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Dread stitched through my chest as I backed away from the window. One step. Two. Could have been a crow, might have been a raven. At my third step, warmth that hadn’t been there before wrapped around my back, freezing the blood in my veins.
“Beautiful.” Deep and predatory, that one word purred over the nape of my neck, quickening my pulse. “Turn. Let me have a look at my shadowmarks.”
Tense silence permeated the room for several shuddering breaths. Had I been born a boy, Father would expect me to be loyal, brave, and strong. Surely, I could manage all that without having a wrinkly organ hanging from between my legs.
Chin held high, I turned to face Malyr. He stood tall enough I suddenly found myself staring at his black tailored vest, the front adorned with a large sigil that flattened the breath in my lungs—a silver raven sitting on a skull cracked from temple to cranium, one claw curled into an eye socket.
The sigil of House Khysal?
Impossible.
I lifted my gaze to his strange eyes, gray around the edges of his irises that darkened to deep brown at the center, making his pupils appear dilated even against the light of the window. “Who are you, really?”
Malyr stepped forward. Crowded me against the wall until hard stone bit into my spine. He lifted his hand to my sternum and ran his thumb over my throat, studying the marks he’d left with a self-satisfied smile.
“Does it hurt?” When I said nothing, refused to confess as much, his thumb pressed into one of the bruises until it throbbed, ached, sending unexpected warmth into my belly. “How about now?”
I hated how my breaths turned to panting, giving away what had to be distress. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to hurt.” His thumb pressed deeper, amplifying the pain as he leaned in, bringing his lips to my ear. “Want you to cry, and whimper, and sob.”
My voice trembled at the back of my throat, but I wouldn’t let it cave. “Why? What have I done to you? Why do you hate me so?”
“Because you’re so undeniably human, with your strands so… pale…” His fingers weaved into my hair and fisted it, pulling my head back until my mouth opened on a gasp. “It is in your gait, your gestures, the absence of even an ounce of magic. I cannot look at you andnotsee a human… my enemy.” He released my hair and gripped my throat, fingers trembling as they alternated between tender strokes and painful squeezes. “What’s even worse, I cannot look into those… fucking light brown eyes of yours, andnotsee your father.”
My esophagus jumped painfully at my gulp. “I am not my father.”
“No, you are so much better, with yourskin unblemished, your soul uncorrupted, your body…” he eased his grip on my throat, letting his fingers glide over the swell on the side of my breast. “untainted.”
“It would be in your interest if I stayed that way,” I bit out. “Where is Captain Asker? I want to speak to—”
Wings flapped, and my gaze jumped toward the door of my room, which stood ajar. A single raven appeared from the gap. The one who’d hit my window? It hopped a few steps over the stony ground before it took flight, aiming at its master.
When the bird collided with Malyr, merging with his human form in a gust of black plumes, the man’s fingers dug into my breast. They tightened just as wafts of shadows rose all around him.
Panic surged. Jutting my head back, I slinked around him, backing away from his strangling magic until I bumped against the edge of a table. A wooden cup tipped and the knife fell from plate to table with a mutedclank.
Malyr spun around and closed the distance between us, pressing his warm body against mine, and… Oh gods, he washard.“Are you scared of me?”
My throat narrowed, letting no more but shallow gasps through and into my searing lungs. “Should I be? Clearly, you need me alive.”
He ground himself against me, letting a deep moan vibrate between us and straight into my bones from there. “If you believe death is the worst I can give you, then clearly, you haven’t experienced much of life.”
Shaky hands clasped to the edge of the table, and I braced against his overwhelming nearness, the engorged flesh in his breeches. “Whatever it is you’re after, Father won’t waste a word on negotiations over a defiled daughter, possibly impregnated with a half-blood.”
“Nothing would amuse me more than to send you back home with my bastard in your belly. How fortunate you are that I would never breed with a human and degrade myself thusly.” He forced his knee in between my legs and quickly gathered up my skirts, sliding one hand beneath the fabric and along my buttocks. “I may, however, just spill my seed where it cannot grow, and take you…” His finger pressed against my darkest hole, making the muscle clench on reflex. “Right here.”
“No!” I bucked and squirmed, slamming my hands against his chest to escape this kind of violation. “Get away from me!”
“It will hurt… I will make sure of it.” Smirking, he shoved his knee deeper between my thighs, rubbing his leg over my sex while his finger dipped into me a little, making the tight ring sting in protest. “And you shall cry so prettily for me. Right, little dove? You will give me all your tears?”
“Let me go!”
The numbing fear tingling my fingertips didn’t spare me the spikes of panic that carved a hollow in my belly. All the shoving, bucking, and writhing did nothing. Nothing but send the plate behind me trembling across the table.
That was when I felt it, the edge of the knife shivering where I grappled the wood for hold. I sent my fingertips roaming, searching. When I sensed the thick handle, I gripped it tightly. In one quick move, guided by fear and fury alike, I lifted the knife to his throat.
“Get off me, you fucking bastard!” I snarled, watching the blade shudder and quiver above a blue-purple vein flowing beneath alabaster skin. “Or I swear, I’ll cut faster than you can caw.”
