Chapter 3

Sebastian let go of me immediately and rushed inside without a second glance.

There was Lena, sword pressed against my maid's throat.

"No one in the army dares defy me. And you, a servant girl, think you can bar my way?"

The maid stood her ground, voice trembling. "My lady has never allowed strangers inside her bedchamber."

Lena pressed closer. Blood beaded along the blade where it touched the maid's neck. Her voice came out choked.

"The west guest room was prepared especially for you to rest during your pregnancy…"

I moved before I could think. I reached for Sebastian's sword and pulled it from his scabbard in one smooth motion.

The blade stopped at his throat. My eyes were bloodshot.

"Let her go, or I'll kill Sebastian."

Lena's smile was cruel. "Do you really think you can kill him before her head hits the floor?"

She didn't wait for an answer. She swept the blade across.

Blood splashed across the floor.

The maid collapsed in front of me, eyes wide and unseeing.

I dropped the sword and fell to my knees beside her. Tears fell onto her cooling skin. She had been with me for twenty-five years. She was supposed to marry tomorrow.

I picked up the sword and lunged at Lena's chest.

The blade bent.

It didn't pierce anything.

Lena laughed—soft, almost sweet—and pulled a vest of chainmail from beneath her tunic.

"I should thank Sebastian. He cut this right off your father's corpse for me."

My vision blurred. I grabbed Sebastian by the collar, my voice cracking.

"You told me you left his body untouched. You said you gave him a hero's burial!"

He pulled my hands off, looked away from my desperate eyes, and spoke quietly.

"Catherine… don't make such a fuss over nothing."

I let my father's cross slip from my fingers. It hit the floor with a hollow sound.

"Sebastian, I have spent my entire life waiting for a man who never deserved me."

Then I dragged my maid's body into the bedchamber. I washed the blood from her skin with my own hands. I dressed her in the wedding gown she was supposed to wear tomorrow.

I sat at the desk and began to draw her portrait—one last time. I was just about to add the small mole beside her eye when the door slammed open.

Sebastian's veins bulged. His hands closed around my throat.

"What have you done? What did you put in that room?"

I kicked, gasped, clawed for air.

He threw me onto the floor of the west guest room and forced my head up. Lena was writhing on the bed, clutching her belly, her face twisted in pain.

A physician rushed in, bag in hand. He checked her pulse, panic flashing across his face. He forced a pill between her lips—then stopped.

His eyes landed on the oil burner in the corner.

"This scent should never be used on a pregnant woman. Add to that her weak constitution… another hour, and the child would have been lost."

Sebastian's hand was around my throat again. He pinned me to the wall with his boot.

"Everyone in this house answers to you. You're the only one who could have ordered that placed here. So that's it—you'd kill an unborn child just to marry me?"

I shook my head, choking. And then I saw Lena, propped up on the bed. She smiled at me. A slow, deliberate smile.

Then she closed her eyes and let out a soft moan.

Sebastian released me instantly. He didn't look back. He went straight to her bedside.

I watched him hover over her—every ounce of his attention hers—and felt something inside me go quiet.

I turned to leave.

A servant ran in sobbing and dropped to her knees in front of me.

"Miss… they're digging up your parents' crypt. The general's men say your parents don't belong in the Lindon family tomb anymore…"

My blood went cold.

My father died a war hero. He was only allowed to be buried beside my mother as a special exception from the Crown.

"Whose orders?" I asked.

The servant could barely speak. "The General's…"

I turned to Sebastian. My knuckles were white. I waited.

"General Lindon has just been posthumously charged with treason. I'm acting on orders from the Crown."

I lunged. I didn't feel my fists connecting with his face. I just kept swinging.

"My father was an honorable man. You will not do this."

He smiled through the blood on his lip and said like a demon's whisper, "He's dead. Who's going to know the truth?"

I pulled a dagger and pressed it to his throat.

"Call them off."

Sebastian didn't flinch. Blood dripped down his neck. His smile never faded.

"The King already has men watching me. Kill me, and you die today too."

My hand shook. The blade trembled against his skin.

Then, a bell rang from the end of the street. A long, drawn-out voice called through the rain.

"The King's word has come—"

Sebastian smiled.

He didn't see Charles standing behind the royal herald.