Page 29 of The Stygian Crown

Serena’s eyebrows rose. “Why do you ask?”

“Mine tried to strangle me in the forest earlier. During the hunt.”

Had Logan’s jaw twitched at that?

Serena frowned. “Shit. Are you okay?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Grouchy tonight, I see.” Serena popped a grape into her mouth. “Such spells exist, but they’d need a piece of you, a strand of hair or something, to perform it.”

“Or blood?”

“That would work.”

Kara grit her teeth. She was overdue for a talk with Salizar. “Is there a way to determine who cast it?”

Serena speared a piece of venison with her knife, brought it to her mouth, and chewed. “We can try. Come to my workshop later.”

As dinner progressed, Kara had trouble keeping her gaze off Logan. The glow of the candelabras lit the indentation at the base of his neck. She wanted to lick that groove of tanned skin. Kara shook her head as a familiar heat curled between her thighs. Stupid fucking curse. Her keening approached. Soon the dreams would begin, the flushed, sensitive skin and naked longing.

Ariana used any excuse she could to touch Logan. She whispered things in his ear, touched his arm to ask him to pass a platter, gripped his shoulder when she laughed at something he said. Logan took it all in stride, even smiling and joining in on her jokes with Pippa and Tanith. He was sickeningly charming.

Kara took another long sip of wine. She’d rather be flayed than sit here and watch this. Her mark pulsed insistently beneath her cuff, hungry.

“Oh, Commander,” Ariana said, tilting her beautiful head back in a laugh. Everything about her was exquisite. Kara pictured blood dribbling down the princess’s throat, staining that pale flesh. Her fingers curled around the handle of the cutting knife beside her plate. Her food was still untouched, her belly full of fire.

Serena laid a hand on Kara’s thigh and squeezed, then leaned in toward her ear. “Calm. Your eyes are glowing.”

Kara jerked up from the table, her chair scraping against the floor in a harsh whine. Everyone seated around them stopped talking and stared at her.

“Leaving so soon?” the princess asked.

“I’ve had enough. I was stuffed full earlier today.”

A flicker of orange lit Logan’s eyes, and she bared her teeth in the semblance of a smile. She’d made him crack.

Kara hurried out of the great hall, eyes heavy on her back. She stumbled back to her chambers, leaning against the palace walls when she lost her balance. She’d drunk far more than she’d eaten today, and it was catching up to her.

She hated him. Hated the princess. Hated this dress and her doomed mission.

She crashed into her rooms and grabbed one of her daggers, then slid it through her stays, cutting through the corset and dress. She didn’t want to be around anyone right now, not even Merry. They could take the dress out of her pay if they wanted. She needed to talk to Logan, hash things out between them. She was going to jeopardize her contract with Calim if they let this go on any longer.

Kara crawled into bed and stared at the ceiling. She wished he’d show up at her rooms, all anger and passion. She’d make him explain what she’d seen in the bowl, like she should have done to begin with instead of kissing Jon. She imagined them arguing and it devolving into passionate, heated sex. He’d look at her with molten intensity, and she’d melt for him. She grew slick at the thought.

Kara thrashed on the bed, kicking her legs at the mattress. Would she even be thinking these things if not for Namirah’s curse? She hated its control over her, that she was beholden to it every month. Her eyes drifted to the drawer in the vanity where the demon’s drip rested.

She tried to sleep and failed. Images from this evening and the scenes from the lover’s bowl plagued her mind. Her mark pulsed against her cuff, heating the silver until it was burning her skin. Kara ripped it off and threw it across the room.

Would Logan be in Ariana’s bed tonight? Could he even say no to the princess of the realm? After sweating into the sheets and pulling one corner free with her thrashing, Kara relented and rolled out of bed. She rubbed the rune on the fae lantern by the vanity, filling the room with a blue glow. The fire had died down to embers.

Kara retrieved the syringes from the armoire and fished the vial of demon’s drip out of the drawer. She eyed the potion suspiciously. Was there more of it than there’d been before? She shook her head. It’d probably just spread out when it’d rolled around the drawer.

This wasn’t an ideal time to suppress her strength, but she couldn’t handle this dance along the knife’s edge of lust and anger without help. At Raven’s Rest, she’d turned to drink. That wasn’t an option here. Something had to give, and taking her keening out of the equation was a good start. And then she’d know once and for all how much of her attraction to Logan was a byproduct of the curse.

Kara unstoppered the vial and inserted the needle into it, then sucked up the potion. She expected it to be difficult to draw up the thick liquid, but it crawled almost eagerly into the syringe. Salizar had stoppered shadow.

Kara looked over the veins on her hands and arms, then reconsidered. She’d do it somewhere less visible, in case her skin reacted to it. She pulled off her slip and eyed the vein in the hollow between her navel and hip. It would do. She took a deep breath and slid the needle beneath her skin. It was relatively painless. Some of the tension in her shoulders faded, and she began pushing in the plunger.

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