Bonus scene
DRAVEN
The Master of the Treasury handles all of the money for the Iceheart Dynasty. He’s one of the most intelligent people I’ve met in decades, and while we were all in the Seelie Court for the Atonement Trials, he devised his most brilliant scheme yet. A financial structure that will triple the Icehearts’ revenue. Which can only mean one thing.
He has to die.
Thankfully, while Jonah is a mathematical and analytical genius, he’s not very observant when it comes to his surroundings. He hums to himself as he strolls down the corridor, completely oblivious to the fact that I’m sneaking up on him from behind.
With the mask of the Red Hand in place, I slide out a knife from inside my disguise and then close the final distance between us in a few quick steps.
And then I slit his throat.
I stay only long enough to make sure that he has truly bled out. Then I jog back to the window I came in through, remove my mask, and fly back to my room.
I don’t like leaving Selena alone when she’s unconscious like this. But it has been three days already since we returned, and I had to kill my target now. He was on his way to Bane and Jessina to explain the details of his brilliant scheme, and I couldn’t let him do that. I had to kill him first. Well, him and two other people with important positions in their clan, so that it wouldn’t be so obvious that I was targeting Jonah specifically.
My boots thud against the ice as I land on the balcony.
Opening the balcony door, I flick my gaze over the living room inside. I hate the fact that servants can come and go at any time inside my private quarters. But I also can’t do anything about it, because Bane and Jessina have given those orders on purpose. They want to make me feel as if I’m constantly under surveillance. As if someone can just appear anywhere at any time to spy on me and then report my behavior. It’s just one more way for them to remind me that they own me.
Once I’ve checked to make sure that none of the cleaning staff are lurking in my room right now, I stride in through the door and quickly hide the mask and my disguise. Then I head straight for the bathroom.
Slitting throats is very effective, and relatively quiet, but it is unfortunately also pretty messy. Blood is splattered across my hand and part of my wrist. Though I doubt that anyone would find it suspicious that my hands are stained with blood, I still don’t want to take any chances. It has been a while since I pretended to be the Red Hand, and I can’t make any mistakes. So after stripping out of my clothes, I take a bath to wash off any evidence of my little assassination.
Once I’m done, I was going to head back into my bedroom to put on something more than a pair of pants, but I trail to a halt in the living room. My gaze is drawn towards the other bedroom. To her. As it always is.
Before I can even make a conscious decision, I find myself walking into her room. Dropping down on the dark gray armchair in the corner, I just watch her lie there on the bed.
Pain stabs at my heart.
She still hasn’t woken up. Maybe I took too much when I drained her magic in the throne room? But we had an audience, and I couldn’t give them any reason to be suspicious. We’re going to be scrutinized enough as it is. I had to make them all think that she means nothing to me.
Oh if they only knew what I really feel for this stubborn, brilliant, powerful, and utterly infuriating woman.
A soft groan comes from Selena’s throat and she raises her hand from the cover.
My heart jerks in my chest, and I’m halfway up from the armchair before I catch myself. All I want to do is to grab her and hold her and ask her if she’s okay. But I don’t want to overwhelm her. I need to let her process everything first. So I quietly sink back in the armchair, lean back against the backrest, and just watch her in silence.
Her fingers brush against the iron collar around her neck, and she frowns. I have to grip the armrests hard to stop myself from just yanking that fucking thing off her neck right this very second.
She frowns for a moment, still trying to blink her eyes open.
Then she gasps awake and sits bolt upright.
Panic crackles across her face as she whips her head from side to side, taking in her surroundings. It takes all my willpower to keep a blank mask on my face when she desperately reaches up towards the iron collar again. Pain stabs through my chest again as she futilely tries to find a clasp and then resorts to just trying to yank it off.
Panic and dread and heartbreaking fear pulse across her whole face. It makes me want to burn the world down.
And I decide then and there that I can’t just keep sitting here and watching her panic like this. I need to do something to distract her. I need to make her focus on something other than the fact that her life as she knows it ended three days ago. And I know, from personal experience, that there is one emotion that will always help with that.
Hate.
Strong enough hatred trumps panic. It trumps despair. Trumps heartbreak. Hate trumps almost everything. It gives you purpose. Gives you a reason to keep fighting. To keep living. If only to get revenge.
So I need to make her angry. I need to draw out her hatred so that it will snap her out of this panic and hopelessness that she’s currently drowning in.
“It won’t work,” I say, keeping my tone nonchalant and slightly mocking.
She gasps and whips her head towards me. Shock pulses across her face when she notices me. Then her gaze flits across my half-naked body. Fire pulses through my veins as I’m reminded of how she looked at me in that underground forest. And Azaroth’s flame, I desperately want her to look at me like that again. But she won’t. It was only an act, a ruse, back then in order to steal the ring. And after this, she’s only ever going to look at me with hate and rage in her eyes.
