Chapter 20
MARIK
I almost—almost—jump when I open the door to Cora’s bedroom. Two cambions stand stationary, one on each side of the open double-doors that lead to the grand balcony. Somehow, their empty eyes follow me as I enter the room.
Cora stands on the balcony, hands resting on the wrought-iron fence overlooking the rose garden.
The black aura around her is dim today, but her white silk robe still pops against it.
Her inky hair stirs with the breeze, then shifts as she turns toward me.
Her eyes are the color of bone and moon and white roses.
“Hello, darling,” she croons. I force myself to reach for her.
She pulls me closer and locks her arms around my waist. She is so small against me.
It’s easy to forget about the ancient power that lurks within her.
I forget more and more with every passing day.
When we first met, I was terrified. Mother and Father stared at her in a way I had never seen before, their worshipping eyes clinging to her.
Only something powerful could warrant that look from them.
Asmo had begun to earn that look, but not me.
Not until I agreed to work with Cora. To kill the High Family.
Her hands find the hem of my shirt, sharp nails dragging upward as she works her hands up my back.
“You called for me?” I ask.
Her nails dig into my spine. Tiny pinpricks of pain give way to blood, and I fight the urge to shove her away from me. I knew my response to her greeting would irritate her, but my patience is thin these days.
“Try again,” she says in the kind of calm that can only be viewed as a threat.
“Hello, beautiful,” I say, forcing my gaze to meet hers. Every instinct in every cell of my body screams at me to run, to flee, as I peer into her eyes. Her normally white irises are surrounded by a band of black flames. I can’t look away, fixated on the way the flames flicker and writhe.
The corners of her eyes crinkle with her smile. “Better.” She leads me into the bedroom, white sheets rumpled and pillows askew.
Cora’s sexual appetite is nearly insatiable, but an unmade bed always indicates she’s not interested.
She likes order and cleanliness when we defile each other.
She perches on the bed, then cuts her gaze to the floor in front of her.
I kneel, hoping that I didn’t misread the room.
I almost send a prayer to the Mother, then think better of it.
She’d probably receive it and force the opposite to happen.
It’s what I deserve, after all.
Thankfully, Cora doesn’t spread her legs. She crosses them and leans back on the bed, surveying me with a disinterested gaze.
“Have there been any reports on the girl?” she asks.
“Who?” I know exactly who she’s talking about, but my back still stings and I’m in a foul mood.
Her gaze narrows. “You know who.”
My hands clench behind my back. Mae. “No, there have been no sightings of her since the last update,” I say, even though the last update was the same—Nobody has seen her since Asmo dragged her from the throne room and vanished.
“Hopefully she’s lying dead in some ditch after that injury.
It was enough to kill her,” she says with a smile, even though she fumed for days afterward about the fact that it, in fact, didn’t kill her.
The one fucking objective of attacking during the wedding.
“Anyways. I called you here for a different reason. We need to establish them as a High House.”
I blink. This time, I truly don’t have a clue who or what she’s talking about. “Who?”
Her hands clench as she grips the sheets, and I fight back a flare of panic.
The last time I pissed her off, she thrust a fire poker into a blazing hearth and then pressed it to my ribs.
Every time it was about to heal itself, she’d do it again.
And again. And again. I still have the scar, now smooth and white.
I breathe through the panic, force it down.
I can handle pain. Father made sure of it.
“The witches,” she says through gritted teeth.
This again. I shake my head. “Canis and Ursidae will never vote in approval.”
The black aura around her swells. “Make them.”
I rein in the sigh I was about to let loose.
“It’s not that simple,” I say for what feels like the hundredth time.
Cora is cold, calculating, manipulative, and cruel.
But she does not understand the Woodland Kingdom like she does the underworld.
Mae’s botched assassination is a perfect example.
I told Cora we should do it after the wedding, when Mae was alone.
But she wanted the show. She wanted the other High Houses to see.
To learn who was really in control. And what it would cost them if they didn’t fall in line.
It didn’t matter how many times I told her it wouldn’t work.
“I grow tired of this, Marik,” she says, tapping her foot on the ground beside my knee. “We’ve been circling around this for months. You promised you’d be able to get them to agree, yet here we are. It’s time to consider the other options.”
“What you’re suggesting will destroy the kingdom and is the very opposite of the goal,” I argue. “We’re supposed to have a kingdom to rule. Not destroy it.”
“Not if we contain it.”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “And how do you suggest we do that?” Despite my attempt to not sound like an asshole, it doesn’t work. My knees ache from kneeling before her, and my mood only worsens the longer I stay here. I brace myself for the sting of her hand on my cheek, but it doesn’t come.
She leans back onto her palms, raven hair cascading over her shoulders like a glossy wave.
“We’ve planted the witches in their courts.
