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Odette’s hand went to the mark on her neck, her lip curling. “He took advantage of me.”
“So you despise this man?”
“Yes.”
Emiranda lifted a knife out of the drawer and onto the table. “Then kill him.”
Odette blinked. “What?”
“I promised Kilron his position. Besides, he knows too much. He needs to go.”
A tremor ran through her as if the temperature in the room had dropped. She stared at the knife and licked her lips. “If I kill him before your son swears undying love, I will never be free of my curse.”
“Yes. About that. Clever though it was, I can’t have Torsten swearing love to you. He must marry a princess. For only after Zoya’s death, and a new arrival of a royal child, can we hope to re-establish the King’s Mark.”
Rothbart ground his teeth. This was what everything had been about. “You’re delusional,” he snarled.
The queen gave him a nonplussed look. “We shall see.” She turned to Odette. “I know this is a sacrifice for you, but think about it—a swan in the daytime, killer at night. Nobody would ever suspect. I’d use you as my right hand. With your unparalleled ability to hide during the day, to gather information unsuspected, you could go anywhere, do anything, and I’d make it well worth your while. You’d become the greatest assassin alive. Greater than even your dear mother.”
Something flickered across Odette’s face, but Rothbart didn’t know what it meant.
The queen stepped closer to Odette and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Prove yourself to me now and you will never want for anything.”
Odette’s jaw clenched, and her fingers wrapped around the hilt of the knife. “My mother taught me I should choose the person who has the most to offer.”
Emiranda smiled. “You know that will always be me.”
Odette nodded and Rothbart stared in disbelief as she turned toward him, the knife clutched in her fist.
“Drop him,” she said to Kilron.
“Why? He’s perfect for the taking as is.”
Her grip tightened on the hilt, and she gave him a bored glance. “I will not kill a man pinned to the wall. I am a professional and would prefer not to get blood all over myself.”
Kilron chuckled. “As you wish.”
Rothbart felt the power release him and he landed on his feet. He raised his hands as Odette approached. “Took advantage of you?” he asked. Bitterness moved through him even as he stared at her warily.
Her chin lifted. “You are my captor. Did you not?”
“You’ve managed to conveniently forget about the part where you begged me to continue.”
Her teeth flashed. “On your knees, scum.”
He’d made a promise to his parents to protect Zoya. Now, the only person who could help him was the woman who had betrayed him. The woman who had participated in the assassination that had taken his parents from him.
But she was more than that. She had protected his sister from the assassins. She had supported him in his search for the one who wanted to take Zoya’s life. She had calmed him when he’d thought he was going to lose his mind.
She’d hesitated the night she was supposed to kill him, saving his life and Zoya’s in the process.
“You’re no killer, Odette.”
“I said on your knees!”
She had come to the ball and, instead of trying to get Torsten to break her curse, had brought the answers to Rothbart’s questions. Information she might have hidden from him and then waited for the queen to free her from the skull pact. She could’ve gotten everything she wanted tonight.
“Killing the queen is the only way to save Zoya,” he muttered.
