Chapter 20 #2
Reid’s eyes darkened, anger playing on his clenched jaw, and he cursed through his teeth.
The hand she wasn’t holding raised to rake through his short hair.
He looked so strange in Asteryan fashion, his borrowed clothes one of the costumes all attendees wore.
Gone were the sweeping, jewel-toned fabrics of Icruria, and she missed them.
“All right, what’s your plan?” he asked. Measured. Strategic. Calm. The same as she had always known him.
Vaasa bit her lip. “I don’t have one yet.”
His thick brow raised. “Oh.”
Vaasa stepped away just long enough to undo the ridiculous wings that covered her shoulders.
Reid took them from her and placed them upon the bed.
It caused her chest to tighten—in affection, in agony.
It was the simplicity of him wanting to help her: a small task, yet something they could do together.
He approached again, his eyes scanning over her.
“I—” He went utterly still. “What are those?” Reid demanded, hand raising to trail over her upper arm.
Vaasa didn’t need to look to know he was referring to the small silvery scars that Lord Vlacik had left her with.
The ones Ozik had allowed to remain on her, a subtle reminder of what could be inflicted upon her if she misbehaved.
A story he could spin about what had happened in Icruria. “Don’t worry—”
“Do not avoid the question,” he demanded.
“Please,” Vaasa whispered.
Reid’s voice shook with grief and hatred. “Who cut you?”
“I don’t want to discuss it.”
“Was it Ozik?”
Vaasa shook her head. “Please—”
“Do they still live?”
Vaasa nodded.
His finger caught her chin and lifted her eyes to meet his, refusing to allow her to hide. “One more thing, and then you never have to speak of it again. A name. Just a name.”
Vaasa swallowed. “Lord Vlacik.”
Reid looked up at her, something blooming to life in his gaze.
A familiarity. Of course—he had just met with the man.
Vaasa went stiff, and by the way he pressed his lips together, she knew he hated to see her afraid.
His composure melted then. Gone was the anger and the violence and the wolf.
He replaced it with that gentle simmer—still a fire, yet one that was meant to keep her warm instead.
He kept to his word; he didn’t speak as he checked both arms for the marks.
“Did you get my message? The leather tie?” he finally asked.
Vaasa closed her eyes for only a moment, her heart thudding in her chest. “Yes,” she whispered, opening her eyes again.
She reached into her pocket and extended the tie to him.
“I did. I thought…” She gritted her teeth as she breathed in.
“I thought it might be a trap. Is she really a merchant’s daughter? ”
Reid shook his head. His fingers glided over the leather like it meant something precious to him, and then he pocketed it.
“Sachia is a pirate and a witch, too. Her brother is in the prison. We’re trying to break him out.
Koen is downstairs negotiating with a man named Lord Karev. Are you familiar with him?”
Koen was the other man, the lanky one. She had been right. “You’re masquerading as salt lords? Smuggling black powder?”
“How do you know that?”
“Lord Karev is meeting with an Icrurian. We’re at war, Reid. You had to know that would gather attention.” She raked a hand through her hair. “You have to stop. If Ozik catches wind—”
“Breathe, Wild One,” he murmured. “I know. We’re going to have to be careful, but there is no other way forward.
I’ve considered my options all day. There are a hundred underhanded deals happening in this city as we speak.
Hopefully we’ll just be another one. “Koen is using the name Remi LeTorneau, my grandfather. I’m supposedly his bodyguard. ”
Vaasa pursed her lips. She had to tell him the truth of who he was bargaining with—about why it would never be just another deal. “Lord Karev is a frontrunner for the throne. Him and Lord Vlacik.”
Reid’s face darkened. “Sachia told me. Ambitious, aren’t these men? To try and steal someone else’s wife?”
Vaasa lay her hand on Reid’s cheek. “Can we communicate through Sachia? Do you think she would be willing?” A pirate witch. Vaasa could hardly wrap her mind around it. What she didn’t say floated between them: Can we trust her?
Reid’s jaw stayed tight, but he let out a small breath. “She will help us. She and Karev have a plan to seize control of the prison.”
