Chapter 24
The rain struck the Maw’s blackened stone, sending the cobblestone courtyard overflowing with puddles and rushing streams.
It had become increasingly clear that every time Radegast drew blood or took life, she had an overwhelming need to do the same.
At this rate, maybe you won’t have a soul to return to. Or one you want back… Vornaya suggested softly.
Her grip was bruising around her upper arm.
She shouldered against the need to lean on Bohdan for support. He didn’t offer it, but matched his pace with hers, his arm just within reach without overextending his welcome.
He opened the carriage door for her.
What a gentleman.
Ksenia ignored Vornaya’s quip, her jaw clenched tight.
“So, how did you figure it out?”
Bohdan’s voice cut through the rain that fell in relentless sheets against the windows.
Ksenia looked back at the monolithic prison in the distance.
“He gazed at you with the weight of betrayal.”
Ksenia felt it in her bones the moment Radovan and Bohdan’s gazes struck each other. An unmistakable look: like a sibling bond, torn apart.
Her words hung in the air between them as she entered the carriage.
Bohdan followed in silence.
The door swung shut, the glass misty.
Ksenia fought the feverish bloodlust pitching higher in her mind and body.
Unbidden, Bohdan spoke. “Radovan came to Kraal, alongside Queen Ravenka. He couldn’t be considered another royal in our court, so he trained and became Envorsen.”
“And King Karsan let that happen.” She sharpened her dagger on the whetstone of his vulnerability.
“I believe he had some strategy.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Until the war. Then he became a liability.”
“So, Radovan had to make a choice.”
“He made the only choice available.” Bohdan’s eyes stayed on the window. “I don’t blame him.”
Every detail of the last hour was bright and violent behind her eyes. She drank in the details of him—this man who revealed little to nothing—and felt the specific clarity of where to press next.
“And you…” Her voice was soft, loose. “You just—do whatever he asks.”
His gaze swung to her, pupils shot.
“You watched him execute your brother, and you just stood there.” She leaned forward on her knees, closing the distance between them.
Even if it destroyed her, she would crack him first.
Bohdan stilled for a moment.
Two.
Three.
Never dropping her gaze.
A crooked, psychotic smile began to smear across her face.
Come on, be the monster.
“If Karsan said that the rest of your precious men were traitors, you’d execute them all personally—wouldn’t you? Or do you prefer to watch him do it?”
She drew closer, a couple hand’s lengths away from his evenly rising and falling chest.
The carriage rolled to a stop at Hearth’s stabled courtyard, the slate roofs ringing with rain. The pair remained seated even as the footmen opened the door for them.
Her crazed, smug smile goaded him, and he draped one hand over his chin, his eyes assessing.
Finally, Bohdan exited the carriage. Rain drenched his hair.
Ksenia brushed past him and leaped onto the flagstone path. The footmen swung back upon the carriage and left the pair behind.
Bohdan’s hand closed around her arm, and her vicious smile widened.
“You’re more traitorous than usual today.”
All she was really doing was showing her true self.
“Am I?” She tilted her head in thought, fat raindrops soaking into her black tunic.
“Have you not learned the consequences of those actions yet?”
“What consequences?” She peered at him through wet, dark lashes.
The gap between them grew small, his hand releasing her arm to settle on the hilt of his sword.
That’s it—just a little more.
His darkened green eyes traced her body, the swell of her breasts, and the curve of her waist as the rain painted the linen to her skin.
Caromir glinted off Bohdan’s sword, cutting an arc toward her. He was stronger. But all she needed to be was faster.
There it is.
Contrasted with her reckless speed, his stance was loose, relaxed, effortless. An overcommitment of rage and power behind every hit.
There was a devastating lack of distance between them, and she stayed in close quarters to cut off his range.
He parried her skillfully, darting around her attacks with dark amusement.
Their wet bodies brushed against one another, and something else snapped through her from feeling his damp, hot skin between the layers of their soaked clothing.
Lightning and thunder crashed overhead, illuminating their battle for a split second.
The sound of their blades meeting was drowned out by the pelting rain, locking them into a world entirely their own.
Caromir ground out discordant, metallic notes that grotesquely harmonized with Bohdan’s soulbound sword, making her pulse race.
