Page 74 of Seduced By Darkness
“But it is mine to concede,” I counter.
“I thought you were no longer interested?” Lucidia asks.
“In peace? Yes. Though the terms have shifted.”
Adaia visibly seethes.
Queen Maren taps her long red nails against her painted lips. “I cannot help but think such an offer seems too good to be true. Why would yougiveaway any rights to Mistmere? This is not done out of the kindness of your heart so you must forgive us if we question your motives.”
“What do you get out of this?” Lucidia asks bluntly.
“Peace. I speak of an alliance between two kingdoms that have been at each other’s throats for far too long.” I meet Lucidia’s eyes and then Maren’s. “The enmity between Evernight and Asturia affects us all. It weakens us against the threat of Unseelie.”
“This alliance.” Lucidia leans forward hungrily. “What would it consist of?”
“There have been treaties in the past,” Kyrian adds. “All broken. Why should this one be any different?” He cuts a look toward Adaia. “She’s not going to play by the rules.”
“Because… this time there is a reason for both Evernight and Asturia to hold the peace.” I stand and glance back to where Eris, Lysander and Finn stand guard, holding out my hand. “Vi?”
Finn and Lysander step aside and there she is, visibly swallowing. Gowned in white, she steels herself, tips her chin up and then strides forward with her skirts bunched in both hands. It’s the look of a queen focusing on the guillotine ahead of her. Defiant and proud until the last, but also choking down the lump of fear in her throat.
“What is the meaning of this?” Adaia pushes to her feet abruptly. “Iskvien, what are you doing here?”
“She is here because I asked her to be here,” I reply. “She is here because she is the answer to the war between our countries.”
Vi takes my hand, her fingers warm in mine, and I give them a squeeze.Look at me. Look at me and not at her.
It’s as if she hears me.
Our eyes meet, and though she shields her emotions well, I can see she’s merely waiting for the lash of the whip to fall.
“A marriage,” I say softly, though my focus is on her. “A marriage between two countries in order to hold the peace. Evernight will yield any claim to the lands of Mistmere if the Queen of Asturia stands her armies down and allows this marriage.”
“Marriage?” Etan of the Goldenhills shoves out of the Askan delegation, his face mottling with color. “But she is already promised! To me!”
Maren holds out a hand toward him, her cold eyes never shifting from my face. Etan—to his detriment—doesn’t notice her warning, and takes another step forward. Muraid, Maren’s lover and most dangerous general, shoves him back into place. He meets her gaze, but whatever he sees there makes him flinch.
Heshouldcower.
Vi was hiding from him the first night we met, and while I haven’t bothered to consider him a threat, I don’t like the way he looks at her. There’s something violent in that look, something threatening. Something possessive that doesn’t speak of an intent to protect and love, but the instinct to smother.
Rip his fingers from their sockets,Ruin whispers, and he’s usually the least violent of the creatures trapped within me.
“Control your dog,” I tell Maren with quiet menace.
“How dare you speak to her like that?” Adaia’s face goes red. “How dare you lay claim tomydaughter? I don’t care what you offer me, you’ll never have her.Never. As Etan mentions, I have promised her hand to him and the contracts are already—”
“Her hand is not yours to give,” I tell her coolly. “Vi is of age. It’s her choice.”
“Iskvien ismineand she signed those contracts of her own free will. If you think I will ever grant you my blessing to marry her—"
“I’m not asking for permission, Adaia.” I tug Vi onto the throne at my side. “It is done. Vi agreed to marry me last night and our union was blessed by a priestess of Maia.”
You’re too late.
“You what?” Adaia’s eyes threaten to bulge out of her head. “You little slu—”
“That’s enough.” It takes everything I have not to slip into the shadows right now. “You will not speak to her like that again. She is a princess of Evernight now.”
