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“Please, you cannot stay here. He could come at any moment.” Odette left the water and stepped up to the prince, trying to keep her eyes wide, and her stance unthreatening. “If he saw you, who knows what he would do to both you and us?”
The women looked at him as fearfully as she was. They knew their roles. She only hoped they weren’t laying it on too thick.
The prince’s gaze ran up and down Odette and his expression changed, becoming protective. “Who is this sorcerer?”
She gripped his arm and tugged him toward the trees. “Please come. We will find a safe place, and I will tell you everything.”
Odette walked back to the pond a couple of hours later feeling triumphant. The night was a success. She’d taken Prince Torsten off into a secluded area and explained to him everything he needed to know concerning the curse. She had, of course, not told him that Rothbart was the one who’d enacted it or that they were assassins. Instead, she’d claimed to be a lost princess from another land that the sorcerer had overthrown. The other women, Odette had explained, were her ladies-in-waiting who’d, unfortunately, gotten swept up in the curse.
The prince had eaten it up. Curiously, he had not mentioned that he himself was a prince and Odette had not let on that she knew who he was.
She’d cut off the discussion after revealing the basics and claimed she must return, for the sorcerer had said he would visit that evening. Then she’d given him the most pitiful stare, and he’d offered to come the next night to discuss what could be done to free her.
She picked her way along the trail, careful not to poke her feet on any twigs, the branches of the trees casting shadows in the moonlight. A smile grew on her lips. Tomorrow night, she would let him stay longer. Tonight she‘d simply wished to know if he cared enough to return and hadn’t wanted to overload him with information.
So far, so good.
He’d left using those magic beans. She’d been tempted to ask for one, but noticed that he possessed a limited supply. No, if she wanted him to keep coming back, she needed to leave them to him.
She paused and raised her eyes at the sound of muttering. Yessly paced on the trail through the woods, wringing her hands. That wasn’t too odd for her, but the agitation on her face worried Odette.
“Yessly? Everything all right?”
The other woman shook her head, tears gathering and spilling onto her cheeks. “They said if I interrupted you, they’d slit my throat…” Her face twisted in agony. “Oh, Odette. When the prince’s arrow went wild, it hit her and I’m afraid it is poisoned because even after we cleaned it, she’s not doing better and—”
“Whoa, slow down. What are you talking about?”
Yessly let out a sob and grabbed Odette’s hand, pulling her along the path to the pond.
When they approached the shore, Odette found the other women huddled near the pond’s edge, their backs to her. They appeared to be leaning over something and whispering earnestly to one another.
“What is it?” Odette asked.
It was only then that she noticed the blood pooling out into the water and the pale hand that lay among the reeds. The women parted, revealing Lina, laying on the grass, her face as white as a sheet, red seeping through a hastily applied cloth bandage. The prince’s crimson covered arrow lay next to her on the ground.
Chapter 8
Rothbart
Rothbart crumpled the correspondence in his fist and flung it into the flames. The yellow parchment sparked, causing the fire in the hearth to flair as it lit ablaze. He dropped his head into his hands. No leads. Nothing.
With a frustrated growl, he rose from his seat and paced back and forth. There must be something he was overlooking. Some reason someone would send those assassins after his sister and stepmom.
His muscles protested his every step, and he rolled his shoulders, the right bicep especially weak. Four days after he’d returned from Alecta’s and he was still sore from their interlude. She’d been particularly rough with him, snapping his arm and leaving him in spasms of pain while she drew satisfaction from his agony. Afterwards, she’d merely stared at him with large sapphire eyes while healing him, protesting that he used to like it that way.
He ground his teeth. Dammit. She hadn’t even let him peak, bringing him to the precipice of pleasure before sadistically inflicting pain on him. The woman was out of control.
Part of him regretted ruining Odette’s assassination attempt, but it was for the best. If news got out that a sorcerer had visited another and it had ended in a violent death, he‘d have the whole sorcerer's community against him. It would paint a target on Rothbart’s back.
Not that he wouldn’t have let Odette kill her if the situation had been dire. But by the time it had gotten to that point, he’d made his choice.
A fury boiled in him when he recalled the way the sorceress had brought Odette to the floor when she’d touched the skull mark. Of how she’d nearly choked Odette to death. He didn’t understand why he felt so protective of the woman who was part of the group who’d murdered his parents. Other than the fact that Rothbart had taken her there without giving her all the information she needed.
Still, he hadn’t been thinking about that, or even his own welfare, when he’d made the deal with Alecta.
And that bothered him. A lot.
What was wrong with him? After everything, he should at least feel indifferent to Odette. Instead, he found her possessing his thoughts more than he wanted. Her mass of curls that flowed around her with every movement, her dark eyes that sparked with life, her defiant mouth. The way she’d led and cared for her fellow swans over the past couple months.
