Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
Luka glared at his friend and tried to remember that Shane was also his prince and probably shouldn’t be dropped on his ass for bringing Izzy into their mess.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Shane demanded as they strode into the opulent private parlor behind his office. “Izzy is helping us. She’s one of our best friends, and you insulted her from the moment she arrived.”
She’s not our friend. She’s our—
Luka cut off his beast before it said something that really enraged him.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Shane? You should have left Narya alone, not snuck off to show her your fountains. You should have listened to me and involved the queen the second we got back with Narya’s body.
We should be working on how to manage the archthane together.
And, most of all, you should have left Izzy safe in her bed at home.
” His voice rose. “I was trying to protect Izabel from the shitstorm you’re creating! ”
Kai grunted from his place on the velvet settee beside Aiden.
Despite his jeweled court tunic and the high shine of his boots, Kai still looked every inch the soldier he was.
His family worked the iron mines, and his arms were tattooed with branching lines of steel gray and rust red, like the ore that dominated their lives.
He was the tallest—and heaviest—of all their friends.
An intense, quiet man. Now, his expression was tight with anger, one huge hand fisted on his thigh.
“See,” Luka waved toward his friends. “The others agree.”
“I was grunting at you both, asshole,” Kai replied. “You’re right about telling the queen and the princess. And watching you tonight—” He scowled at Shane. “—God of Chaos. I don’t even have words for that. But, Luka, you are not the right person to protect our Izzy.”
Our Izzy! Our Izzy! His beast spun so hard it almost dropped him to his knees.
Gods, sometimes Luka hated them all. “She’s yours now, is she?” he asked with menacing quiet.
Kai leaned forward. “Don’t be an—”
“Shut up. Both of you,” Shane interrupted, dragging their attention back to him. The prince made his way to a gleaming mhoba wood cabinet, took out a bottle, poured himself a large glass of red wine, and drank half of it. Then he waved the bottle toward the others. “Anyone?”
It was tempting, but Luka was certain that his debacle of a night was far from over, and the morning was likely to be even worse. “I don’t want your wine. I want you to listen.”
“I did listen. But I’m not going to do anything without more facts, and I need Izzy’s help to get them,” Shane replied, sinking into a large leather-upholstered chair. “We want to bring our soldiers home. We want safety for our people, so that we can move on. And this could derail everything.”
“You already brought us home,” Kai argued, “and you certainly didn’t ask for our opinions.”
“We want peace,” Shane repeated tiredly.
“I understand that.” Luka did understand. And he knew that Shane was dedicated to his people. “But can’t you see that Izzy should be left out of it?”
“I have done my best to leave her out of it!” Shane snarled. “I have tried to leave you all out of it!”
“Why couldn’t one of the other physiks come to assess the body?” Luka pushed.
“Because I don’t trust them like I trust Izzy!” Shane dragged his hand down his face with a grimace. “None of this is as easy as you think.”
Luka grunted, not ready to let it go. “What isn’t easy? If you’re concerned about something, you have to tell me. You should have let me—”
“When, Luka?” Shane lifted his hands in exasperation. “You’re always working. I hardly see you anymore.”
Luka’s beast twisted, unsettled. It was a fair point.
One he already knew. But it was so easy to sink into his work.
He could spend all day exhausting himself with training soldiers, setting up guard rotations, protecting the castle, maintaining his own strength and weapon skills…
anything and everything so that he didn’t have to be vulnerable.
Didn’t have to grieve. Didn’t have to think.
There were a million things to do each day and a million ways to close himself off.
I told you it was a mistake.
His beast’s sharp comment pulled him from his spiraling thoughts.
He’d buried himself in duty, that was true, but it had nothing to do with hiding this catastrophe from the queen.
Shane knew that. Luka leaned back, contemplating his friend.
Had he misdirected Luka on purpose? Why would he do that?
“Is this because you had feelings for Narya?” Luka demanded.
“Were you lovers? Is that why you want to keep this secret?”
“What? No!” Shane’s eyes slipped to the door that blocked them from Izzy and Cori and immediately back.
Luka stared at his friend, taking in the dark rings under his eyes, the sharp bones of his face.
“Why did you kiss her then?” he asked. Why kiss any of them?
Why did Shane spend all his time at parties and dinners and stumbling out of women’s rooms?
It wasn’t helping him win the woman he really wanted.
