Page 143 of The Rebel and the Rose
But they were alive, by the skin of their teeth. By the grace of destiny, and all those blinding fireworks. Chandeliers tumbled from the ceiling, their lit candles rolling to meet the growing puddles of spilled oil. Fires sprang up in every corner and thick smoke began to billow.
Releasing Sera, Val fought her way through the sea of bodies to get to Bibi, leaving her to find Andreas in the fray. To finish what she’d started before those shadows struck.
There was no sign of the prince. But someone else appeared like an apparition in the smoke. There, on the other side of the ballroom, Sera spied a tell-tale glint of silver hair. Theo.
Theo had come back for them. Armed with a daring plan and a crate full of Lightfireworks, and he had not come alone.
Ransom was here, too. Stalking through the smoke like a predator on the hunt. Sera had never seen such rage before. But when their eyes met across the room, and he saw that she was still standing – still breathing – relief blanched the violence from his face. Raising a hand to his chest, he clutched at the space above his heart, like he was trying to stop it from leaping through his ribcage.
With tears streaming down her face, she went to him. Through fire and smoke, and death and chaos, following that insistent tug in her chest. The one that filled her with new hope.
The one that whispered,Mine.
Chapter 36Ransom
Ransom was pacing on the shores beneath the Summer Palace when the minstrels began to play. Music wafted from the upper balcony, casting a merry lilt across the strand.
Another of Andreas’s well-crafted lies.
The hour was late, and Ransom’s heart was sitting in his throat. It had been there ever since they’d left Marvale, riding fast and hard until they met the River Verne. From there, they followed the river to the west of Fantome and all the way down the shoreline, where the grand white palace speared out of the bluffs like a snaggle tooth. For days now, they’d been watching the king’s residence for signs of Prince Andreas, but the black gates never opened, and from the outside, the palace itself had remained eerily still.
As though it was holding its breath.
Now King’s Day was upon them. All evening, the noble folk of Valterre had been arriving in droves, their carriages passing through militant gate inspections before being ushered inside. On the surface, the burgeoning festivities appeared entirely normal, but these were no ordinary guards standing at the black gates. They were mercenaries, marked by their frightening builds and battle scars, and the golden roses that had been emblazoned on their uniforms. A break with the king’s own crest, a call to a new era.
This was Andreas’s army.
Which meant the prince was already inside.
And so was Seraphine.
Every time the thought of her struck him – which was every three minutes or so – Ransom was seized by the sudden, violent urge to charge across the strand, rip those black gates apart, and kill everyone in his path until she was safe in his arms again.
‘Easy,’ Nadia said now, like she could sense the beast prowling inside him. ‘We need to wait for the opportune moment.’
Ransom clenched his hands in and out of fists, straining for calm. The party would soon be in full swing. Just another few minutes and they’d slip inside and go to work.
Quick, gruesome, bloody work.
‘Yeah, we’re losing him,’ remarked Caruso, who was passing the time by building and then immediately demolishing sandcastles.
‘If Bastian had his way, he’d be dead ten times over by now,’ said Anouk, who was sitting on a rock beside him. ‘Even a manin the throes of true love can’t fight his way through hundreds of hardened mercenaries!’
Try me.
‘Don’t tease him or he really will get himself killed,’ warned Nadia. ‘We’ll go in after that last carriage. Look. Most of the soldiers are starting to head inside.’
They were creeping up the rocky shoreline when Ransom caught a glint of silver in the distance. A lone figure skulking in the royal graveyard. They were just visible over the old stone wall, which was not far from the palace.
Stifling a curse, he took off in that same direction, slipping a vial from his pocket as he went. The others hurried after him. Somewhere behind them, the music cut out.
Ransom was just about to down his vial of Shade when Theo Versini popped up from behind the graveyard wall, wearing a large black rucksack and a look of alarm.
Reaching over the wall, Ransom grabbed him by the collar. ‘What the fuck are you up to?’
Shaking him off, Versini hissed, ‘Rescuing my friends, you brute. What areyoudoing here?’
‘Same idea,’ said Nadia, coming up behind him. Caruso and Anouk arrived just as another figure popped up from behind the graveyard wall. Silver-haired, and with the same annoying smirk, he was a carbon copy of Versini. Only younger.
