Page 58 of The Royal Curse

I stared too, in pure disbelief. His right hand and forearm had shriveled down to almost nothing, like shiny red parchment wrapped around gnarled, twisted bones, blackened patches of burned skin flaking off and drifting down.

“Oh, gods,” he wailed, “gods, what did you do to me? What did you—” He looked up, eyes wild. “What did you do to me?”

I had no idea what I’d done to him, or how. But I smiled at him, baring my teeth in a snarl.

And then I heard it again. “Niko!” But this time, there were pounding footsteps and the clash of metal on metal, and a cry of pain, and—

My heart stopped. My lungs froze.

I’d lost my mind. Ennolu’s curse had driven me mad.

Because the footsteps drew close, and then—there was Andreas, skidding to a halt behind Dario, looming there all tall and grim and beautiful with his naked sword dripping blood.

Chapter Twenty-One

I stared up at Andreas. He couldn’t be real. He was dead. He had to be. I’d seen it in my mind so many times in the last two days that it felt like I’d witnessed it. I hadn’t been able to see anything else but his eyes, glazed and empty. But here were those eyes, deep coppery black, fixed on me with agonized intensity, as if he couldn’t see anything else either.

My mouth formed his name, just the way his had mine when I was taken from him. But my throat was too tight to let out a sound. Everything faded away, even the pain from my bruises and cuts and the curse of my magic, and my heart raced desperately, vibrating through every vein until I thought I might float up off the ground.

Dario turned and looked up, shouted, scrabbled for his sword, screamed as his ruined arm tried to move.

Almost casually, Andreas set his sword down, seized Dario around the throat, and lifted him, flinging him out of the alcove. I heard a thump and clatter and a moan as he hit the ground.

“Secure him,” Andreas called out.

“Aye, sir,” came back. Salvius’s voice. He was alive too, and that was a blessing, but…

“Andreas,” I whispered, finding my voice at last. “You’re dead.”

“No,” he said, voice hoarse, and—it was his voice, itwas, and then he was kneeling beside me and pulling me into his arms, his hands so gentle, his body so big and warm and alive. “Not dead. Sweetheart. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, it’s my fault you’re hurt—gods, Niko—”

I managed to get my bound arms up and looped around his neck, and I buried my face in his chest and fell apart, shaking like a leaf in the wind, teeth chattering with the force of it. Andreas clutched me close and rested his cheek on my hair. His torso heaved with something like sobs, it felt like, and his whole body trembled, a match to mine.

Andreas. He was there, and he could take the pain away, and my magic surged toward him, frantically eager.

I couldn’t help my moan.

Andreas pulled back as far as he could with my wrists behind his neck, bending to peer into my face. His brows drew together, the lines there joining the fine ones around his eyes and the deeper grooves bracketing his mouth. He looked exhausted beyond measure.

“You’re not just hurt,” he said, voice tight, “you’re—gods. Fuck.” He twisted his head around. “Salvius, His Highness’s potion, now!”

He turned back to me, stared into my face for a moment, and then muttered another curse and bent down and pressed his lips to mine, hard and fast, as if he couldn’t help himself. That kiss seared me down to my bones, a shock through every vein and nerve, the magic of it finding its way to the center of me and twining with my own, his heat and life calling out to mine like a lodestone. My magic clamored for more of him. Pain twisted through my arms and legs, and I cried out into his kiss.

He tore his mouth away, eyes wild. “I’m sorry, I know it’s not the right—but that’s all I could think about, was this. I could kiss you forever,” he said, and gently lifted my arms from around his neck, sitting back on his heels and pulling my hands into his lap. I whimpered at the loss of his warmth, lurching forward to chase it. Just lurching, really. I could hardly keep myself upright. It didn’t matter how much I wanted to feast my gaze on him, my eyelids kept sliding shut, even as my whole body spasmed with magical turbulence. “Let me get your clothes—there,” he said, as he tugged my trousers back into place gently. “And I need to get these fucking ropes off of your wrists. Damn it. Salvius!”

Gods, I couldn’t believe he had my potion. Somehow he’d survived and killed his assailants and followed me and rescued me, and he’d even managed to bring it, but… “I don’t need the potion when I have you,” I mumbled.

A smile flashed across Andreas’s face before he bent down to examine my wrists more closely. A knife gleamed in his hand, and he began to carefully saw at the ropes, one hand tenderly cradling my forearms. Gods, his fingers on my skin. I wanted to kiss his hands. I would, later, when I had the leisure.

I could kiss any part of him as much as I wanted now. He was alive.

My heart lurched and leapt, beating far too fast because of my curse and faster still because of Andreas.

“The potion’s better right now. I’m not going to take you here on the cold ground. On that bastard’s blanket where he was going to—” His hands tightened, and the knife tore through several strands of the rope at once. “I was already going to kill that motherfucker. Kill him twice. But your wrists, damn it to hell. I’m going to kill him slowly. Over the course of months.”

The rope came loose at last, and he tugged it off and tossed it aside.

“You’re going to kill him for my wrists? Not because he tried to, to rape me?” The words tasted like sawdust and ashes on my tongue, shockingly hard to force out. Andreas hadn’t even been able to say them, had he?

---