Page 93 of Promise of Darkness
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If I think too long about it, I’ll falter.
So, I don’t. I stride inside the prince’s bedchambers, letting the door slam behind me, an apology on my lips.
And then I stop in my tracks.
He’s in the middle of washing himself. Stripped to the waist, all that glorious skin bare for my hungry gaze as he drags a washcloth across his chest to remove the sweat our fight evoked. Golden candlelight caresses his skin, painting it with ripples of gold.
The second I walk in, his gaze jerks to mine, and he freezes.
Mother of Night.I curl my fingers into a fist.Resistance, thy name is futile.
I can still feel his fingers brushing against my thighs and the shackle of his hands on my wrists. But seeing him like this, his dark wings nothing but suggestions of shadows behind him, makes every ghostly sensation dancing over my skin more intense.
Thiago slowly resumes washing himself, heat smoldering beneath those thick lashes. The shadows behind him vanish as if they were never there. “I thought you made your feelings clear.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Because my brain’s not working very well right now and words fail me.
He slowly lets the washcloth drop into the basin, his face giving nothing away. “For what?”
I can’t meet his gaze, so I turn and pour us both a goblet of rich Mercian wine.
“For not remembering you. For not being what you want me to be. For… what I said before.” I set the wine to my lips and swallow hastily. “If what you say is true then… she—I—was the luckiest woman alive, but it feels as though you’re speaking of a stranger.” I set the wine down. “I don’t know what to think.” It all makes too much sense for it not to be true. “How do I know I can trust your claims? Because either you’re lying to me or my mother is, and I’d be a fool not to consider the enmity between our courts. How do I know this isn’t merely… another deadly thrust against her? How do I know you’re not merely trying to trick me? To use me against my own people? Against my own mother?”
“Did she ask you to kill me?”
I nearly knock the goblet over. “What?”
He casts the washcloth aside and prowls toward me, dark eyes gleaming a cold, merciless green. “She often does, you know. I’m never quite sure if it’s a test for you to earn her trust again or a way to twist the knife she buries in my heart every time you look at me as if you don’t know me. Probably both. Adaia never likes to waste an opportunity.”
“N-no, I— I….”
His lips twist cruelly, and he snatches the dagger from the table behind me.
“What are you doing?”
Capturing my hand, he curls my resisting fingers around the blade, then sets the tip directly to the inch of skin above his sternum. “Here’s your chance, Vi. A single strike and you’ll win your mother’s love back. You’ll cast the Kingdom of Evernight into chaos, and your own people will win this eternal damned war.”
I struggle against his grip as the tip of the blade draws blood. “What are you doing? Stop it!”
“Do it,” he repeats softly.
I can’t look away from his heated gaze. “No.”
“You’re an Asturian princess, aren’t you? And I’m the enemy. If I’m lying to you, then this will earn you untold infamy within your mother’s court.”
“No!” I throw the dagger aside with a clatter and shove away from him, my heart lodged somewhere in the region of my throat. “Fine. I believe you.”
My hands shake, but I don’t dare look at them.
It’s true.
It’s all true.
My mother put that knife into my hand and whispered murder in my ear. She knew what she was sending me to do. She knew if I succeeded, then I would be standing over the body of my husband.
