Chapter 17 Astrid #2
Opening her eyes, she searches for Bastet, and his bleak azure gaze meets hers.
The man she stabbed is holding a dagger over Bastet’s tiny body, hand still clamped over one side of his face, his remaining eye malevolent.
The other assassin steps over her; she tries to rise, but he pins her with his knees and places the tip of his dagger underneath her jaw. This is it. They’re going to die.
A prickling sensation breaks out across her skin. Like electricity. The gathering of a storm. Petrichor saturates the room.
And then he appears.
Prince Zryan.
He materializes out of air and shadow, eyes molten silver, almost glowing, looking like some wrathful demigod.
He steps through the balcony doors, his gaze taking in the scene before him; the chaos of the room, the two masked men, and the unmoving black cat, before it finally settles on her.
There’s a flicker of something in his eyes as he notes her prone on the floor.
Then he draws the wavy blade from the sheath at his side. Points it at the assassin.
“Take your fucking hands off her.”
He’s quicker than any mortal has a right to be. The assassin rolls off her, his fear palpable as he stumbles away from the prince and narrowly dodges the knife.
Astrid only has eyes for Bastet, for the blade bearing down on her beloved, and she cries his name, horror limning every cell of her body.
Zryan whips his head around. In a blink he disappears, reappearing in time to deflect the blow meant for her familiar.
He scoops Bastet up with one of his broad hands and pulls him close to his body, cradling him with a gentleness at odds with the unadulterated violence pulsing from him.
Her hairs stand on end at the sight of the prince holding Bastet. No other person has ever touched him.
The assassin raises his weapon, aims it at Bastet, but Astrid is running, jumping on his back, howling like a wolf as she bites him as hard as she can on his exposed neck.
His knife lands with a clatter on the floor.
His high-pitched screams fill her ears while his blood fills her mouth, the taste of him rancid against her tongue, but she bites down harder.
For Bastet. She feels like she’s flying as he spins, trying to fling her off, tearing at her hair; her adrenaline spikes, power writhing, and then suddenly she is flying as the two of them launch upward.
Her back hits the ceiling with a smack, then they drop to the floor, Astrid groaning.
She’s vaguely aware of Zryan placing Bastet on the bed and stalking for the man who had her pinned, slipping inside his defenses in one fluid movement and slitting his throat so brutally the man’s neck falls open like the lid of a jewelry box, ruby-red blood spilling out.
His accomplice takes one look at his dead partner and pelts for the balcony, launching himself clean over it.
Astrid pushes to her feet, chasing him. She leans over the balustrade and sees him halt in midair, then fall, and halt again, until he lands and sprints across the grounds.
“A Levitator.” Astrid starts and looks around. Zryan is standing next to her, watching the assassin.
Where in Hel did he come from? If he hadn’t appeared when he did, she’d be dead. Bastet would be dead.
Oh Goddess. Bastet.
She runs back inside, straight for the bathroom and her Brewer’s Belt. She grabs a healing solution and races to him, lying stock-still on her pillow. Prying open his jaw, she pours the liquid into his mouth. Holds her breath. Please, please, please be alive.
One second.
Two seconds.
DID WE WIN? he croaks. Astrid laughs through her sobs as she lifts him up and pulls him to her.
OW. BE CAREFUL, WITCH. I HAVE JUST HAD MY ORGANS OBLITERATED.
“Do not ever”—she flicks his nose—“joke about that. Ever.” She hugs him more gently this time, feels the tether, which is usually just background noise, ring out in response to the touch. “I thought I’d lost you.”
He purrs.
There’s a thud, and she twists toward the sound. Zryan’s pulled the mask from the dead man, the lolling head dropping back to the floor.
“I thought you’d gone after the other one.”
“He was already at the walls and I didn’t want to leave you to deal with this”—he gestures at the body—“alone.”
Astrid turns on the lamp and stares at the dead man; she feels nothing, not even revulsion at the grotesque wound. The head is barely attached to the body. He deserved it, deserved to die like that.
Before she registers what she’s doing, she’s rushing to the prince, reaching up on her tiptoes and flinging her arms around his neck.
“Thank you,” she murmurs into his neck. “Thank you for saving him.” Zyran had gone to Bastet when he heard her call his name. Had put himself in harm’s way to save her familiar. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She can’t stop saying it.