So I block out the fire in my veins and instead nod towards her throat. “You won’t be able to find a clasp. Only a dragon shifter can take off a collar like that.”
As if she refuses to take my word for it, she stubbornly yanks at the collar again. I have to suppress a smile. Always so fucking stubborn, this little rebel.
When the collar doesn’t come off, just like I said it wouldn’t, she reluctantly drops her hand. But then panic flashes across her beautiful features again, and she snaps her gaze down to the black silk nightgown that she’s wearing.
“You changed my clothes,” she blurts out.
I cock my head. “Yes.”
She grips the sheets hard as if in panic. But then anger at last begins to push out that awful emotion. Relief flickers through me. Good. Hate me.
That rage remains on her face as she narrows her eyes at me instead. “You took my clothes off?”
“You’ve been asleep for three days.” I give her a nonchalant shrug, designed to make her even more furious. “I figured you would be more comfortable in that than a ballgown.”
It works, and she shoots me a hard look. “So you took it upon yourself to strip me naked while I was unconscious?”
I let a slow and deliberately vicious smile spread across my mouth as I slide my gaze up and down her body. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”
Something flickers in her eyes. I suppress a frown of confusion. That comment was supposed to make her even angrier, but it doesn’t appear to have worked. So what did it make her feel?
“And besides,” I continue before I even know what I’m saying. “Would you rather it had been a random stranger who stripped you down to your underwear and changed your clothes?”
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I want to slap myself. I wasn’t supposed to tell her that. It betrays too much of my real emotions. Because I would fucking slaughter anyone who dared to even look at her half-naked body. She is mine.
To my surprise, she doesn’t argue with that. It makes a stupid flicker of hope pulse in my chest. Maybe she doesn’t actually hate the thought of me seeing her half-naked. Maybe she doesn’t despise me quite as much as she should.
With a scoff, she suddenly slides towards the edge of the bed and shoves the sheets away.
A jolt shoots through me. She hasn’t eaten in three days, and she has also had her magic drained from her body for the first time ever. She needs to take it slow. If she tries to stand up too fast, she’s going to fall over.
I shoot up from the armchair. “You shouldn’t?—”
She stands up anyway. And not carefully or slowly. She just shoves to her feet as if she’s the very model of health.
Clenching my jaw, I stifle something between a frustrated growl and a laugh. So stubborn. Always so fucking stubborn.
Throwing myself across the room, I manage to catch her before she can hit the floor. With my arms around her slim body, I pull her back up to her feet.
But her cheek is pressed against my bare chest, and I can barely concentrate on anything else, so I think I hold her for too long, because she struggles upright with a huff and gives my chest a hard shove.
“Don’t touch me,” she snarls.
And fuck, I’m glad she isn’t looking at my face when she says that. The words, and the venom in them, feels like a knife twisted through my gut. I know that I’m deliberately trying to make her hate me, but the thought that she is disgusted by my hands on her body, even when it was just to stop her from slamming into the floor, hurts like hell.
“The first draining is always the hardest,” I say mechanically, because I need to say something to distract myself and to change the topic while I keep my hands on her shoulders for another few seconds to make sure that she won’t fall over again. But even after I release her shoulders, I somehow still can’t bring myself to take a step back.
“The first and only draining,” she retorts.
That incredible fire is now back in her eyes. Instead of the panic and dread that have been pulsing across her face every few seconds since the moment she woke up, there is now determination and anger and fire in her beautiful turquoise and lavender eyes. And I need to make sure that it’s permanent. That her unbreakable spirit and that fight in her remains. Because she’s going to need it to survive here.
So I hold her gaze and once more try to feed that rage in her. “Draining you of magic is the entire purpose of a life slave.”
That wonderful anger flares up in her eyes. “I am not your slave.”
“That collar around your neck says otherwise,” I bait her again.
“If you ever drain me again, I will kill you.”
And to really push that anger the final distance, I slowly wrap a hand around her throat as I hold her gaze. “You and I both know that if I want to take it, I can.”
My pulse thrums as I wait for her reaction. Part of me is worried that I might have pushed it too far with this. That it will do the opposite. That my cruel words will break her. Because we both know that what I said is the truth. But the other part of me reassures me that it won’t. Because I know her too well. I know that this won’t break her. She’s too fierce, too powerful, too much of a survivor for that.
And just as I hoped, she doesn’t lower her eyes. Doesn’t bow her head in surrender. She does the opposite. She raises her chin defiantly and stares back at me.
I have to suppress a grin.
