MasukEMBER’S POV“Explain my face to you? How does that have anything to do with this?!” Her voice climbs. “If you must know, I slept, Ember. For the first time in weeks, my body finally let me rest peacefully, Goddess forgive me, and I woke up to this nightmare. I am grieving the loss of my favourite maids—the tragedy that has befallen this great house—and you want me to give you my ten-step skincare routine to satiate your superstitious insensitivity—”“Spare me the crap, Hale.”I don’t raise my voice. And that seems to frighten her more than if I had screamed.“Everyone else here might be fooled by you, but oh, Hale Volkov… I see you. I see all of you. And you fucking know that. We both know exactly what you’re capable of.” I step closer, watching the colour drain from her face for a split second as she almost stumbles backwards. “So, I’ll ask you one more time. What did you do to those girls? Whatever bought you this nauseating shine at their expense… what was it?”The whole room has s
EMBER’S POVThe air leaves my lungs.Every single eye in the room snaps to me. Even Knox turns his head.A brief flash of confusion at Hale’s sudden pivot flares in his eyes, but it’s immediately replaced by a deep, searching interest.He is looking at me to see what my truth is. To see what I believe.And under the terrifying pressure of the room’s stare, I find something far more terrifying—Knox would take my word over hers in a heartbeat. No questions asked.“I—” I stumble back a half-step. “No. I mean—yes.”A fresh wave of gasps hits the room.“But I don’t think I read the situation correctly!” I add quickly, my heart hammering in my throat. “S-she said she wasn’t trying to hurt them. She said she was protecting them.”Hale lets out a sharp, incredulous scoff.“Protecting them? From what? Or was she trying to lure them out to where she could quietly finish them off without witnesses? Oh, please. What sort of sweet-hearted murderer confesses to their crime? Marjorie is a cold-blood
EMBER’S POVShe’s been at the edge of my vision this whole time, near the third table, handkerchief pressed to her mouth, crying, and my eyes have been sliding to her and off her since I walked in, catching on something I was too distracted by the bodies to fully comprehend.Her grief is perfect.She sobs softly, she dabs, she trembles, she holds herself together with such delicacy, and anyone watching me glare at her would call me a monster.But I see it now, as clear as day.The odd thing my eyes kept fixating on, although my brain had not caught up yet.Hale looks radiant.No.That would be an insulting understatement.Hale Volkov is fucking glowing.There’s no other word for it, and it makes my skin crawl to have such a vain thought in this room.But… something feels deeply unnatural about her transformation.Her hair has a rich shine to it I’ve never seen on her, catching what little light there is. Her cheeks are full and high with colour, her skin smooth and impossibly fresh.T
EMBER’S POV“I don’t know!” Queenie sobs. “I-I don’t understand. This has never happened before—this feels like a really bad dream. The other maids are saying the Sovereign is cursed! How else do you explain seven women dying in one night, Ember?”My knees go weak.Before I can completely give out, Knox is there. His hand closes over my shoulder, physically locking me in place.I look up at him, bracing for a reaction, but his jaw is just set tight. He is perfectly, ruthlessly controlled. Every inch the King analysing a fresh problem.“A curse would be the laziest assumption,” Knox says, his flat voice cutting straight through Queenie’s panic.Before she can respond, Nathaniel comes down the steps behind her, and he is her opposite in every direction a man can be.Grey. Buttoned to the throat. Perfectly, horribly composed.His eyes find Queenie, hold half a second too long, then pull away, and he plants himself in that small careful distance he always keeps from her.“The house starte
EMBER’S POVHis lips curl the slightest bit.“More than my entire collection.”I lean even closer, my eyes set wholly on his burning gaze.“You’re nauseatingly romantic. I would never have it any other way.”He slides his hands down to my hips, pulling me flush against him on the hood of the car.“Careful looking at me like that, baby,” he growls softly, his gaze dropping to my mouth. “I’m running on zero sleep and pure adrenaline. Tell me, doesn’t Merrilyn Aster have ‘getting fucked on the hood of a car on a dirt road’ somewhere on her bucket list?”A breathless giggle escapes me.I feel light. Goddess, I feel so incredibly light.I let my spine lengthen, lifting my chin as I let my voice slide seamlessly down into that bored, expensive drawl I practised in a mirror for days.“Well.” Merrilyn Aster looks the Lycan King up and down with indifference. “Aren’t you a pretty thing to find on the side of a dirt road? Big. Rude. Exorbitant maintenance costs, obviously.” I walk two fingers up
EMBER’S POV“You. Me. Anyone with a fucking heart and mummy-issues.” He says it flat, like arithmetic. “But if you want my opinion? Waiting twenty-six years to hand you thirty seconds of affection is incredibly selfish, which is very on-brand for Devika. It’s a cheap tip left on a massive, overdue bill. She bought her own peace of mind with it, not yours. But she also proved something you needed to know. She proved the problem was never you, Ember. She always had it in her to love you; she was just too much of a coward to do it. So take the thirty seconds. Keep the absolute proof that you were always worth it, and leave the coward who starved you behind on that mountain. Or, if you prefer, I can turn this car around right now and go tell her exactly where she can shove the rest of it. ”A spark of sudden warmth blooms in my chest, pushing through the exhaustion to drag a reluctant smile to my lips.“That really shouldn’t be comforting.”“And yet you’ve stopped picking at the box.”I l







