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“Dammit.” I covered the fountain of blood, but already, he coughed and spluttered. I readied to give him my own blood and sing him back to health when from behind the door of my bedchamber I heard Livia’s distant screams.
CHAPTER39
The Songbird
Damn Erik Bloodsinger. He’d ignited an insatiable fire in my blood, then left me to burn.
Rationally, I knew a king was often called away on a moment’s notice, but the way my body still hummed in anticipation for his hands on my skin, for him to claim me in every way, was a new kind of torture.
I closed the door on him and paced the bedchamber.
Mere moments after the door closed, the latch from the garden door clicked. My heart stilled when three palace guards appeared.
“Lady?” A tall man with oddly dilated pupils spoke. “We were making rounds and saw the light, but not the king. Are you well?”
The hair prickled on my neck. “The king insisted no one was welcome in his chambers without his permission.”
The chill worsened when another man stepped closer. His eyes were a warm shade of yellow, but the inky pupil was slit like a snake.
I didn’t have time to command them to leave before the third guard, a fae with greasy hair braided behind his neck, rushed at me.
Startled, I knocked my hip against the table in the room and fell back. I managed to roll to my side before the guard had his hands on me. Alek was the fighter in our family. Sure strikes, instincts clad in steel, but my moves were swift. Before I’d even finished standing, I had one of Erik’s knives kept by the side of his bed in hand.
Blood pounded in my skull when I wheeled back and swung the point, nicking the greasy guard on the cheek.
“Bitch!” He doubled over, tapping his cheek gingerly.
Snake Eyes had me in his sights. He made his move. I tore a chair away from the table, letting it topple in front of him. He jumped over it, but nearly lost his footing on the landing.
Think, dammit.
“You’ve nowhere to go, Princess,” Snake Eyes said. “Nowhere!”
The door leading to the front chamber was on the other side of the guards, but they’d left the garden door wide open. I rushed through it and slammed it behind my back, bolting the lock in place.
Wood splintered when they crashed against it, cursing me with horrid threats.
I drew in a long breath. Think. Breathe. I rushed into the garden and ducked inside a lush shrub, tall enough it would strike Erik’s chest. Gods, where was Erik? I wasn’t fool enough to think he’d been separated from me without intention. This was planned. They wanted the king gone.
I wrenched my thoughts free of the dreary scenarios. He would be fine. He had to be all right. Erik was a damn impressive survivor. Today would be no different. Breath burned in my lungs when the door to the gardens cracked against the side of the palace wall. They were here.
“I want his creature before she touches too much of the darkening,” the man with the knife snapped. “Spread out.”
I tucked my knees to my chest and gripped a branch until the hum of warm fury magic filled my veins. I needed the leaves thicker, denser. Little by little, the burn of my ability to craft the earth took hold and the branches eased around me like a knotted cocoon.
Heavy boots shuffled down the stone steps into the garden. The whistle of blades against leaves and branches rattled to my bones.
Rapid breaths slid through my nose, hardly filling my lungs. Fear and harsh nerves would leave me gutted and bloodied if I couldn’t keep my wits while assassins prowled the garden. One look at the soil and a thought pressed against my skull, dancing a violent shudder down my spine.
Before I was born, my father had suffered beneath insatiable bloodlust once and fought every day since to keep the pull for bone and blood sated. Brutality, much the same, lived in me. I’d felt it before, and I’d been running from it for turns.
My fingers stopped trembling when I reached for the soil. Fury burned through my palms. Instead of blooms and sweet little buds on shrubs, I called for something else. I held my breath when the footsteps drew nearer. My palm hovered over the soil, the heat of my magic deepened to a bite. I winced. I didn’t move, didn’t breathe.
Nearby shrubs rustled. Dried leaves crackled.
A cruel laugh came from behind. “Lookit here. Found myself a little bird.”
Anger collided with fear, and it was as if I shielded the softer parts of my heart, only to release a different side—a darker piece I never showed to anyone. The corner of my mouth twisted. “I’m no one’s bird except the king’s.”