If anything, it was driving nails into the coffin of his chances, one ill-considered caress at a time.
You can talk, his beast muttered before shuddering. Thank the fires you’re just being an ass and not fucking half the castle.
“I told you,” Shane said, “we were—”
“Looking at the fountains,” Kai completed the sentence acidly.
“Exactly,” Shane agreed, ignoring Kai’s sarcasm. He crossed his leg, rested his foot on his thigh, and leaned his head back, ending the conversation.
Kai turned to speak quietly to Aiden, but Luka left them alone. He would have joined them. Before. Not anymore. Shane was right. He worked and slept, and honestly, he didn’t sleep that much.
“Luka,” Shane said quietly once the others were distracted, tilting his head for Luka to join him.
“Yes?” He stepped closer and bent his head so they could talk.
“Listen, there is something I’ve needed to talk to you about. Something I’ve put off too long.” Shane scrubbed his hand down his face tiredly.
Gods, what could Shane possibly have to tell him now? “If this is about Izzy, then I don’t want to hear it.”
“No. I mean, it is, but not how you think.”
A thousand horrible thoughts spiraled through his mind. “What is it? Is she okay?”
Shane opened his mouth, but the small side door opened, cutting off whatever he was about to say.
Probably for the best, if Shane called Izzy “his” or gently explained how Izzy was lost to Luka forever, as if he didn’t already know that perfectly well, Luka was going to let his beast declare whatever challenges it wanted.
And then he looked more closely at Izabel as she came into the study with Cori close behind her. Emotions crossed her face in a mix of shock, sadness, and anger. Gods of Chaos. This was just one of the many reasons he did not want her involved. He was going to put an end to this. He was going to—
Don’t. Say. Anything.
He wasn’t going to say anything bad. He was just—
Not a word!
Izzy didn’t see him wrestling with his beast, or if she did, she ignored it. She looked around the room, meeting their gazes calmly, slipping into the polite cadence of an experienced healer.
She’s too calm. Too restrained. This is worse than we thought.
“I’ve found how Narya died,” Izabel said quietly. She took a breath and then continued. “There is no bruising or trauma anywhere on her body. From what I can tell, she wasn’t sexually assaulted—”
Thank the Mother. Luka breathed out a sigh of relief. But Izabel wasn’t finished.
“However,” she continued, “there is a small puncture wound behind her ear, likely from a needle blade.”
Luka shook his head. “There was no blood.”
“There was a little hidden under her hair,” Izzy explained.
“With such a sharp blade, she would have died almost instantly, with almost no bleeding. It was clean, neat, and quick. Expert, even. And there’s more.
” Izzy clenched her hands tightly together.
“There’s stiffness in her face, already spreading to her neck and arms. She’s been dead for a while, several hours at least. Given that her clothes are only dirty where she lay on them, and not on the bottom of her skirts where she’d have picked up mud if she’d walked, I think that she was killed some time before she was left on the Nabaspath.
Either in the castle or in the cleaner parts of the city. ”
“Gods. She was assassinated,” Luka muttered.
Izabel met his eyes. “Yes, I think that’s likely.”
There was a long moment of shocked silence as they all looked at each other.
His belly churned. “Someone killed her in cold blood and then took her body all the way to our holy mountain on purpose. Perhaps the light Dashiell saw was there to draw him in and ensure she’d be found.”
“That would make sense,” Izzy agreed. “No one uses that path. It could have been days, weeks even, before she was found. This way, there’s immediate outrage.
The killer could’ve drawn in a guard precisely to ensure maximum exposure.
A murdered Kwanam noblewoman carried through the streets by Hugaebian guards would cause the worst kind of spectacle.
” Sapphire scales glittered at her throat where her pulse thudded.
“They wouldn’t have known you’d keep it quiet. ”
“They wanted her found tonight. Before the treaty signing tomorrow.” His eyes flew to Shane’s. “And half the court saw you together.”
Shane leaned forward, face pale and hair sticking up where he’d dragged his fingers through it. “They wanted the royal house blamed. They wanted me blamed.”
“It would be a good way to destroy the treaty,” Luka agreed. “A good way to restart hostility, maybe even return us to outright war.”
Cori rocked back on her heels while Aiden and Kai blanched. Parents and grandparents still spoke of the years of constant threat, of incursions and fear. No one wanted to go back to that time.