I ask, forcing myself to look away from the crib.
She nods mutely, pulling a long, narrow vial out of a pocket in her robe. It’s filled with a shimmering blue liquid I’ve never seen before.
“For fertility,” Aika says quietly. “You asked me before what she wanted with this marriage, your family. I didn’t know then, but I know now.”
“An heir.” I swallow hard.
“Apparently.”
It shouldn’t be surprising. Isn’t that how people have acquired power through the ages? Marrying into royalty and trying to manipulate the power structure?
Still, my breaths freeze in my chest at the implication of someone as vile as Madame having control over any child, let alone mine.
Aika’s head falls back against the door with a soft thunk, a bitter laugh escaping her lips.
“Don’t worry, Remy. I may be a monster, but even I wouldn’t bring a tiny innocent human into all of this.” Emotion clouds her eyes, but I can’t quite decipher it. “What with my kind being prone to eat their young and all.”
Her attempt at levity falls flat.
“I know that,” I say in a low tone.
The words ring truer than I realized they would. She wouldn’t have told me if she planned on going through with it, and the girl who tore half a city apart for a single stolen orphan wouldn’t give her own child over to the same fate.
Still, it’s at odds with everything she said earlier. Does she realize how very unsustainable her conflicting intentions are?
“Whatisyour plan, Aika?” I meet her gaze. “If not to do her bidding, what is it that you’re doing here?”
She looks away from me, a mask of neutrality slipping over her features again.
“I think it’s safe to say neither of us had a plan when we jumped into marriage, Remy. But when Madame realizes she can’t get what she wants from this…” She gestures vaguely between us. “Maybe I’ll find a way to convince her to send me back to the Isle, with Mel. And you can get a real wife—a real heir.”
My heartbeat drums in my ears. It hadn’t occurred to me that her leaving was an option.
“You said you wouldn’t go against her—” I begin.
“I said I wouldn’t kill her,” she interrupts. “But even I have my limits.”
Children.That’s her limit. Every time.
But what are the chances that Madame lets her walk away from this if she isn’t successful?
“You can’t play both sides forever,” I caution her. “I know you—”
