LOGINCedrick's POVShe was still asleep when I woke.Her back was turned to me, her breathing slow and even, one hand tucked beneath the pillow. The first light was coming through the window. In it, I could see the line of her shoulder, the curve of her neck, a strand of hair caught against her cheek.I didn't move. I lay there and watched her breathe, and my wolf lay quiet inside me. Last night had been different.I'd been gentle.I didn't know where it came from. When she'd kissed me back, something in me had loosened. Like a fist that had been clenched so long it forgot it could open. I'd touched her slowly. Paid attention to the sounds she made, adjusted when she tensed, stopped when she needed me to stop. And when it was over, she hadn't pulled away. She'd turned her face into my chest and fallen asleep with her fingers still resting against my collarbone.I hadn't sent her away.Every other time with every other woman, I'd ordered them out before the sweat dried. My bed was mine but
Neah's POVI went to check on the situation myself. That was what I told the guards, anyway. The truth was simpler, I needed to see what Cedrick would do with her. I pushed the door open and there it was.Cedrick was leaning over the bed, one hand behind Beatrice's head, his mouth pressed to hers.My chest caved in.My wolf snarled inside me. I wanted to scream, cross that room and rip her off the bed and claw her face until there was nothing left to kiss.I didn't.I composed myself and smoothed my expression. "Cedrick," I said.He pulled back and looked at me. His face gave nothing away."What are you planning to do with her?" I asked. "About the room.""I ordered an investigation.""An investigation." I let the word sit. "Cedrick, the evidence is obvious.What more do you need?"He didn't answer.I stepped closer. "Don't let a pretty face cloud your judgment. I've seen it before,women who use their looks to manipulate men into forgetting what they are. She's her brother's sister.
Beatrice's POVI came back to the palace the next morning with a plan half-formed behind my ribs. Protect Callum and find Jin. I was walking past the west corridor when I noticed the array of servants. They were carrying buckets, brooms and rags. My curiosity piqued till I was walking towards Princess Elara's room.I stopped in front of it and gasped. The door hung open on one hinge. The room was destroyed. Bookshelf ripped from the wall and lying face-down across the bed. Books everywhere — spines cracked, pages torn and trampled into the floor. The writing desk overturned, legs snapped off. Ink spreading in dark pools across the stone and the window was smashed.Elara's photograph — the silver frame bent, the glass spiderwebbed, lying in the wreckage like something that had been thrown.My stomach dropped."There she is."Neah's voice came from behind me. I turned. She stood at the end of the corridor with three servants at her back, her face arranged in careful outrage. Her eyes
Third-Person PerspectiveJin barely made it through the door before something grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the wall.His feet left the floor and his back hit the plaster. He wished he could see this.He never could, months of serving this master, and Jin had never once seen a face. "You were followed," the shadow said."No." Jin clawed at the grip. Useless. "I checked. I was careful —""You were followed by the princess from your office to the market," The shadow's voice was flat. No anger yet. Just facts, laid out with a precision that meant it had watched the whole thing happen. "You barely lost her at the fire escape."Jin's mouth went dry. "I shook her," he managed. "She didn't see where I went —""She saw your face and she knows where you work.." The hand tightened. "That's enough.""I can explain —" Jin said :"She doesn't have proof. She came to me months ago with that badge from the crime scene, and I took it — just like you told me to. I delivered it. She h
Third-Person PerspectiveBea?She almost didn't trust it. The voice pressed against the inside of her skull and for a terrible second she thought it was the lake water playing tricks on her, or exhaustion finally tipping into hallucination. She was still soaked, still shivering, one hand braced against the garden wall where her knees had nearly given out.Bea. Thank the Moon. She wasn't sure the link would hold.Callum mindlinked her?She closed her eyes and pressed her palm harder against the stone.Cal. She pushed the thought outward with everything she had. I'm here. Are you okay? Are they—I'm fine. Stop worrying about me. A pause. I miss you, Bea. Every day. You're the only thing that keeps me sane in this place.Her throat tightened. Lake water dripped from her jaw onto the stone path, and she didn't wipe it away.I miss you too, she said. More than I can say.Listen to me. He said urgently, Something happened. A new prisoner arrived last week. A man named Harlan. He's young, b
Beatrice's POVI took the long way back. The scroll room had been unbearable today. Too many sideways glances and so many conversations that stopped when I entered. Everyone had heard about the road, and no one knew what to do with the girl who'd walked into traffic and come back with a limp and nothing to say about it.Out here, at least, I could breathe."Running away again, little rabbit?"I stopped, startled but didn't turn. My wolf's ears went flat against her skull, and the breath I'd just taken turned sour in my lungs."Turn around when I speak to you."I turned obediently.She stood ten paces behind me on the path, backlit by the lanterns that lined the garden entrance. Her dress was white and her hair was loose around her shoulders, and in the half-light she looked almost ethereal. Beautiful and venomous, like a flower that killed whatever put its mouth to it.Two weeks of house arrest hadn't softened her. If anything, the confinement had sharpened her edges. Her eyes glitte
Elena’s povLydia didn't wait to be invited in.She stepped past Blake like he wasn't even there, her heels clicking against our hardwood floors. "I'm here in my capacity as Chief Warrior," she announced, smoothing her dress as she surveyed our living room. "A formal visit."Blake moved to block h