We need to start using them. Start forcing them to comply.
They vote in agreement or we begin implementing the back-up plan.
” It always comes back to this, to threatening the kings’ and queens’ children.
“I’ll give them one more opportunity. Arrange the council meeting.
If they don’t agree, we give them the ultimatum. ”
My mind reels. Even with the ultimatum, Canis and Ursidae won’t submit. “Cora, they won’t respond well to that. Up until now, we’ve been a peaceful kingdom. We have to try to sell them on the witches, make them believe that the witches are good. Scare tactics won’t work.”
Her face contorts into a sneer. “Then we’ll wipe them from the face of the kingdom. I won’t tolerate their disrespect, and neither will you. You’re High King. Your word is law now.” She stands abruptly in one eerie motion that forces me to scuttle backward. “Arrange the meeting.”
The door to Mae’s—now Elle’s—wing clicks open.
I swear it takes longer this time, as if the ancient magic embedded inside revolts against my presence.
Or maybe it’s the ring on my finger that reeks of dark magic.
The ring that connects me to Elle’s necklace, that allows me to speak inside her mind, that now beckons me closer and pulls me toward the bedroom.
The knife comes from nowhere, flying through the air with the speed of lightning.
I slow its trajectory with a burst of wind and pluck it from the air.
I descend into the bond that connects me to Elle.
The first time I reached for her, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
Of all the times I’ve used this magic to control another, I’ve never been able to see into the other person’s mind.
And Elle’s was a blistering inferno of rage. But underneath it all was fear. And yet, she didn’t show an ounce of it.
That was something I was never able to master. And Father made sure I knew I fell short.
Now, when I look down the bond, Elle’s rage is once again burning hot and bright. The last time I saw her, she was torturously silent, reminding me of myself from long ago. But now, she reminds me of a different, newer version of myself. The version that relies on rage to get out of bed.
It would be so much easier if Elle gave into the despair. If she just did what was asked of her. If she let the dark magic consume her. That would be the path of least resistance.
And yet, for some reason that goes against everything I’m working toward, I stoke the fire that fuels her.
Come out, come out, little fawn, I whisper down the bond.
Her answering shriek is full of hate. I want to bottle the sound and keep it in my pocket.
The second knife bites against my throat, the blade cool against my skin.
My chuckle jostles it, and a warm drop of blood runs down my neck—the second time a female has made me bleed today.
Normally, I’m the one doing the bloodletting.
I wonder how much she’d like it if the roles were reversed.
How much more—or less—she’d hate me if I used my tongue to lick up the blood.
“Drop it,” Elle orders.
Sister damn me, but I do. The knife in my hand clatters to the floor. A gust of wind sends it scattering across the room.
I grasp her wrist and press the blade further into my neck. “Do it,” I whisper. Please.
“Give me one good reason not to,” she growls in my ear, and I can’t help the small part of me that thrills at her tone.
I try to think of a good reason, any reason at all.
But I can’t. I’m a terrible male. I have betrayed my kingdom.
My own brother didn’t care or trust me enough to join me.
I have slaughtered innocent people to get what I wanted.
I have used my tongue to lie and manipulate my way to the throne beside a witch with a heart of onyx.
It would be easier to just let Elle spill my blood, to slump against her body, limp and lifeless. I know the slash wouldn’t kill me, but it’s nice to pretend it would. My breath shudders as I pull it to my lungs.
“It won’t change a thing. Cora will never stop. With or without me.”
Elle is silent, but the knife shakes against my neck. Another drop spills.
I could easily make her drop it. But my soul protests at the thought of forcing her back into a silent husk of herself.
“I came to ask you to join me for dinner this week.” I don’t know what compels me to say it. It’s not true. Actually, I don’t know why I came here.
“What’s the point in asking? You’ll just force me to join you anyways,” she hisses.
I turn, the knife grazing my throat, and face her. Her amber eyes promise death. Her lips chapped and bright-red and parted. I tear my gaze from them.
I shrug. “Perhaps. Now, will you pretty please remove this from my neck so I can leave? I do have High King duties to attend to.” Another lie. But the way she’s staring at me is constricting my chest and I need to get out of this room and away from her.
She clenches her jaw for one, two seconds, then drops her hand to her side. She stares up at me with a fire that I can only imagine is straight from Hell. I would know. It’s the exact way I look at myself in the mirror.
She steps back and motions toward the door. “After you, Your Highness.” Detest drips from every word.
Another time, I would have punished her for it. But now, I ignore it. My foot is barely out the door when I hear the plunk of the knife landing in the wooden door frame inches from my pointed ear. I ignore that, too.
But what I can’t ignore, no matter how hard I try, is the way my heart lurched when I stared down at her. How I was only inches away from making a move that would have ended my life in an entirely different way.