Chapter 34 Ask Your Wife to Trust You #2
Every time Arabella moved too far away, the fragment screamed.
Every time she came too close, it screamed louder.
When she used her magic, the ancient presence surged with a hunger that made my runes burn.
When she looked at me with concern—because of course she could sense something was wrong—it twisted that concern into a weapon.
She knows. She suspects. Destroy her before she can act against you. Or claim her so completely she’ll never dare—
This was why I’d wanted to hunt alone.
“Kazimir.”
Her voice cut through my spiraling thoughts. I looked up to find her watching me with Nyx pressed protectively against her side. The dragon’s silver eyes tracked my every movement.
“What?”
“You’re bleeding.” She nodded at my clenched fists.
I uncurled my fingers, noting the crescent-shaped wounds where my nails had broken open the wounds from earlier in the evening. “It’s nothing.”
She took a step closer, and the fragment roared. “Something’s wrong. Is it your runes?”
“Not here,” I rasped, unable to meet her eyes. Gods, I loved her. And gods, I needed her to listen. Whatever rift was between us right now was a good thing. I needed her to keep her distance.
She stepped back, her expression shuttering. “Of course. Forgive me for caring.”
Fuck. I was making things worse. I opened my mouth—to apologize, to explain, to push her further away—
Thorne’s low whistle cut through the moment. He stood at the end of the corridor, gesturing for us to join him.
I moved toward him, grateful for the interruption. Arabella followed. Nyx materialized ahead of her in another burst of pink-tinged shadow. This time the dragon managed a relatively clean entrance, though she still came out facing the wrong direction and had to turn around with an embarrassed huff.
“Found something?” I asked Thorne.
“Someone.” He jerked his head toward a side passage. “Lady Zaraiah. Heading this way.” He cracked his knuckles. “Funny how she shows up right after assassins try to kill Lady Blackrose.”
My shadows snuffed out the closest sconces. “Indeed.”
“No other chairs were supposed to be at the Spire,” Arabella said quietly.
“They weren’t.” I forced myself to breathe, to think past the rage and paranoia. The fragment screamed for blood and violence and an end to all threats. I shoved it down with brutal force, focusing on strategy instead of slaughter.
Thorne’s scowl turned his scarred face into something feral. “I’d be happy to accidentally stab her, my lord.”
“Let’s see what she has to say first, then go from there.”
Thorne muttered his displeasure just as Zaraiah appeared around the corner, that crimson dress she favored a slash of color against the Spire’s dark stone. She moved with that predatory grace I remembered too well, her eyes lighting up when she spotted us.
She opened her mouth to speak—
And froze.
Nyx had phased directly behind Arabella, rising to her full height with her wings spread wide. The dragon loomed over my wife’s shoulder, a pink-shimmered nightmare of scales and teeth, her liquid silver eyes fixed on Zaraiah.
A low rumble built in the dragon’s chest.
All the color drained from Zaraiah’s face. The Chair of Whispers, who’d faced down armies and kings and survived Syndicate politics, took an involuntary step backward.
“Is that—” Her voice cracked slightly. “Is that a shadow dragon?”
Shadows coiled around Arabella’s hands. “Yes. Wedding gift from my husband. Thoughtful, wasn’t he?”
Nyx’s rumble grew louder, her wings spreading wider until they touched the walls on either side. The pink shimmer of her scales made her look even more otherworldly, like some fever dream given flesh and fury.
Arabella moved before I could stop her, shadows coiling around her hands. She stepped forward, placing herself between Zaraiah and me—a reversal that clearly caught the Chair of Whispers off guard.
“You have exactly ten seconds to explain why you’re here,” Arabella said, her voice cold enough to frost the stone, “before I test whether my healing magic works in reverse on Syndicate chairs.”
Zaraiah’s gaze darted between Arabella and the very large, very pink, very angry dragon currently looming over my wife. She’d expected me to be the threat, not my wife and a dragon. “My, my,” she managed. “Marriage has given you teeth, hasn’t it, little hero?”
“Six seconds.”
Nyx chose that moment to bare her own teeth and release a puff of purple smoke that smelled of brimstone.
Zaraiah flinched.
I should have stopped this. Should have stepped in, taken control of the situation. But the fragment was howling for blood, and watching Arabella defend me from a woman who’d tried to weaponize my worst trauma sent something fierce and possessive surging through my chest.
And Nyx… Nyx was magnificent. The ridiculous pink dragon who’d spent the last hour getting stuck in walls was now every inch the apex predator, radiating menace with a competence she’d been thoroughly lacking all evening.
