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Several members of the court stared at Ren – and me, for the implication of his surprising admission clearly hadn’t been lost on them – but it was Welzes who had his full attention. “I suggest you leave my palace and my country promptly, duke, before I learn everything you did to Nathanael and decide to repay it upon you tenfold.”
Scoffing, the man brushed off invisible dust from his coat as he tried his best to look imperious. “As if I’d want to stay in this cesspit any longer. Come, Alondra,” he snapped, and the woman faltered where she stood next to Isobella, her whole body going stiff when he beckoned her over.
Ren held up a hand. “My sister can stay.”
“Yoursister,” Welzes hissed, a savage grin lighting up his face as he seized the opportunity his marriage gave him to hurt his enemy one last time, “is my wife. Myproperty. She’ll be returning home to Lukia, where I can promise you that she will pay for what she has cost me.”
“A crown that isn’t yours and never was?” Valeri asked with a snarl, ripping the gag from his mouth as soon as Ren waved a begrudging hand to order him freed as well. He got to his feet, angry and imposing. “A people who deserve better? You’ll walk out of this room with nothing but your life, Welzes, and consider yourself fucking lucky.”
It was remarkable restraint that both my lover and brother were showing in letting him live, but I supposed that cutting him down in cold blood or having him executed would be a dangerous move, politically speaking. There were clearly some Quarehians who preferred him as their ruler – although less than there had been before, as many who had voted for him had already strayed back over this way, either in resignation or disgust – and the man was a Lukian duke with the ear of its king. He could cause a lot of trouble for us.
Not that Ren seemed to give a shit. He offered a broad smirk as he meandered closer to Welzes, flicking his long dark hair carelessly over one shoulder. Despite the dried blood on his chin and the filth on his travelling clothes, he looked every inch an arrogant royal.
Myarrogant royal.
“Alondra legally belongs to me,” the duke sneered at him and the two men began to circle each other as they faced off. I stiffened as I noticed Welzes still carried Val’s sword, yet Ren’s own hands were bare and stuffed into his pockets. “You can’t stop me from taking her.”
“If she was married to a man,” my prince agreed. “Only I’m fairly certain even Lukia isn’t backwards enough to recognise marriages to beasts like yourself.”
With his back now to me, I saw Welzes bristle. The blade in his hand lifted an inch and my brother cursed under his breath, moving closer to Ren as he noticed the same thing. I pulled out the knife I’d tucked at the small of my back before my capture, but shackled and with eyes always on me, I hadn’t been able to reach it before now.
“What thefuckdid you just call me?” Welzes demanded.
“Leave,” Val cut in, directing a glare at Ren to instruct him to ease up. The prince just blinked back innocently, his long lashes framing those rich brown eyes. “We won’t tell you again, Zidhan.”
Welzes puffed out an irritated breath, but faced with an irate six-foot northerner, a court that had nearly all turned against him, and a wife who clearly wasn’t moving, he knew he was beaten. He tossed the sword onto the tiles and headed for the doors, throwing me a filthy look as he passed by.
“Although,” mused Ren loudly, “if you miss being Navar’s puppet king and getting down on your knees for him whenever he demanded it, I could always-”
Welzes spun, his mouth stretched into a furious bellow of rage as he scooped the blade back up from the floor. Val darted in front of Ren, jaw set and already raising a borrowed sword to block the strike they both expected to land.
But Welzes wasn’t aiming for Ren.
I saw the moment my prince’s expression changed from triumph to horror as the duke swung the sword at my head instead.
*
Chapter Fifty
This wasn’t supposed to be how it happened.
Welzes was meant to go forme.Letting him leave wasn’t an option: I would not have my sister live in fear of him and his claim on her for the rest of her life, and as much as I could have arranged a quiet assassination on his return to Lukia, there was always the risk that something would go wrong. Goading people was as much my speciality as Mat’s, and even in Jiron’s absence it seemed there would always be a large, hulking warrior ready to protect my exquisite ass, today’s in the form of a Temarian heir wielding a heavy sword with no more effort than I did a quill.
Piss Welzes off, make him attack me, pretend to be sad when he tragically got killed doing so. A simple plan that had gone so horrendously, unthinkablywrong.
“Nat!” I shrieked as the duke brought Velichkov’s sword down on my lover, who suddenly seemed impossibly tiny and fragile in his shadow. My cry was echoed by his brother and Starling, and all three of us leapt forward as Mathias – my brave and beautiful and impossibly precious Mathias – steppedintothe swing, moving closer to the man trying to kill him with the amount of idiocy only he could muster.
And then they were both tumbling to the ground, and a moment later Velichkov was hauling Welzes off his little brother, throwing the bastard down onto his back and readying the tip of his blade against his neck with a snarl.
Yet Welzes’ eyes were already scrunched up in pain, the Mazekhstani sword falling from his limp fingers. Blood blossomed across his chest and bubbled up between his lips.
After frantically scouring Mathias’ winded form and finding no injury, my gaze settled on his right hand where he clutched another of those damn knives of his. The blade dripped blood. It was small, only a few inches in length, but like the man himself its danger wasn’t limited to its size.
“Mi cielo?”I whispered.
Mat uncurled himself from the floor, heaving in the breath he’d lost after Welzes had landed on him. He shot me a fierce glare, evidently as unimpressed about my terrible plan to provoke the duke as I was. Yet he didn’t dare say anything out loud with the court’s attention on us.
Fuck, he’d acted quickly. If my wildcat had been even a second slower, or less daring, Welzes might have killedhim.
