Epilogue After
VALERIAN
“IT MIGHT BE enough to kill the King.”
Cat looked up at him with a smile to cut flesh, her words hanging between them like a body in a noose. The spare lanterns of the main deck burned behind her head, turning her curls to a flaming halo.
Valerian’s first instinct was to turn away, to protect himself from the torture that was Cat Rose. He’d had enough of her amber eyes this night, coin-bright in her beautiful face. All he needed to do was spin on his heel to leave behind the siren in human skin.
But Valerian Kane was well accustomed to the wounds Cat inflicted. What is one more?
He steeled himself against the sight and smell of her, her chest rising and falling under the hem of a wet gown, the salt water of the sea drying on her bare skin—Enough, Valerian.
A bullet wound would have been easier to bear; he would rather bleed than face down Cat and her machinations, every word laced with both lies and truth.
For years he never had to unbraid one from the other, his trust in the Widow Rose absolute.
And I was stupid for it, blinded like every other man who trails after a woman, weathering the storm of her love as best he can.
His jaw clenched and his eyes wavered, forcing himself to suffer another second of her presence, to search her face, to read her thoughts as he once could. Enough to kill the King. It was a terrible prize to offer, impossible to believe in—and just as impossible to ignore.
To strike at the King, to cut off the head of the imperial snake—the opportunity was simply too good to pass up, no matter the odds.
The amulet seemed to agree, the ancient Arcayan gold like a chip of ice against the bare skin of his chest. It always felt that way, no matter the temperature or the warmth of his body.
Valerian ventured he could throw it into a fire, and the artifact would still be cold to the touch, in testament to its inscrutable power.
Worse still was the weight of it, heavier than it should have been.
Not around his neck, but deeper, as if a stone lay behind his ribs, lodged in his chest alongside his beating heart.
It lingered always, more and more difficult to ignore.
He swallowed against the now-familiar sensation, all but leaning into the cold heaviness of the amulet. Like a bullet, it was still better to bear than Cat Rose.
She did not speak, letting him look at her.
As if she knew how difficult it was for him to do so.
Valerian suspected as much. The Widow Rose had not survived this long without being perceptive, or sly.
He curled a fist to hide a shaking hand, palm aching to cup her cheek or the swell of her hip, to feel her warm skin against his.
To trace her freckles, vibrant and familiar as the constellations across the Lyrian sky.
But Cat was not the same, no matter how similar she looked to six months ago.
She was exactly as he remembered, and yet not at all.
Every torturous inch of her, freckled and smooth and welcoming, was nothing compared to the blood he saw all over.
Red and black, fresh and old. Flowing from wounds or strangled mouths. Blood from too many bodies to name.
Harry’s blood.
His nostrils flared, and Valerian forced himself to breathe her in, succumbing to the familiar wash of vanilla and the ever-present tang of salt. Somehow even sweat smelled good on her, and he gritted his teeth.
Cat was the only thing in the world that smelled better than the sea.
He drew breath again, until he could smell the blood too, a copper ghost suspended between them.
I am not stupid anymore.
His jaw set, his closed fist shoving open the door behind him as his other arm snaked around her waist. She was a familiar weight, easy to pull close, his body burning with the threat of it. One inch too far and there would be no return, like a fish caught in a net.
Valerian knew better. Or told himself he did.
He kept her moving, his boots a hammer on the timbers, forcing Cat to keep up in a breathless whirlwind. If she protested, he could not tell; a dull roar filled his ears.
The king.
Between Cat’s close figure and the prospect of the Meridian monarch, he could barely think, all his focus trained on hurrying through the quarterdeck.
They skirted the council table, and he slammed the next door open with a well-placed kick, the wood almost falling off the hinges as Valerian dragged her into his cabin.
It was hardly the first time one had pulled the other into the captain’s cabin, but the circumstances had bitterly changed.
He would draw the truth from her if it killed them both.
Only when the cabin door shut again did he force himself to face her, looming over her body in a way that felt too familiar. But Valerian refused to give her any quarter, or indication of his own weakness where she was concerned.
Cat Rose was an enemy, a lethal one. And Valerian Kane faced his enemies head-on.