Chapter 6 Isi #2
I was reaching for my wine cup when a woman dressed in dark leathers with long, vivid red hair hanging down her back strolled through the archway behind the high table.
She approached Trew with the confidence of someone who belonged at his side, violence contained in human form, all sharp muscles and controlled predatory grace.
She was beautiful. Dangerous. Perfect for a king who ruled through strength.
She dropped into the seat beside him and leaned into his side, sliding her arm around his shoulder.
Only the bracelet entwined around her left wrist looked out of place.
Actually, it wasn’t a bracelet, but a death adder. Thin and sleek, its blood-red scales gleamed like polished jewels as it tightened and released around her arm.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
Lexie followed my gaze. “I know, right? I’ll enter the trial tomorrow, but I don’t want to bond with anything like that. That’s Kira, by the way. First in command.”
Kira had bonded with a death adder? How could she sleep? Without the rare antidote, its bite would kill you in half an hour, and the antidote was notoriously difficult to acquire.
I shuddered, remembering the treatise on poisonous creatures I’d studied as part of my education. Father had insisted I learn about such things. Know your threats, he’d said.
This woman wore death as jewelry.
Looking up at Trew, she smiled, her body language screaming intimacy.
A raw, uncomfortable heat twisted low in my belly.
Not jealousy, but something fierce and unwanted. My magic sparked under my skin, wild and reactive.
He’s your enemy, Isi. Remember that.
Yet when she smiled at him, something inside me clenched like a fist. For a heartbeat I imagined walking over and pulling her away, an absurd, ridiculous thought. I dragged in a breath and fixed my attention on my plate.
Fates, I was losing my mind.
Attraction to him was suicide.
A shriek echoed through the hall, and a cinderhawk soared across the big, open expanse. The bird circled once before diving to land on Trew’s shoulder.
The death adder’s head snapped around, and even from some distance away, I could hear its hiss of rage. The serpent’s forked tongue flickered out, tasting the air between it and the hawk.
Tilting its head, the cinderhawk studied the snake with disdain before striking out, pecking the death adder’s head. The serpent recoiled, and the woman jerked her arm off of Trew’s shoulders.
“Control that thing, if you please,” she snapped at Trew. “It could hurt her.” She snuggled the death adder against her throat.
“Keep her away from my hawk, Kira, and we won’t have a problem,” Trew drawled.
“Damn, she’s brave,” Derren said softly, watching them as avidly as me. “Who’d go near a thing like that?”
Kira, it seemed.
The cinderhawk ruffled its feathers and settled deeper onto Trew’s shoulder, only sparing the serpent one last glare.
Lexie glanced around to make sure no one was watching before leaning close to speak by my ear. “Kira’s brutal in a fight.”
“Is she with him?” I bit out, unable to stomach even one more bite of food when before, I’d been starving. I lifted my glass and took a long swig of my wine.
“Aiming high, aren’t you?” Lexie asked with a teasing grin.
I nearly choked on my drink. “What gives you the idea I’d go anywhere near him?”
“Why not? He’s gorgeous. Powerful. The king of all he surveys. Most here would kill to find a way into his bed. Maybe even me.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief.
Derren’s low growl made a few people nearby pause in their eating. “No way.”
“Oh, please.” Lexie stroked his face. “No one’s replacing you, you jealous beast.”
She pulled his head down for a kiss that started gentle and quickly became heated. Someone hooted, and the couple broke apart, sharing smiles.
I smiled along with them, but their kiss only emphasized my isolation. Everyone here seemed to have someone. A partner, a friend, a place where they belonged. I was the outsider, the pretender, the enemy about to unleash her claws.
“If you’re not interested in him,” Lexie said, turning back to me, “stop staring at him like he’s pastry on a plate.” Her grin came filled with pure mischief.
Heat crawled up my neck. “Hardly.” I kept my tone cool even as my pulse betrayed me.
“You’re practically vibrating with jealousy.”
I stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you don’t. That’s why you’re gripping that cup like you want to strangle it.”
I forced myself to lower my wine to the table.
Trew was speaking with the man on his left, but he must’ve felt my attention, because his golden eyes found mine across the crowded hall.
A hunter seeing the glint of a blade in the dark.
Every sound in the hall faded.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but drown in his eyes that saw too much.
The expression on his face suggested he knew exactly what I was feeling. A slow, predatory smile curved his lips, and my heart stopped.
Then Kira said something that made him turn back to her, and whatever we’d exchanged ended.
I was pathetic, getting flustered over him.
Lexie’s grin grew wider, though she thankfully said nothing more.
I ate, carefully noting exits from the room, speculating where the door behind the dais might go. If the upper echelon used it, it might lead to offices. I’d have to find a way to search soon.
As we finished and started to leave the dining hall, I felt eyes on me again. A glance that way showed it wasn’t Trew.
I sensed a person watching from the shadows of one of the shadowy doorways along the right wall. Another enemy or someone who might recognize the princess of Caldrith Court?
Taking care, I glanced around, but whoever it was had melted back into the darkness, leaving only the prickle of unease between my shoulder blades.
Tomorrow I would face the trials.
Tonight, someone might be hunting me.