Page 57 of Given

My breath caught. Because she’d just spoken. Clear as a bell. Unmistakable.

But not out loud.

I’d heard her in my head.

My own voice froze in my throat. Before I could gather it, she spun in a whirl of brown skirts and left.

My knees loosened. I stumbled to the bed and sat heavily, my dress bunching around my hips. It was like in my dreams, when the elven male spoke. But this wasn’t a dream. Rowena was real.

Her words spun in my head. Why was she scared? Harald was her husband, I remembered. The vampire warrior she’d spoken of so lovingly at the feast. Who would hurt him?

With shaking hands, I unwrapped the bundle. A dagger lay on the silk, its blade unsheathed and gleaming.

I touched it.

Pain shot up my fingertips. I hissed and jerked my hand away.

Blood pounded in my ears. This wasn’t just any dagger. It was solstone. Rare and difficult to mine, it was found in just one place in all of Ter Isir: the Blacktop Mountains in Sithistra. Weapons forged from solstone were deadly to vampires, who couldn’t heal the wounds they inflicted.

Now that I looked more closely, I could see the faint ripples of yellow in the silver, like waves of sunlight melting down the blade. Solstone would burn a full-blooded vampire. I wasn’t as sensitive, but holding it without gloves was uncomfortable. I’d never cut myself with it. I was far too careful, since I wasn’t certain how much protection my human blood lent me.

It was dangerous to have such a weapon in Nor Doru—in the palace of all places. My heart beat faster. My chamber was steps away from Laurent’s. If anyone discovered the dagger, I shuddered to think what might happen to me.

“The south is with you.”

Rowena was human. Sithistran. Her husband sent her to Beldurn once a year so she didn’t wither away under the Deepnight. Was she a spy? It was the only explanation that made sense. But what of her husband?

“He’s patrolling along the Rift. It’s his usual assignment.” She’d told me that my first night in Nor Doru. The night of the feast. If Sir Harald was stationed at the Rift, it would be easy for Sithistrans to target him.

“The south is with you.”

Rolund represented the south. He was the south. If my brother wanted Laurent dead, one way to do it was to make sure a solstone weapon found its way into my hands. If I’d been armed with the dagger today at Lar Satha, I could have killed Laurent.

My stomach did a queasy flip. I wrapped up the dagger with shaking hands. Without really knowing what I was doing, I stood and looked around for a place to hide it—at least until I could get rid of it for good. My gaze landed on a basket next to the fireplace. The servants used it to store extra wood.

Footsteps sounded outside.

Swallowing a gasp, I rushed to the basket and tucked the dagger inside. The door opened as I straightened.

A servant curtsied on the threshold. “The king awaits, Your Highness.”

I smoothed my skirts, hoping her senses weren’t sharp enough to hear my heart knocking around my chest like a bird trying to escape a cage. “I’m ready.”

Chapter Seventeen

GIVEN

An hour later, the solstone dagger was the least of my problems. I’d arrived in Laurent’s chambers to find Varick already present.

“You don’t mind if the general joins us, do you, Princess?” Laurent had asked.

“No, of course not,” I’d murmured, which was the only acceptable answer. Because once again, it wasn’t really a request.

Laurent had started dinner by summoning a thrall. A beautiful, red-haired woman had appeared, and my cheeks had burned as he pulled her onto his lap and fed from her wrist, biting through the red ribbon he’d affixed the night of the feast. She’d worn a Nor Doruvian gown—low-cut and clinging. Her plump breasts had quivered as he sucked, and she’d gasped when he licked her wrist, sealing her wound.

Then Varick had fed, his golden eyes glowing as he sipped from the thrall’s wrist. She’d trembled on his lap…until he stroked a big hand down her hair, soothing her like she was a frightened animal. It should have been insulting.

It wasn’t. Heat had built between my legs as I watched him handle her, his big hand sweeping through the thick, red waves. The woman had left, a dreamy smile on her face, and Laurent had turned to me.

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