Page 121 of A Reign of Roses
I wrapped my hand through Kane’s and pulled him backward toward Griffin and Mari.
I was done with all of them. Aleksander. Ethera. Amelia. I understood just as well as they did the brutality of war. I didn’t want our people, all those warm faces back in Shadowhold, to be slaughtered, either. Of course I didn’t. But we couldn’t all sit on the sidelines while—
“There is one deal I would broker with you both,” that unfeeling voice called into the winter night.
I whirled first.
Kane, with his many years of life experience and knowledge of Aleksander, had the good sense to keep walking. Keep moving towardGriffin and Mari. Usher them away from whatever might come out of the Blood Fae’s mouth. Had I not pulled his arm back, our hands still intertwined, we both might have left before Aleksander could have said—
“When your firstborn daughter comes of age, send her to live with me, here in Rose.”
I coughed on nothing, choking on sheer incomprehension.
Aleksander only plowed on, drifting closer, like a shadow across a wall. “A fair deal. My army, mypeople,thousands and thousands of lives at stake, for the mere company of your daughter. I will not hurt the girl. You have my word. Will not touch her. But—”
Kane unleashed a predatory growl. “You must be as mad as the queen you serve.” Visceral fury rippled across his shoulders and jaw. He’d dropped my hand, and I knew if my eyes dipped I’d find thorns and curling smoke twined across his fists. I was shocked they hadn’t already sliced through Aleksander’s pale flesh.
“Get out of my sight,” Kane seethed. “Before I rip you apart as I should have years ago.”
“Hear me out—”
“You think anything you could say would convince me to give you mychild? You, who would wish to drink her true Fae blood like a fucking fine wine?”
“You know my restraint, Kane. Any other Hemolich standing before not one buttwofull-blooded Fae…” He sniffed the air with lupine poise. “They’d be rabid for your blood. Foaming at the mouth. I could actually protect the girl—”
“You said the queen was wrong…” My head was reeling. He was hiding something. Some connection between our future offspring and his deal with the mad queen. “You said our child, if we evenhad one, would have nothing to do with your age-old oath.”
Aleksander bared his teeth. “I lied.”
Ablaze with unbridled rage, Kane’s fist sprang forward and collided against Aleksander’s jaw with a jarringcrunch. I gasped, more shocked than afraid, as they flew into the snow.
Aleksander’s blood sprayed, painting the white frost beneath them like a canvas. Kane’s, too, as his knuckles split open, pounding the Hemolich’s face and jaw relentlessly.
“You fuckingbetrayedus. They’re dead because of you, and now”—he panted between blows—“now you fucking ask—”
Before he could deliver the next punch, I yanked Kane backward and off the fair-haired man. Kane’s eyes were feral when they found mine, but there was a great sorrow behind the fury, and my chest caved in at the sight.
Behind us, Griffin had begun to stalk over but I shook my head as if to sayWe’re fine.The last thing we needed was a brawl.
“We would never,everallow our child anywhere near your filthy kind,” Kane seethed. “Over mydeadfuckingbody.”
Aleksander groaned as he worked his jaw back into place. Bright red blood painted his lips and nose and the dirtied snow beneath him. Then, with a grace I’d never seen from any creature—Fae or otherwise—he knelt lower to the ground and dragged his tongue across the wet snow, licking up both his and Kane’s blood. His glowing red eyes never left us.
I gagged at the sight, hauling Kane backward before he well and truly killed the man.
“What was that—” Griffin started, Mari hidden behind his hulking form.
“Nothing,” I fired back, cutting him off. “We’re leaving.”
When Kane shifted into his dragon form, he released a roar so violent, the snow shook from the buildings below us.
33
Arwen
We’d messaged word of thecoming war to the various territory leaders of Opal and the highest priest in Pearl. We’d even sent a raven to the Jade Islands, in case the inhabitants that were fabled to live there could somehow be reached. We knew it was a long shot, but we were out of options.
Still, every day since we’d returned from our failed mission to Rose I’d checked the ravens at Shadowhold both at first light and dusk. But today, like all days, the raven house was empty of messages.