Vaasa frowned. “Vlacik can get you further into that prison than Karev ever will.”
“Not after tonight.”
“What do you mean?”
Reid paused, though concern flickered in his eyes. This knowledge of something Vaasa didn’t yet understand. “Do you know of the pirate Sutherland?”
Vaasa could hardly breathe. “Do you?”
He gave a stern nod. “Sachia defected from his crew. Vlacik imprisoned Sachia’s brother as punishment.”
Vaasa sucked in a breath. “Sachia’s brother is in the Mekes prison?”
“Yes,” Reid said. “These pirates are all indebted to your nobles in one way or another, but it seems Vlacik has more control than most. In order to cut Sutherland off at the knees, we need to remove Vlacik.”
Remove Vlacik? Vaasa stood frozen, staring up at him. “Reid, what are you going to do?”
“He dies. Tonight.”
“Reid—”
“Those scars on your arms are reason enough, Wild One. This isn’t something we can negotiate.”
“Or she and Lord Karev are setting you up,” Vaasa said, heart suddenly in her throat. “If you have any hand in Vlacik’s murder, it’s a trap, one that ends in your execution. Are you sure he doesn’t know who you are? That Sachia hasn’t told him?”
Reid shook his head. “That would be a waste of Sachia’s time and effort. If she wanted to bargain for her brother by turning me in, she would have simply gone to Ozik or kept us hostage on her ship.”
“She has a history with these lords. She’s been trading with them for years,” Vaasa said.
“She hates them. I have a gut feeling, I just—”
“A gut feeling?” Vaasa pressed her fingers to her forehead, trying to stave off the headache that her own panic was causing.
“You don’t know these people, Reid. If Sachia went to Ozik, it would be just as likely that he’d have her executed along with her brother.
She’s avoiding being arrested by making an underhanded deal with Karev. ”
Reid’s shoulders remained steady and loose.
“If that were true, she never would have signaled for you to come here. She would have told me that she hadn’t found you, and she’d have led me into this trap tonight without any chance of seeing you.
She’s a witch, Vaasa. An Imros witch. My mother is training her. ”
A pang of jealousy hit Vaasa, foolish and out of line. Yet she centered on one truth that caused her entire stomach to drop. “Melisina is here? In Mekes?”
“We’re sleeping in a fabric shop, but she’s waiting for you. We all are. We’re going to get Amalie and Sachia’s brother out, and then we’re going to flee.”
An old, unwelcome friend, anxiety, grew teeth in Vaasa’s body. She wanted to be grateful, to feel some kind of relief, but it didn’t come.
There were so many people to lose.
She wanted to crawl out that window and never look back, just as she thought she’d do in Mireh on the night of her wedding. But this time, she would be running toward her coven, toward her husband, instead of escaping them. All their lives were at risk here, and for what? For her?
“You should break into the prison and get Amalie and Sachia’s brother. You all can leave, you can—”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” Reid warned her.
Their eyes held, and he saw to the core of her. It was as if he’d already memorized every piece of her puzzle the way she tried to do to others. She uncovered the rest of the world, yet he was the only person who seemed able to uncover her.
“All right,” she said. “I have an idea, but you may not like it.”
Reid furrowed his brow but tilted his head to listen.
Vaasa took a deep breath. They needed access to the prison, a way to see each other again, and a distraction to hold off the nobility. “I’m going to let Lord Karev court me. Officially. Lead him into a proposal.”
Reid stared at her. “No. Absolutely not.”
“I don’t know what else to do,” Vaasa argued.
“Ozik is going to make me accept someone’s proposal, and it may be the best chance I have of seeing you again.
If I can convince Lord Karev of my intention to marry him, that I can help him with these trade negotiations, I can stay close to you.
” She thought of what Karev had insinuated the night all the lords had arrived—that she knew more about Icruria than anyone.
Reid paused for a moment, truly considering her plan, but shook his head. “There has to be another way.”
