Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
ALLIE
“ Y ou .”
The heavy word hung between us as the bloody Blood Brotherhood Commander stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
He didn’t bother to spare a glance my way.
Like I wasn’t the feared Huntress standing in the same room with him, with blood on what was left of my dress and murder in my eyes.
As if he didn’t consider me a threat.
I was already disoriented and barefoot, I didn’t need the slight.
He moved like a man at ease, in control of himself and everything–perhaps everyone–around him.
The air crackled as the Commander took his sweet time to lean his back against the door. The leather of his armor creaked as he crossed his hands in front of his chest.
Without his gaze pinning me to the spot, my eyes travelled down his large, sinewy frame undeterred.
It felt clandestine. Like I knew I shouldn’t and still did it.
Ridiculous.
I was just sizing my opponent up. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing I’d admit.
He looked like a man legends had been written about–whether as the hero or the villain, I couldn’t tell.
Tall and broad, he was a warrior honed in too many battles to count. Scars peeked above the edge of his collar, as if trying to remind me he’d faced bigger and meaner and had come out victorious.
The leather of his armor was tarnished halfway down his knees along with his heavy boots, like they had been corroded.
A leather baldric was slung over his shoulder and a dagger girdle hung low on his hips, but they were both devoid of weapons.
I narrowed my gaze. He’d been fully armed back in the maze.
What was this, some twisted show of truce, to give me a false sense of comfort? Or proving he was so unbothered by my presence that he didn’t need to protect himself–
The maze.
The blood.
The olive tree.
The dread which had been slowly burning underneath the haze that still caged my thoughts seared straight through.
“Where’s my father?” I asked, hating the way my voice broke in this great big room.
It made me feel even smaller.
Please, please, please , I begged, as if praying to the gods to reforge the grim reality I’d already witnessed.
As if I hadn’t been the one to desperately cradle my father’s body to me, whimpering and out of my mind, trying to save him after his last breath had already left his body.
“You already know,” he said.
My heart cracked for the second time.
My father’s blood was on my dress.
My knees wobbled, begging me to collapse on this strange floor, in this strange place, and let someone–anyone else–be strong for once.
I wanted to weep.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to curl up in a ball and not care who saw me in that pathetic state.
I wanted, for once, to be allowed to crumble under the weight of everything.
But I would have rather gouged my eyes out than show a shred of weakness while in enemy territory.
Blood Brotherhood territory.
I had to be strong.
Again.
Stronger than ever.
I stood stubbornly upright, even as I swayed on the spot, shadows crowding my vision. I gently pushed the devastation down and swallowed my unshed tears. Until I was alone, I could not mourn.
And even that made me feel ashamed and rotten, like I was the worst daughter in the world.
The worst First Daughter.
The realization of his death hurt deeper this time.
When I’d discovered his body, I’d been nothing more than a storm of devastation and despair.
Now all hope was gone.
My father was dead and I, the Protectorate heir, had been taken–by the Blood Brotherhood.
The world I’d carefully tried to protect and control splintered and Allie fell through the gash. The Huntress climbed out from the ruins, ready for revenge.
The broken bottle shook in my hand, but I didn’t lower it.
This was officially a hostage negotiation.
My training and the tutors’ constant instructions came back with a vengeance, tamping down my fear.
I’d been prepared for such a danger since childhood.
“Who did it?” I asked, voice now just as cold and controlled as his.
“I know as much as you seem to.” His voice–so different than the gentle inflection he’d used with the children–was a low, jagged rasp that demanded attention.
I barked a laugh that would have made a lesser man hesitate.
“You Blood Brotherhood scum discover our secret, sacred Sanctua Sirena island–for the first time in history–pass our wards–” They probably found some ancient magic to annul our powers, too, but I wouldn’t reveal that weakness until he mentioned it, on the slimmest chance that he didn’t know their machinations had worked.
“–crash my cousin’s wedding and kill her groom just as we’re attacked by a cloud of arrows tinged with a poison never seen in Malhaven.
Then my father is assassinated on the same day. That is not a coincidence.”
“We lost Brothers and Sisters, too.”
True. I’d had to crawl over Blood Brotherhood bodies. They would haunt me, too.
I tensed my shoulders. “Casualties of a planned attack.”
“We only planned to uphold the marriage contract between The Dragon and the Lost Daughter.” Finally, the Commander’s gaze–ice-blue, unflinching, unforgiving–slashed toward me.