He goes taut under her touch, his body hard and unyielding, and she’s hyperaware of the hammer of his heart against her chest; but after a moment, his body begins to melt against hers.
He wraps an arm around her waist, sliding the other across her back, his hand coming up to gently grasp the nape of her neck.
She keeps whispering thank-yous as he lowers his face to her hair.
He says nothing, only takes a deep breath, and suddenly she’s all too aware of how close they are, how little she’s wearing.
Aware of that hand spread across the bare skin of her lower back.
Her pulse beats erratically as they stand there, clinging to each other, Astrid’s nose full of that scent of him, of wild seas and mountain storms.
She needs to let go.
Finally, she lowers her arms, but he keeps his hands on her waist.
“Are you hurt?” His words are sharp but his touch is delicate as he traces the hem of her blood-soaked top. “Can I check?”
“It’s not my blood. I’ve only a few bruises, nothing serious,” she says, and there’s no mistaking his exhale of relief. Is he genuinely that worried about her? No, it must be for Skylar. Stars, what will Skylar think—did she feel this? “I’ve a healing solution I can take.”
He nods at Bastet. “So I noticed. Your mastery extends beyond potions that would lead to a horrific death. I’m impressed.” He should be. She’s never met another witch or witchkin who can brew a healing solution so powerful. Apart from Gram, that is, who taught her in the first place.
She pulls away and he lets go of her this time, slipping his hands into his pockets.
She wipes her mouth. “I need water. He tasted unbelievably disgusting.”
The prince tips his head back and laughs, full and throaty, and, Stars, if Astrid doesn’t want to bottle it, pour it in her bathtub, and bathe in it.
No. No she doesn’t want to do that. What is wrong with her? She must have hit her head harder than she thought. Zryan saved her life, yes, but he’s still… Prince Zryan. Prince I need you to die Zryan.
“Why don’t you sit and I’ll get you that glass of water.
” He gestures to the bed and they both look at it.
Bastet, eyes half closed, is still lying on the pillow, the only part of the bed seemingly intact or not covered in arterial spray.
The sight of all that blood makes her lightheaded, and she sways a little.
Zryan’s beside her immediately, slipping an arm around her and leading her instead to a sofa on the opposite side of the room. “I’ll grab that solution, too.”
She wants to ask him why he’s being so considerate, but her head is really starting to throb now.
He comes back from the bathroom with a damp cloth, some water, and her Brewer’s Belt.
He kneels in front of her, placing the glass of water on the floor, and offers her the cloth and her vials.
She takes the healing solution out of her belt first, then washes the blood from her face, neck, chest, and hands, while Zryan watches her. When she’s done, he takes the cloth.
“May I?” he asks, and Astrid hesitates before nodding. “You missed a bit.” Slowly, he brings it to her chin, dabbing gently, then brushes it across her bottom lip, his focus wholly on her mouth. She swallows. Can’t help it when her tongue flicks out to lick her lips.
His pupils blow wide and he drops his hand.
“There,” he says, voice hoarse, dragging his gaze from her mouth to her eyes. “Flawless once more.”
Her insides writhe. Why is she reacting like this? Head trauma, she reminds herself. She’s literally had the sense knocked out of her. “Thank you,” she says again, the intensity of his gaze flustering her.
“You don’t have to keep thanking me.” He stands, towering over her, before turning to the body.
He approaches it, avoiding the blood that’s pooled around the ragged neck.
“One dead, the other I’m pretty sure short a larynx and definitely short an eye, thanks to you.
” If he wonders about her lack of casting, he doesn’t say anything.
The taste of the man still lingers, so she picks up the glass of water and downs the whole thing.
“Did they say anything?” he asks.
“No, not a word.”
“Professionals,” Zryan says, contemplating the dead man.
“Those republicans, the rebels?” It can’t be the Vatran royals or their court now; they’d not only kill their own heir but breach the Covenant, given that she is blood bound to Skylar.
They’d forfeit the Heart if they killed Astrid.
She realizes she’s thinking of the Vatran royals as a separate entity from Zryan and mentally corrects herself.
Zryan drums his fingers against his arm. “Maybe—though this is not exactly the rebels’ style.”
Astrid raises her brows. She thought this was exactly their style, according to the king. “So, what is?”
Zryan looks back at the corpse. “They’re more the rescuing-forcibly-conscripted types than the killing-princesses types.”