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“Very good.” Hellebore approaches Valerian, held aloft in the middle of Asher and Eclipsa, and reaches out his hand—
I strain against my guards. “If you touch him, I’ll rip you apart!”
“Such a feisty thing you are, Princess,” Hellebore scolds as something small and black scuttles from the bottom hem of Valerian’s pants and onto the Spring Court heir’s waiting palm. He does the same with Eclipsa and Asher before crossing to me. “Feisty is good, but useful is better.” He holds up his hand. “Like these misunderstood creatures. Their use as silent, stealthy assassins are unparalleled.”
I recoil from the three arachnids crawling over his hand. Small and dark, they resemble black widows with their spindly legs and fat, round bodies. Each horrible little creature wears an iron thimble with a stinger on the end.
“I still had to get the creatures close, of course, but Inara was more than happy to plant them on your friends for me. Seems her love for the Ice Prince has soured.”
“The council will—”
“Do nothing. My creatures only pricked the Ice Prince and the others with the Bloodstar poison once they broke into my vault, as is my right, by law.”
Bloodstar. No. Panic claws through my chest. “How did you know?”
Footsteps draw my attention to a figure approaching behind me. The Winter King. The air cools around us as he nears, drawing goose bumps over my feverish skin.
“I told him.” Valerian’s father’s pale eyes glitter above a cunning grin.
“What?” My throat clenches. “Why?”
“My son apprised me of his suspicions that Prince Hellebore stole my father’s soulstone. When I realized that my son was bringing both the Lunar assassin and Asher Grayscale here . . . well, it wasn’t hard to determine his motives. Breaking into the Spring Court palace.”
“You had your son poisoned!” I growl as fury builds beneath my sternum, filling the hole that panic has already carved. “You betrayed him.”
“No dear.” The king shakes his head, as if I couldn’t begin to fathom his reasoning. “Betrayal would have been letting him give up everything for you. When my son came to me wanting to end his betrothal to Inara Winterspell, I suspected who you were. The drink you sipped during the ceremony at the academy confirmed it. Only someone with Fae magic could resist the lethal toxin I had the bartender add.”
The toast. I shiver, knowing how close Mack came to drinking the spiked cocktail. Fresh, bitter rage builds inside me. If I had talons I would claw the king’s eyes out right now, guards or not.
“If you had agreed to mate with my son, things may have been different. After all, your powers are rumored to be wondrous. But, when my spies told me you’d rejected him that night instead, after he’d already made an enemy of half the Winter Court for you, I knew there was only one way to rectify the damage. A deal with Prince Hellebore.” His flippant attitude over his treachery makes my teeth grind. “How does trading me to your enemy, the Fae who is colluding with the Darken and just poisoned your son, benefit you?”
“Besides the generous offer of lands in the Untouched Zones?” His eyes narrow. “Your mortal nature has made you blind to our ways, otherwise you would understand. I’m saving my son and the throne. With you alive, the contract your father made with Hellebore still stands. You will become the Spring Court Prince’s wife, and my son will be forced to forget you. He will marry Inara Winterspell, placating her father and preventing a civil war, our court will have lands in the Untouched Zones, and our claim on the throne will once again be ironclad.”
“Any powers I possess will be used to raise the Darken.”
“Perhaps. Although I have yet to see any evidence that Prince Hellebore is in league with my father.”
“That’s because you betrayed your son before he could find it!”
He picks at a fleck on his tunic, ignoring me.
“He’ll never forgive you,” I whisper.
“Forgive?” The Winter King arches a bored brow. “Such a mortal concept, forgiveness. He will be upset . . . but after you marry the Spring Prince and the bond between you and my son withers into a distant memory, he will come around. And if he doesn’t, well, perhaps Hellebore can explain.”
Hellebore lovingly finishes depositing his spiders into a small silver box lined with black velvet before turning to me. “Do you know why the Bloodstar flower is so effective? Besides being the most lethal poison in existence, it’s the most rare, and the cure almost non-existent.”
“You bastard.”
“There is an antidote that will prevent the poison from taking hold for a time, and if the Winter Prince and his friends behave, it will be administered every seven days.”
Oh, God. That’s how they’ll control Valerian and the others. Threatening to withhold the antidote if they don’t do as told.
A sick feeling crashes over me. I fight through it, struggling not to drown beneath the unrelenting waves of revulsion and horror. Struggling to be strong for my mate, my friends.
To find a way to save them.
Hellebore waits until the enormity of his meaning flashes over my face before adding the final nail in my coffin. “Only I possess the true cure. Which they will all receive after you formally become my loving, dutiful wife, and all your powers with you.”
