Page 64 of A Court of Bones & Sorrow

Samara

“You seem troubled.”

I tried not to jump from where I was sitting on a grassy overlook just above the beach as Draven appeared at my side, seemingly out of nowhere. If it weren’t for the fact that it was still daylight, I would have sworn it was shadow magic.

“Next time you sneak up on me, I’m stabbing you.” I shot him an irritated look.

He just grinned. “Don’t tease me with a good time.”

“You’re ridiculous.” I shook my head even as my lips twitched in amusement.

“What’s bothering the lovely Heir of House Harker today?” he asked lightly.

You, I thought. Trying to reconcile the prince who always managed to make me smile with the traitor who was responsible for killing our people was mentally exhausting. Constantly having to stop myself from falling back into our easy friendship and accidentally saying the wrong thing. Giving away everything we knew about him, his mother, and the wraiths.

Or at least what we thought we knew, because it all felt like jagged pieces that didn’t exactly fit together.

Kieran was struggling even more than me. He’d confessed what had happened between him and Draven immediately when we’d met up before dinner last night. He’d been avoiding the prince ever since. Based on how Alaric had been outright glaring at Draven every time he was in a room with him now, I suspected Kieran had also told him what had transpired between them in the Sovereign House.

Everyone in House Harker knew something was going on, and there was an underlying tension now in every room I walked into.

On top of that, I’d stayed up late last night translating the first journal Rosalyn Harker had written. Reading as she’d gotten pieces of her humanity back had been heartbreaking. The hunger gave way to grief as she remembered the husband and daughter she had lost.

There were some entries where it alternated between begging the moon and cursing it for giving her back the humanity she’d apparently been only too happy to lose. Most of the first generation of humans who had changed to Moroi had become Strigoi immediately and remained that way for years. Some of them had never regained their humanity. Only the Harkers and a handful of others—most of which made up the current House bloodlines—had changed back to Moroi within a matter of months.

The fact that any of them had eventually recovered enough of their humanity to become Moroi again was impressive. As far as I knew, only the original ones had ever pulled that off. Nowadays if someone became Strigoi—they stayed that way.

For reasons I didn’t fully understand, Rosalyn had been pissed off about that. She had tried repeatedly to lose her humanity by completely giving in to her bloodlust and ripping into monsters every night, but by the morning, her bloodlust had always faded.

After a few meetings this morning, I’d been desperate to getout of House Harker, if only for an hour. I couldn’t afford to falter now, but I’d needed an hour to settle my mind away from everything that was threatening to tear it apart.

But it’s not like I could tell Draven any of that. I thought briefly about asking him why he’d found Zosa for me. And why he’d felt compelled to share the memory.

The questions were on the tip of my tongue, but I bit them back. Whatever his answer might be . . . I knew it wouldn’t be something I could handle right now. Not on top of everything else.

“I’m fine, Prince,” I said instead.

He raised a dark eyebrow. “You should improve your lying skills, Heir.”

I held his gaze. “We can’t all be as good as you.”

Draven stiffened for just a second before leaning back on his hands and tilting his face up towards the sun. He’d left his hair loose today, and it fell in a dark wave down his back, the silver streaks glistening in the sun.

I wanted to run my fingers through it almost as much as I wanted to trace his jawline and those entirely too kissable full lips.

Instead, I turned away and watched the waves gently roll in and out. It was good swimming weather. Unfortunately, as inviting as the bright turquoise water looked, monsters swam beneath those waves.

A shudder ran through me as I remembered the cave encounter with those damn spider-like starfish. We were trapped on a small continent full of monsters by an ocean that was full of them as well.

Fucking Lunaria.

Draven didn’t try to get me to talk again, just sat there like the hot, evil prince he was and soaked in the sunshine. Just when I was about to get up and return to reality, a flash of vibrant green caught my attention.

Raising a hand to shield my eyes against the sun, I watched as an emerald green striker circled above us. I held my arm to the side, and it immediately dove down to perch on it. I barely winced as its claws flexed in and out of my flesh, leaving behind little droplets of blood.

Draven shifted and leaned forward to eye the striker, his nostrils flaring slightly as the scent of my blood filled the air.

“Whose?” he asked.

---