“Reid,” she whispered, voice dropping to a scandalous whisper. “I am situated perfectly to conquer our greatest enemy. To save the continent from the ambitions of these unworthy men. I told you once I would give you the Asteryan throne. Let me take it from them.”
His eyes watched her closely, and Vaasa squirmed beneath Reid’s gaze. “A courtier and a war general,” he said, repeating what he’d once called her after she finally told him the truth of his claim to the Asteryan throne through their marriage.
“You know now who you married,” she confirmed.
“The most curious being in my existence.” He brushed her hair from her face.
His next words came in a guttural growl, a threat and a promise, a flash of violence she recognized from the day he’d cleaned her wounds after she’d baited Kosana.
“Tell me it will all be pretending with him. That none of it will be real.”
“Nothing of what you hear or see is real, except when I am alone with you,” she said.
“Everything else is a game, one I am going to make them pay for.” Vaasa held his gaze, running her fingers over his cheek again.
She took a breath, knowing that if she didn’t say this now, she would regret it for the rest of her life, no matter how long or short that was.
“I should have told you that I would stay. I want to stay with you. Take away the timeline, forget the three years. I want more.”
Relief flared in his eyes, perhaps indicating how little faith he’d had. “When the time comes, will you run with me? Rule at my side as high consort, not as a figurehead or a chess piece?”
He’d seen the worst of what she had to offer, the poison she could leak when she was afraid or miserable or enraged. That was the version of her that he had fallen in love with—the stubborn one, the violent one, the broken one.
And Reid of Mireh had never turned away.
Vaasa smiled at him, the snake and the wolf both coming alive within her to defend him. His ambitions. His desires. “When the time comes, I will follow you to the ends of the earth.”
“I am in love with you,” he whispered. “I didn’t tell you that enough. I should have told you the moment I realized it.”
“I love you, too.” She rested her forehead against his, taking in the feel of his arms and his body. Alive, her mind repeated. Alive and well. “I am your wife. Everything begins and ends with that.”
He took her in his arms again, a heavy silence coursing between them.
Vaasa felt the weight of time as it wound down.
She needed to go, or Roman would likely alert someone else to her absence.
In truth, he was doing her a favor by not sounding the alarm and shutting down the entire city.
Still, if he found her at The Lady Fortune, this entire opportunity would be wasted.
If the city began to search, they might discover Reid.
“Convince her not to kill Vlacik,” she said. “Give me a few days to figure this all out.”
Reid grit his teeth. “I’ll try. But…” Everything around them went still. “I’m afraid we may be too late for that.”
“What do you mean?”
“All of the pieces are in place. She could already be seeking him out,” Reid said.
Vaasa froze, but only for a second. Just long enough for the potential outcome of this to hit her.
If anyone had recognized her tonight, they could easily pin this death on her. After their spat at dinner and her dismissing of Vlacik beneath the theater, the nobility had witnessed them at odds.
Regína had seen her here tonight, and Vaasa was not foolish enough to think she was the only person who could purchase the madame’s secrets.
“I have to go,” she whispered. “They’ll frame me, Reid. This city is looking for any reason to tie me to the iron post.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”
“Goodbye,” she whispered. Though it felt like ripping out a part of herself, Vaasa forced her legs to move.
Forced her body to unpeel from Reid’s and rush toward the door.
She picked up the rest of her costume and her mask, securing it with its long white ribbon once more.
She put herself back together as if she were donning armor.
“Vaasa,” he demanded.
She turned back, and their eyes locked. He stood there like a statue, every muscle in his body tensed. “No title is worth the loss of you. I will give it all up. Both nations. Lest you misunderstand my priorities.”
Vaasa held his gaze, longing and pain coating each of her nerves. How could she force her body to leave this room? She responded with absolute truth—a rarity in this city, especially coming from her. “I would sacrifice the world to have you.”
With one last look, she slipped out the door, checking the hallway carefully, dangerous hope filling her to the brim.
Reid had found her. He had crossed their continent and infiltrated the capital of Asterya. She was no longer alone.
And she swore she felt it, even just for a moment: white eyes and sharp teeth.
The wolf.
Trembling in her bones, breaking the chains that held it.