For a moment—just a moment—the fragment’s screaming dimmed to background noise. This is real. She is real. We are real.
“I’m here,” Zaraiah said, her eyes never leaving the dragon, “meeting with a contact about the eastern trade routes. Your lockdown is interfering with my schedule.”
“Bullshit,” Arabella said flatly. Nyx’s rumble intensified.
Zaraiah’s eyebrows rose. “Excuse me?”
“You’re lying.” Arabella took another step forward. Nyx moved with her, perfectly synchronized, a pink-scaled extension of my wife’s will. The dragon’s maw was mere inches from Zaraiah’s face. “Try again.”
The Chair of Whispers swallowed hard.
“Nyx,” Arabella said calmly, not looking at the dragon. “Sit.”
For once—for the first time all evening—Nyx obeyed instantly.
The dragon kept her gaze locked on Zaraiah as she sat, but the immediate threat of violence shifted to something more controlled.
Zaraiah’s throat worked as she swallowed again.
“Answer the question,” I said, finally stepping up beside Arabella. Shadows gathered around us, responding to the barely controlled fury radiating from both of us. “Why are you really here?”
Zaraiah’s gaze flicked between us, calculating. Her eyes kept returning to Nyx, who sat perfectly still except for the slow lash of her tail and the occasional wisp of smoke curling from her nostrils.
“Fine,” she said finally. “I’ll admit, I’m curious. Someone made a move against you”—she nodded at Arabella, carefully avoiding any sudden movements—“in the heart of the God Spire. Any luck with that? Or are you just wandering the halls, hoping inspiration strikes?”
Arabella’s shadows solidified into twin blades, dark and wicked and lethal. She held them loosely at her sides, but the threat was unmistakable. “I don’t care about Syndicate politics or your precious games,” she said. “You tried to humiliate my husband in our own home, in front of witnesses.”
Zaraiah’s smile had vanished completely now. “That was business.”
“And now someone’s tried to kill me”—Arabella’s voice dropped to something deadly as she continued, as if Zaraiah hadn’t even spoken—“and you show up, skulking around in the dark, claiming you’re just ‘curious’?”
She raised her blades. Behind her, Nyx’s tail lashed in agitation. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t skin you and feed you to my dragon.”
The fragment screamed its approval. Yes. Yes. Let her do it. Let her—
And that’s when I realized.
The Shadow King wanted this. Wanted me to stand back and let Arabella commit murder. Wanted us to isolate ourselves, to make enemies of the Syndicate, to burn every bridge until there was nothing left but rage and paranoia and violence.
Wanted me to become exactly what he had been—alone, powerful, and utterly mad.
And we couldn’t afford to kill a Syndicate chair in the God Spire—it would guarantee that the rest of them would try to stab me in the back as soon as I turned toward Solandris, if they weren’t already planning it.
So I did the hardest thing possible.
“Arabella,” I said quietly. “Stand down.”
She didn’t look at me, her eyes still fixed on Zaraiah. “Why?”
I moved closer, carefully, until I stood beside her. Our shoulders barely touched, but I felt her tense at the contact. “Because I’m asking you to.”
That made her glance at me. Just for a second. But it was enough for her to see whatever was written across my face—the barely controlled rage, the calculation, the please trust me that I couldn’t voice aloud.
Her jaw clenched. The shadow blades trembled in her grip. “Kaz—”
“I know.” The words came out rough, layered with everything I couldn’t say in front of our audience. I know she deserves it. I know you want blood. Gods, so do I.
The fragment pulsed with vicious satisfaction but it was no longer dominating my mind.
Arabella held my gaze for a heartbeat longer. I saw the war playing out behind her eyes—fury versus trust, vengeance versus whatever she was reading in my expression. Her fingers flexed on the hilts of her shadow blades.
Then, slowly, deliberately, she let them dissolve back into formless darkness. Nyx made a disappointed sound in her throat.
“This time,” she said, her voice still carrying an edge.
The words were for Zaraiah, but her eyes stayed on mine a moment longer.
I’m trusting you. Don’t make me regret it.
“But if I find out you’re involved in this, Zaraiah?
If I discover you had anything to do with those assassins?
” Arabella smiled, and it was the most dangerous expression I’d ever seen on her face.
“Then I’ll find you. And when I do, you’ll discover exactly what kind of monster the Dark Lord married. ”
Zaraiah smoothed her dress with hands that weren’t quite steady.
“Tell us why you’re really here,” I said. “Everything. And maybe—maybe—we’ll forget this conversation happened.”