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“You’re not killing anyone at my king’s name day celebration, Mara,” Rijjat warned. There was no room for argument in his stern tone.
“I never said I was.” I met his eyes head-on, having nothing to hide from him. “We’re only here for information.”
“What kind of information?” he pressed.
With a sigh, I peered back down at the map, studying the castle courtyards where the ball would be held. It was an outdoor event, something I’d never seen the likes of in Avedin.
“My king suspects a plot to launch a war on Avedin and our territories. I’m here to coax the truth out of the men on his war council. I need dates, times, locations and the names of Nexus’s potential allied nations.”
Rijjat just blinked at me in silence as if it were taking everything inside of him to absorb what I’d just told him. He scrubbed a palm over his beard. “And how do you plan to get close enough to his war council to ask them?”
This time my lips twisted into a wry smirk. “Again, you underestimate me, Rijjat.” I patted his cheek with my palm, and his dark eyes brightened. “I have something in my arsenal created specifically to loosen lips. The rest, I’m afraid, will be left to my boundless charm and fluttering lashes.” I fluttered them comically as Caldor groaned and Remus chuckled. “See this dot right here?” I asked them, pointing to what looked like a smudge on the map.” The men crowded around me again, their warmth hitting my back as they followed my finger. “There will be a Raven waiting behind this door tonight. If anything happens to me…”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” Remus growled out, placing a hand on my shoulder. I looked up, meeting his green eyes, filled with the power of his cat just under his skin. “I’ll make sure of it,” he added.
I blinked at him for too many heartbeats, with silence stretching between us. He meant it. Whatever that entailed, I knew Remus had my back tonight. Still, I shook my head and went back to the map, repeating my instructions. “If I don’t make it out, I need you to get to the Raven and send them back to Avedin. They’ll know what to do from there.”
“Mara, this is suicide,” Rijjat said. Surprisingly, he didn’t sound angry with me but rather nervous and wary of this plan. “The king’s guard knows you’re here now, and all eyes will be on you and most likely us. You won’t get within five feet of the war council, or the king for that matter.” He scrubbed his fingers through his tousled hair. “Gods, I don’t know why I’m even indulging this.”
I straightened up, rolling the map back up and shoving it towards Remus before I turned to face Rijjat. He was scanning my face, and a thousand unanswered questions were in his eyes. “And yet here you are. Here you are, aiding a foreign spy and her band of infiltrators. Why is that, Rijjat? Why are you here with me right now instead of reporting this to your beloved king?”
I swaggered a step into his space until our chests were too close together, and he didn’t back away, dragging the tips of my fingers down the sleeve of his right arm ever so slowly.
I could feel Caldor’s stare burning through my skin as he watched us, but he had no claim on me anymore. Even after what happened between us, it was clear to me that it was a mistake, at least on his part.
Rijjat’s eyes darkened as he too stepped in closer, raising a hand to cup my cheek. A crackle of something hot flowed from his palm to my face, but this time I didn’t wince or pull away. A faint buzzing sound rang in my ears, and somehow I knew he heard it too because he tilted his head as if pondering something and coming up empty-handed.
Yes, there was something here between us, but finding out what it was, was a task for another night.
Rijjat lowered his face to mine until his lips were just barely grazing my own, and I didn’t bother pulling away. Perhaps a part of me enjoyed how I could feel Caldor tensing up or Remus’s rumbling growl rolling through the room and over my skin. But maybe what I really enjoyed was the power I felt, knowing with absolute certainty that should I only ask, each of these three men would do unspeakable things.
The thought alone made me lean in, pressing my lips to Rijjat’s as he whispered hoarsely, “Goddess help us all.”
Nero
Oh, how the poison master tried her best to annoy me with her sharp tongue. She managed to wedge herself under my skin, which was admittedly entertaining, but it was alsoveryannoying.
But as intelligent and seemingly stoic as she was, or tried to appear, she’d never best me in this little game we played. Emotions were fickle things, I’d come to realize over three decades of feeling them from everyone I encountered, butherssang like a canary in a sea of silence. They were tumultuous and sharp with an edge of bitterness. But hidden deep within the roughness of those dark waters were slivers of light that not even she knew were there. She wore a beautiful mask of indifference that didn’t correlate with her truth.
I watched her from the tower window as she arrived on the arm of the shifter male who’d come to the city with her. I hadn’t delved into the specifics of their relationship to each other in the short time I had her under my thumb. But the way the male’s bright, cat-like eyes shifted back and forth, inspecting every person they passed, told me enough. He would protect her with his life, as he’d tried to do before.
She was as radiant as the goddess Thessia herself in the dress I’d sent. It shimmered in the moonlight, deepening the black of her long flowing hair and the paleness of her smooth skin. Something deep in my chest expanded at the sight of her. The immediate hardening of my cock was an annoyance I’d have to deal with for the foreseeable future because, frankly, I couldn’t help myself. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, with eyes like burning embers and a mischievous half smile that made me want to do bad things.
I sipped the last of my wine as I watched her navigate the courtyard on the arm of the shifter. It was clear he was somehow infatuated with her, given that he held onto her arm tightly enough that I’d have to pry her off of him if I wanted to steal her away. Perhaps he’d try to fight me for her attention. Wouldn’t that be a spectacle?
I chuckled at the thought of how red those creamy pale cheeks would become at such a dispute. But my chuckle died in my throat as I watched the captain of Avedin’s king’s guard waltz through the gates of the courtyard. Yes, I knew it was him. I never forgot a face, even though it was cleverly disguised, no doubt the work of our lovely poison master. The captain was watching Mara with an intensity that had me shifting from foot to foot, my fingers itching to wrap around the hilt of my blade and challenge him for the right to do so.
Not far behind him was the street rat. Tetia informed me that he was called Rijjat. I’d heard of him in passing, but what had me stumped was his interest in Xmara. Rijjat was a watcher for the priestesses on the outskirts of town. Information and secrets flowed through him from all corners of Nexus. He wasn’t a wealthy man, but he was connected in all the right ways. He even had the ear of the ladies of the night, who had a knack for coaxing secrets from the lips of the drunken men who visited their beds.
He, too, watched Xmara. He watched her with the strangest sort of intensity, circling around the courtyard in the opposite direction from the captain of the guard.
What were the four of them up to? They were an unlikely little group that much was obvious, but I didn’t particularly think they were an immediate threat to my brother, the king. X was a known killer. An informant, a master of her craft, and an assassin when need be, but she was too smart to waltz into Nexus with the intention of harming its ruler.
No, she was here for another reason, and tonight I would coax it out of those luscious rosebud lips, no matter how I had to do it. In fact, I looked forward to all the ways I could make those lips sing, and I hoped that she would see sense and leave her misguided loyalty to Animus behind her.
I finished the last dregs of my wine and straightened my uniform as I turned towards the door. If all went well, I’d have the pretty little poisons master writhing beneath me, spilling her secrets onto my bed sheets while I drank down every delicious emotion that flooded from her to me. If all went well, she would be loyal to me by morning. It had to go well tonight, because it would be a shame to have to kill Xmara Bane if it didn’t.
Xmara