That was the kind of stare that made seasoned war generals and kings hesitate.
“The one you planned to void with that sham of a secret ceremony.”
If he expected me to feel ashamed for putting my cousin’s one wish above a relic of a Clan Code rule, he would be waiting until the entirety of Malhaven froze over.
“So massacring us was your revenge?”
“We’re not to blame for the arrows or the mist. We didn’t plan on killing anyone except Fabrian.”
In another reality, I would have thanked the Blood Brotherhood for freeing Malhaven of that louse. Maybe even sent them a bottle of the best Aquila wine, instead of wielding one at their Commander.
“A lot of effort to kill a man whose liver would have done the job for you in a few years,” I said.
“No effort is too great to defend our honor.”
Bleeding Blood Brotherhood and their bleeding honor. “I can’t imagine the effort it took you to find Sanctua Sirena and–”
“We received an anonymous lead.” His blue eyes sparked. Triumph? Annoyance? I couldn’t tell. “Had a magic map and everything.”
Betrayal.
The word hissed in my ears stronger than the ghost of the sizzling mist.
I had been considering the possibility back in the maze, but doubt had become my unwanted companion for years.
It was one thing for me to over-analyze and another to have my fear repeated back to me.
If the Commander was telling the truth–and he could have been lying through those sculpted lips of his just as easy as my mind was racing–then the sudden loss in the Protectorate vaults made a lot more sense.
Only someone who had been to Sanctua Sirena could reveal its location. Not even the Serpents had been given that information, we’d brought them there with our own ships.
The Blood Brotherhood had been called on the day of Evie’s wedding, the only moment we’d all be gathered there.
Someone had to know the source of our Protectorate powers to nullify them.
The Protectorate leader had been murdered in the chaos.
The pieces fit too well together.
No .
I wasn’t about to trust the Commander of our enemy Clan.
I shook my head. “If you and your bleeding Clan are so innocent in all of this–”
He shrugged. “Judging by what I saw at the wedding, it’s your Clan’s that’s bleeding, not mine.”
“Careful, Commander.” I clenched my jaw. “I might be your prisoner, but I’m still The Huntress.”
“You’re not my prisoner.”
Despite my best efforts, my pulse began to race and my mouth turned bone dry. If I wasn’t a prisoner…then what fresh horror awaited me? “Then what am I doing here with you?”
“Accussing me, annoying me, and I suspect attacking me very soon.” He kicked himself away from the door with a predator’s patience and began to prowl toward me.
My entire body tensed, a cold shiver racing down my spine.
I held on tighter to my pitiful bottle even as I forced a cold smirk on my face. “If I’m so annoying, you can drop me off at the nearest carriage station, and I’ll find my way from there.”
“As appealing as that sounds, it’s not possible.” He stopped an arm-swing away from me, his ice eyes never leaving mine for a moment.
Alarm bells roared in my ears. He truly did seem pissed off at my presence, jaw clenched, lips tense.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because there is nowhere left for you to go.”
Lies . “I am the Protectorate heir–”
“You were. Silas has seized the throne.”
The room rushed around me as my heart plummeted near my dangling shoe.
Silas?
Fucking Silas ?
“You’re lying,” I said, not believing my own words. “Uncle Maks would not stand for this–”
“He’s missing.”
The cracks in my heart deepened. “My cousins–”
“Are all incapacitated at the moment.”
“Incapacitated how ?” My hiss blended in with the snap from the fire. It reminded me too much of that blasted mist creeping toward me.
The Commander sighed, as if he’d rather be anywhere else than here. “The Lost Daughter agreed to marry The Dragon. She’s in the Blood Brotherhood Capital as we speak.”
Oh, Evie. I truly did care for her, but she had disgusting taste in the men she agreed to wed.
Perhaps she did it out of fear. To protect us. Maybe because The Dragon had killed Fabrian.
What mattered was that she’d reached the secluded heart of the enemy Clan. The one the Protectorate had never been able to find.
Maybe we could use that. Evie didn’t have a shrewd bone in her body, but perhaps she could be coached–
“As for the rest of you Vegheara lot, the Clan Council was livid at what happened on your island. It has decreed the easiest way to prevent a Clan war is to tie your fates to the Blood Brotherhood Elite.” He paused for the briefest moment.
Hesitation? A way to make me hang onto his words?
“Congratulations, you’re getting married. ”
Laughter resounded all around us.
Only when it roared in my ears did I realize it was my voice.
My desperate and dark laughter.