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Arran stared at me with wry amusement on his face, one dark eyebrow rising. “What do you plan to do with that?”
“Someday, I will sink this dagger into your throat,” I promised.
I turned over the possibilities in my head. If I threw the dagger, he’d move in time. If I tried to attack him again, I might draw blood but ultimately he’d have the advantage. We were close enough to evenly matched, and he hadn’t been knocked out for the last—
“How long was I out?”
Arran’s eyebrow returned to its place above those mesmerizing dark eyes. “A few hours.”
“Where is the human?”
He sighed, sliding his legs over to sit on the edge of the bed. His back to me—cocky bastard.
“Imprisoned,” Arran said.
“Where?”
“What will you do if I tell you?” Arran’s voice sounded tired. He was tired of dealing with me? The feeling was more than mutual.
“I will kill him,” I snarled.
“Then it is better that you do not know.”
“How dare you! You are not king yet! You are not my master! You are the Brutal fucking Prince!” I threw my dagger across the room, the feel of it in my hand suddenly unbearable, knowing it was useless. Useless, just like I was useless.
Arran’s eyes followed the knife where it lodged in the wall. Then they turned to me. “And you are supposed to be the Princess of Peace. Or do you prefer the Queen of Secrets?”
“I did not ask for either of those titles,” I said.
The Princess of Peace was my parents’ way of selling my unusual existence to the realm. A second heir, to ensure the peace of Annwyn.
The Queen of Secrets… well, there was really only one secret that mattered. The one that would tear my kingdom apart. My powerlessness. A fae without power. A thing that had never existed in the history of Annwyn. An abomination.
Arran turned to face me fully and I could see the same exhaustion written on his face as had echoed in his voice. Strands of his dark hair had come loose from the knot at the back of his head, falling down around his face. His brows were knitted together, the heavy brow ridge shadowing his already dark eyes. The stubble on his chin was a visible shadow, where that morning it had been smooth and undetectable. Somehow it made him more handsome, this vulnerability. I wondered who else had ever seen it.
The Brutal Prince was worried. If only he knew the full truth…
Arran dragged a hand over the strong line of his jaw. “We have to question the human. Find out why he’s come to Annwyn. Why are any of them coming to Annwyn? Passing through the rifts is dangerous for humans, there must be a reason they are risking it—”
“To kill us! To wreak destruction! That is the only reason they ever come!” I cried. How could he not see it? Was Arthur’s murder not proof enough?
“We need peace, Veyka! That is our charge—yours and mine! That is what it means to be High King and Queen. We are stewards of peace in Annwyn, whatever the cost!”
Whatever the cost.
He was wrong. Revenge first.
“You speak of peace, but what do you know of it?” I sneered. “You are the Brutal Prince!”
If I kept saying it, maybe it would be easier to see only that image of him, rather than Arran, the male standing before me.
His hand dropped away, so he was staring at me unencumbered as he said, “I know that if you’d killed that human, it would haunt you.”
I blinked. “Haunt me? I am already haunted! Everywhere I go, I see the traces left by my brother. I cannot take a single step without being compared to him.” I did not speak of the other shades, the ones I saw hovering just outside of reality. The flash of wings at the Offering.
“Veyka—” He stepped toward me, one hand reaching out into the empty space between our souls.
“No! Do not speak as if there is tenderness between us.” I was nearly screaming. But I didn’t care who heard, whether it be my guards in the antechamber or the courtiers on the verandas beyond my own. “Gwen told me about how you beheaded those humans in the Shadow Wood.”