Then I let my hand drop. “But I won’t.”
She blinks at me in surprise.
I want her to be angry, I want to give her a purpose, a sense of defiance and revenge that she can use to keep the panic and dread away. But I don’t want her to be afraid of me. So I also need her to understand that I won’t violate her and drain her magic like that again.
“We had an audience back in the throne room,” I tell her while also taking a step back to give her some room to breathe. “Now, we don’t.”
That shock on her face deepens.
I let out a sigh and then remind her, “I told you that I tried to save you from this, remember?”
Her features soften, and she scrunches up her eyebrows a little. It makes her look so adorable that I have to actively hold myself back from reaching up and smoothing out that crease in her brows with my fingers.
She studies my face as if she’s trying to read the answers there. “Why?”
And there it is again. That question. Why did you try to save me from this?
Because I know that you’re a member of the fae resistance. Because I am a member of it too. Because I am the Red Hand. Because we’re working towards the same goal. Because I’ve been falling in love with you for years. Because I truly and completely fell for you during the Atonement Trials. Because you’re my mate. Because I would slaughter this entire world before I ever let someone hurt you.
But I can’t tell her any of that.
Because if I tell her that I’m also trying to overthrow the Icehearts, she’s going to want to help. And that might have worked in the Seelie Court. But here? Where the Icehearts have spies on every corner? No. If they catch her, they will torture her until her body breaks and her mind shatters in a way that is completely irreparable. And they will use the dragon steel to force me to just stand there and watch it all. They need me to keep the rest of the clans in check, which is why I can risk my own life like this. But Selena and my clan and everyone else? In the Icehearts’ minds, they are expendable. I can’t subject them to that kind of danger.
And I can’t tell her that she’s my mate either. I just put a collar around her neck and made her a slave. The last thing she wants is to hear that she’s my mate.
So in the end, all I say is, “Does it matter?”
She opens her mouth, but then hesitates.
My heart slams against my ribs as I wait for her reply.
Then steel creeps into her eyes, and she scoffs. “No, I guess it doesn’t.”
Relief washes over me at the sight of that steel in her eyes, but I keep my smile cold and threatening.
She draws a hand over the collar. “I will kill you for this.”
God, she really is back. That fire. That fierceness. This is the true Selena. This is my little rebel. I have to suppress a grin of approval since it would only ruin the anger and determination that I’ve finally managed to draw out.
Instead, I decide to finish this off by giving her cheek a patronizing pat. “That’s the spirit.”
She slaps my hand away, but before she can retort, her stomach growls. Loudly.
A jolt shoots through me.
Fucking hell, what was I thinking? She needs to eat, for God’s sake. She must be starving. And here I am, trying to bait her. Azaroth’s flame, I need to let her recover first.
“You haven’t eaten anything in three days,” I say, rather superfluously, and then lurch into motion. “I’ll get you some food.”
She blinks at me, looking startled, and all she says is, “I, uhm…”
I nod towards a pale wooden dresser by the wall. “Your clothes are in there. Stay here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Fucking hell, I can’t believe that I didn’t think to bring her food earlier. I should have had a stash of food already waiting in my room. I need to fix that.
After putting on a shirt and my boots, I hurry out the door and then continue into the deserted corridor beyond. As I walk, my mind churns.
This is going to be tricky. Once I have given her something to eat, I’m going to have to explain to her how this is all going to work. And that will be very complicated. Because I need to make sure that she’s still angry enough to keep her from losing hope. But I also need to make her trust me enough to agree to my plan. I need her to understand that even though I take off her collar inside our rooms, when we’re in public, she still needs to act as if I have?—
I stop dead in the stairwell halfway to the kitchens.
The collar.
Oh fucking hell, I haven’t even taken off her collar yet.
Whirling around, I run back up the steps and through the corridors and back towards our rooms. And as I close the final distance to the door, I’m struck by another thought.
The door. Did I lock the door before I left?
Reaching out, I tentatively push the handle down.
It opens without resistance.
Briefly closing my eyes, I groan and curse silently in my head.
What is it about Selena that just makes me lose my entire head? Just being near her makes me forget the simplest things. The most important things. Everything about her is distracting. Her intelligence. Her sharp tongue. Her quick wit. Her beautiful face and her gorgeous body. I can barely think straight when she’s around. Especially after the mate bond snapped in place.
Shoving the handle down, I stride into the living room with my heart slamming against my ribs.
One look confirms what I dreaded.
All the rooms are empty.
Alarm and panic, and a very annoying sense of approval, pulse through me.
Ten minutes. She has been awake for ten minutes, and she’s already causing trouble.
A grudging smile threatens to spread across my lips.
This little rebel is going to be the fucking death of me.