Their dance was fast, frenzied. Both predicted the other’s movements like a perfectly coordinated dance.
She sliced through the rain at his chest, then tossed Caromir in midair and switched to her non-dominant hand.
Bohdan barely avoided the blade from burying into his side, turning away at the last moment to grasp her wrist and wrench it painfully behind her back.
It hurt so sweetly.
It didn’t matter whether she was suffering or causing it. Her bloodlust sang with pleasure.
The heat licked up her body, consuming her from head to toe.
He slammed her against the stone wall of the courtyard. Her breasts and stomach pressed hard against the surface as he forced her legs to splay wide, his hand palming down her body, searching.
“Oh, so this is what you wanted? You’re so obedient I’d mistaken you for a eunuch—”
She bit back a moan as his gloved hand fisted in her sopping wet hair and wrenched her face back to meet his deadly green eyes.
She felt a hardness against her when she pushed her hips back against his.
So the perfect captain was human after all.
His free hand captured her hip, stopping her from going further, but he had already given up precious ground in this war against her.
“You are such a pest.” His teeth grated against her neck, forcing her head to the side as if contemplating ripping out her throat.
“What will you do about it?” She laughed.
His vise grip forced her into a back-breaking arch.
It was too good. Too much.
“Let me guess—nothing.” She would break into pieces if he kept restraining her, the heat pooling lower in her body.
He flipped her to face him—a low, dangerous, burning flicker in his eyes.
Oh.
Curls framed his forehead and water dripped down his face as he braced a hand against the wall over her.
His eyes trailed down her body, that flicker turning cold and igniting within them.
“What do you think I should do, Senka?”
The way he said her name, like he was tasting every syllable before it lifted off his tongue, untethered her.
Her smile pressed wider.
“Put me in my place.” Her voice dropped and she met his eyes. “If you think you can.”
“You wouldn’t survive it.”
Heat flashed through her, and suddenly she felt feral. Indignant.
She was meant to be the one to push him off the edge. To break his immaculate mask and shred him to pieces.
That dangerous glint was back as he tilted his head, a slow smile crawling on his face.
“What’s wrong? You were so brave just a moment ago.”
Fuck. Him.
Ksenia dragged him close, fitting their mouths together.
And it was perfect.
Every reasonable, fear-driven thought shattered in her mind, until all she could do was give in to the hedonism threatening to break the dam of her sanity.
He tasted like pomegranate. Fine liquor.
Snaking against the bottom of her skull, he wound his fingers through her wet hair, dragging her closer.
There was nothing pretty nor chaste about it; their lips scraped against each other, wrestling for control.
The rain spilled down in sheets over the eaves, shielding the pair from prying eyes.
Bohdan melded her body to his. It drove her insane. Feeling the hardness of him against her softness, with only thin layers of clothing as their barrier.
The storm drowned out all other noise except for them.
His insistent fingers dragged and bruised at her waist, and he gave a rumbling approval of her nipping at his lip, drawing blood.
A moan threatened to slip out between Ksenia’s clenched teeth as he wrenched her head to the side to lave his tongue, hot and wet, against her jawline then down the smooth column of her throat.
The murderer kissing the detective.
The criminal kissing the executioner.
The to-be-assassin of the king kissing his bastard son.
It was delicious. Wrong. And everything she had to have from here on out.
Her hands fisted in the collared opening of his tunic, drawing him closer as her head lolled back, inviting him further.
More, more.
His breath was hot against her wet skin as he ground against the sweet spot between her legs.
Just a little more…
Ksenia drove her blade upward, seeking purchase within his neck, her eyes gleaming as lightning split the sky.
He pinned her wrist to the wall, squeezing until Caromir fell from her hand and clattered to the ground.
“Almost.”
Almost. Ksenia narrowed her eyes, tasting his blood on her lips.
“Perhaps you’d amount to something if you weren’t so reckless.” He ran his thumb over the small puncture her canine had left on his lip. “So many other ways to kill me, but you can’t help overextending yourself.”
He raked an elegant hand through his dripping curls, his eyes half-lidded and hungry as he surveyed her like a snake he wished to charm.
She promised, in due time, she’d strike true.
But she wouldn’t kill him right away.
No.
She would find out what made him tick. Take him apart. Make him feel. Then rip out his beating heart.