Page 25 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
He pulled out a dagger.
Of course he did. Cowards never went down quietly, did they?
Then he made the mistake of aiming it at his bride’s neck.
Godsdammit.
Now we had to make a show out of killing him–if The Huntress didn’t beat us to it.
Her fingers twisted, this time not with calculating agility, but with violent precision.
Her eyes sparked with the hunger all warriors knew well–revenge.
The frost in my hands cracked. A warning, deep and low in my blood.
She would kill Fabrian, Code be damned. Of that, I had no doubt.
No.
Protectorate First Daughter or not, she couldn’t be the one to snuff out Fabrian’s miserable life.
He wasourkill.
She wasn’t supposed to strike.
I wasn’t supposed to intervene.
But then the deadly arrows came down upon us all.
Chapter
Six
ALLIE
My nails were sharp enough to pierce Fabrian’s eye if I angled my hand just–
I didn’t need to lunge for the miserable sod.
Evie beat me to it, brandishing a small dagger out of gods-knew-where and impaling it in her hideous groom’s hand.
She truly was Protectorate, through and through.
She couldn’t die at her own wedding.
Not while I was still breathing.
I grabbed her cold hand and yanked her back. First, I’ll find a safe place to hide her, then I’d face the Serpentsandthe Blood Brotherhood who’ddared–
The rest of my violent plan vanished in a rain of broken porcelain as the blue ceramic vase I’d been standing next to shattered in a million shards, the white lilies it had once held now flying toward me.
On instinct, I reached for the well of power inside me, but the protective spell I’d cast had drained it whole. I jerked to the side, like a youngling who hadn’t yet discovered their magic.
This is not normal.
Nothing about my powers flickering out of my control was normal.
The Blood Brotherhood passing our Sanctua Sirena ancient wards and crashing Evie’s wedding wasn’t normal.
