Baz’s lips kept moving. Damn, but his lips were luscious and plush, and a glistening pink that was as bright as if he’d applied a stain. He shouldn’t be allowed to be this pretty, not when he was also muscled and manly, gritty and gruff, rough and fierce. How was I supposed to resist him? He was my ultimate weakness, the ultimate lure … my ultimate enemy.
“Vee.”
I jerked my eyes to his. I heard him clearly this time. He’d never called me that before. No one had ever called me that.
I blinked a few times, my vision sharpening, taking in the entirety of his face, and the somberness of his features.
“Vee, can you hear me?”
Vee. “Why are you calling me that?” As if that were important right now.
He frowned, and I knew. Even after I’d attacked his empress mother, and even after said monstrous bitch had seemed to know who I was, he was … concealing my true identity, just in case.
Why? Why would he do that?
The kind of rhythmic footfalls I associated with trained soldiers reached through the fading buzz to snag my attention. I whirled around, though Baz wouldn’t release my hands. I didn’t see soldiers, not yet, but I did see Terencia awkwardly lying on her front. Her skirt had landed folded up, revealing stockinged legs that looked spindly and stupid in their impractical high-heels. The two servant girls knelt to either side of her, not doing anything to help. Maybe there was nothing they could do. Or maybe they hated the woman as I did.
Edwidge and Félix flanked Baz—not their empress. Not the woman whom should have been more important to them. Ed hadn’t even drawn the crossbow that was strapped to her back. Félix held his bow but no arrows.
Shadows crept across the floor and the walls and dripped from the ceiling, aiming for Terencia—no, trying to reach the blood that had pooled around her.
So much blood. But the gashes, seven of them, were already beginning to suture themselves. Never before had I so resented the advanced healing of sänglures. Our flesh was no more resilient than that of humans, but we recovered so swiftly that it seemed as if it was.
“Vee,” Baz barked. I dragged my attention to him. “The empress’ guards are on the way. They will have felt her distress.”
Why was he telling me this? I gazed deeply into his eyes to find the answer. His brows were bunched low over his ocean eyes. I hadn’t seen them this tumultuous since I had tried to kill him. They seemed to say, We need to get you out of here. We need to get you safe. But that … couldn’t be.
The footfalls stopped, only to be replaced by pounding. I searched for the source and discovered a heavy-duty portcullis capable of withstanding a siege. We hadn’t traversed it, but it was indisputably there now, grand and indomitable, keeping the guards from reaching their charge. Did that mean…? Could Mauldrene want the empress to die? My power was caged, and the blade, which I’d so recently nicked from Terencia’s chamber when everyone else was distracted by the spectacle she’d caused, wasn’t an option while it was being so closely watched. But Baz wore his swords, and Ed had enough weapons strapped to her person that she might not miss one. If Mauldrene wanted me to be her assassin, I’d oblige.
“Remove this barrier,” a man’s voice demanded. It was muffled some by the portcullis. “The empress is in danger. To deny us entry is to violate the dominion.”
The demander didn’t wait for obedience. The pounding ratcheted into a force so powerful that it shook the metal hardware along the surface of the portcullis and the massive brackets that fastened it to the walls.
“Battering ram,” Ed said.
Unless the empress’ guards made a habit of dragging around battering rams, someone’s faithum was able to conjure them. Or maybe it was Mauldrene, and she was simply stirring up dragonshit, pitting us against each other.
Terencia lifted her head from the pool of her own blood. Drops slid down her cheek to drip with a splash back into the puddle. “Who cares…” Her voice was scratchy and strained, but dammit if it wasn’t already clear enough to be understood.
While Baz and I had been trapped in Mauldrene’s guts searching for her husband, Terencia had used those same four days to completely drain two humans of their blood. She’d also drunk from both Lev and Moncho, and she’d been sipping on blood—not from any of the four men—when we’d arrived. She was pumped full of blood, which meant that her strength would be at its maximum. She was healing as swiftly as a sänglure ever did.
“Help me up. As soon as…” She coughed violently. Droplets of blood flicked off her and onto the nearest servant girl. When Terencia looked away, the girl cleaned her face with a finger, then licked it.
“Soon as I’m able, I’m killing her.”
Her being me, of course.
I shrugged. “You can try.”
“Oh…” She coughed. “I don’t try at anything I do. I succeed.”
“So do I, bitch.”
Together, the servant girls looked from me to her, then slid under each of her arms to help her up. She leaned heavily against both of them and sat, her blood soaking into the seat of her skirt.
I shouldn’t have attempted to kill Terencia when I had. I knew that. I should have been strategic about her murder: waited till she was weak, isolated, and distracted, when it was guaranteed I could end her for good. Every time Rafaela had ever caged me, at least partially, had been because I’d acted impulsively. She’d worked to teach me to measure my reactions, to act with the utmost care and efficiency.
But there was a part of me that would always be a feral alley sneakle—especially when the empress-cunt spoke about things she had no business speaking.