Page 15 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
My parents’ nightmare.
My groom’s murderer.
My enemy.
For my family’s safety, I'd already promised to marry a man I hated today. Did it truly matter which man?
I couldn’t run away from Clan life. But I would survive it–at any cost.
I met his gaze with steel in mine. "Call me Evie."
Chapter
Five
THE DRAGON
“Why, in the name of all the Fourteen Clans of Malhaven, did she say yes?” I asked as the storm within me continued to rage.
I’d played my part of the ruthless Dragon Malhaven feared.
I’d threatened a pregnant womanandEvie’s cousins. Her entire Clan. For the love of Xamor, I’d sliced her groom in two splattering halves.
I’d cowered two of the most powerful Clans in Malhaven just by walking among them.
What could have possessed her to agree to come with me? The Code demanded I go to the wedding and stake my claim on her hand, but she could have said no and then dealt with the Council’s wrath by herself.
Now she’d doomed us all with one decision.
I sat at the head of the ceremonial table of the Blood Brotherhood Elite’s council room, with only four of my most trusted allies present. This was a delicate, dangerous situation. The fewer people knew about it, the better.
We had to figure out what exactly we were dealing with. Andwho.
I didn’t trust Evie.
Eyes always hid the secrets to one’s soul. Foul or pure, all intentions shined through. Evie’s face had been obscured by that blasted bloody veil of hers, I’d barely made out the graceful outline of her face as she’d looked defiantly up at me. The high cheekbones. The stubborn tilt of her chin. But not a glimpse of her eyes. Would her gaze have been petrified? Rebellious? Accepting? I’d imagined a million different emotions staring back at me, trying to figure her out.
Oh, she’d been afraid. Shaking from the tips of the silver pins encasing her mane of hazelnut locks which just begged to be let loose and flow wild, down to her slender bare feet, racing away from me through the Protectorate garden as if the sea breeze itself gave her strength. A little forest sprite that manifested in the middle of a bloody battle.
Yet she had faced me. Had been the only one to cry out when my blade was dangerously close to Orion’s wife. I would have never attacked a defenseless woman, but Evie couldn’t have known that.
That took a kind of bravery and selflessness few in the Clan world had. An instinct nobody could train.
As we’d dodged arrows next to the tree, I would have liked nothing more than to lift Evie’s veil and sate my curiosity. The need was so powerful, I had to tense my hands to keep them from straying to the airy fabric. Now I was left wondering what steel gaze hid behind it.
“She was supposed to say no,” I said in that calm, detached tone that spiked fear into my enemies’ eyes. Cold and calculated was more deadly than red rage. “She could ruin everything.”
My gaze traveled over our weapons lined on top of the dark wood, my sword in the center. The symbol of a completed mission. We’d given our offerings to the gods for those who had passed, burned their bodies, and engraved their names on the funeral column in our most sacred temple. The last part of the ritual was displaying the blades of those who had fought for the good of the Blood Brotherhood.
My Clan had been built on tradition and rules, and this was not the moment to crack them open and let the venom drip out.
“She must’ve come out wrong. Maybe that Vegheara blood has finally turned poisonous, like we all feared,” Calyx said, dabbing a crude-smelling ointment on his left leg. One of the arrows had nicked his muscles, barely slashing the skin, but it had sent the mountain of a man tumbling down. I’d barely found him in time to drag him to shelter before running after Evie.
Whoever had imbued those poisoned arrows had done an excellent job.
“I see two explanations.” Soryn stared at his crossbow in the center of the table with the same pinched expression he had whenever he couldn’t explain something. He prided himself on his intelligence. He’d earned the right to. Brain like an archive, that one, capable of remembering everything he ever read. “Extremely naive or extremely cunning. Either way, a danger for our Clan.”
From the other end of the table, Elysia clicked her tongue as she played with the rounded rings on each of her slim fingers. Pretty to look at, but deadly; she hid a different poison in each and wasn’t afraid to use them. She hadn’t earned the nickname The Viper for nothing. If anyone could find what that sicklygreen poison had been made of, it was her. “Nobody isthatnaive. She stabbed her groom.”
