Chapter 24
The Dragon King
Belle stumbled back, her gaze dropping to my blade, then flicking back to me. “What are you doing?”
Her chest rose and fell, and her heart thundered. Her jasmine scent became sharp. She was frightened, unbalanced, just as she’d been last night.
Good.
I spun the blade in my hand, and she jerked back.
“I think you’re lying, princess.” I let the words sink in, the pauses doing their work.
Then, meeting her eyes, I placed the blade on my desk where the book had been.
“I think you’ve been hiding your power this entire time, waiting for the right moment to make it count. Well, here’s your opportunity.”
She eyed the dagger, her body tense, her expression fixed with uncertainty. “What are you talking about?”
“You want to kill me, don’t you? Well, now’s your chance. Use your magic to do something about it.”
“You’re joking.”
She pivoted warily, following me as I moved to the opposite side of the room by the door, giving her ample space. “The blade is all yours. Stab me through the heart. Show me a fraction of the power you had last night.”
Her gaze flicked to the dagger, then back to me. Her hips shifted almost imperceptibly, and I grinned, sensing the iron beneath the terror.
“If you think you can grab the knife before I kill you, you’re quite mistaken, princess. Magic is the only chance you have—unless, of course, you’re powerless.”
Her hand snapped toward the dagger, and her jaw tensed. A hint of energy rippled across the room, barely detectable. The blade didn’t move—but she was close.
“That’s all you have?” I crafted my lips into a sneer. “Perhaps you’re nothing more than a simple farm girl, after all.”
“Perhaps you’re nothing more than an asshole,” she spat.
I gave her a condescending look and crossed my arms. “This is a waste of time. Put her back in her room. She’s useless.”
Belle’s eyes and cheeks flared as if I’d slapped her across the face, and she thrust her hand at the dagger, screaming, “Stab the fucking bastard, godsdamnit!”
The air split with a sharp hiss. I jerked to the side, the blade nicking my sleeve at the shoulder as it whirred past and sank into the wood of the door with a thud.
Fuck yes. Now my pulse was racing, and gods help me, it had nothing to do with the blade.
Fascination and delight twisted through me, but I kept my expression as cold as steel. “You missed, peasant girl.”
The wicked little vixen glared back at me, fierce and defiant, and her lips curled into a smile. “This time.”
Gods, how I wanted to see what else those lips could do.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Like what?”
“Like you think I’m going to be your new plaything—because I won’t.”
I grinned. “Is that a challenge, princess?”
“It’s a promise.”
No one spoke to me like she did. Her brazenness should’ve grated—it did grate—and yet it was fucking alluring.
Locke cleared his throat. “Seems you were right, Your Highness. There’s something there after all.”
I wrenched the blade free of the door and stalked forward until I was mere inches from the damned woman.
Her pulse fluttered in her neck, the honey undertones in her scent now molten, but she held her ground, unwavering, her jaw set in a defiance that pulled at something hungry in me.
“So, what is she? A poor excuse for an assassin? Or will her magic only manifest when she wants to kill me?”
“Right now, fear drives her power,” Locke said. “She’s like a wild animal, cornered and lashing out. Control might come in time.”
In time.
That was the one thing I didn’t have.
“What do you want me to do with her?” Locke asked.
What indeed? The old woman’s prophecy burned—but what could an untrained telekinetic do against a demon’s curse?
Belle’s eyes didn’t waver from mine. Where there had been fear before, there was a challenge, and a glimpse of the steel within her.
“Train her. See what she’s capable of.”
Her mouth dropped open, and Locke’s expression sharpened to a knife’s edge. “Is that wise?”
“Why?” Belle asked, her voice breathless. “Why do you care?”
I loomed over her. “I need to know whether you’re a liability or whether you’re useful enough to let live. Think on that the next time you decide to hurl a weapon at me.”
With that, I turned and yanked the door open. The guards outside jumped to attention. “Take Lady Marquette back to her room. I want sentries posted outside at all hours to make sure she doesn’t try to sneak out again.”
The guards had to drag her away, but at least she didn’t try to use her magic again. That was going to be a problem.
“You cannot be serious about this,” Locke said as soon as the door was shut.
“Deadly serious.”
He ran his fingers over the splintered hole she’d left in it. “Did you see how close she was to ending you? That’s untrained.”
“I saw. It doesn’t matter. You will teach her everything you can,” I waved him off in dismissal. “And find someone to fix my door.”
“Perhaps you should leave it as a reminder of what the little witch is capable of.” There was a lilt of amusement in his tone, but his words grated on me like sandpaper.
“I don’t need any reminders. She is at the forefront of my thoughts. A drill boring into my skull every second of every day that she’s been in this castle.”
Rather than leave me in peace, the high magister drew close.
“Think on this, Your Highness. Right now, she’s grasping blindly in the dark, and yet she’s already managed to sneak out of a locked room and attack you twice.
Trained…she will go from a nuisance to a threat.
Her power could make every object in this castle a liability, every blade a threat. She could cause mass chaos.”
“Then see that she doesn’t.”
His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She has the power to save you—but it will cost you everything.
Locke was my most trusted adviser, but I still hadn’t told him what the old one-eyed witch had said. I wasn’t sure why. Perhaps I needed an impartial mind. Between the magnetic pull the little siren had on my thoughts and the fickle hope of the prophecy, I was deeply, incontrovertibly biased.
“Lady Marquette is the closest tie I have to the Bloodvale at the moment. She may be useful as a hostage—more so if we can control her magic.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “She’s a pretty little thing, too, isn’t she? Is that it? Something new to quench your thirst.”
“I hadn’t noticed. Just train her before she accidentally brings this whole castle down on us.”
He leaned back against the window and crossed his arms. “Excellent plan. Then she can do it on purpose.”