Willow’s mouth snapped up, but her eyes kept darting to Draven’s groaning figure now sitting up in the bed.
“It is barely dawn, lady,” Draven grumbled in his rasp morning voice, rubbing his face in his hands. “Why have you come barging in? Don’t you know how to knock?”
Willow’s arms crossed over her chest. “I did. Multiple times.”
“And?” Aydra asked expectantly as she pulled her robe around her body.
Willow straightened up. “The Blackhands are coming up through the streets as we speak. They will be on our doorstep within the hour.”
Aydra’s stomach knotted. “Fucking curses of Durab,” she muttered.
Draven fell backwards in to the bed. “Should have known they’d be early.”
“Thank you, Willow,” Aydra told her. “If you’ll go and wake Lex, I would appreciate it.”
Willow nodded, but didn’t respond. She gave Aydra a low bow and then turned out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Aydra quickly grabbed a day dress from her closet and changed, throwing her hair up and allowing a few stray curls to fall from her thick updo over her face and ears. She shoved her day crown on her head just as Lex burst into the room.
“My Queen—”
“I’m ready.” Aydra started out the door, but paused to watch Draven leisurely pack his morning pipe by the window. “Are you not coming?”
Draven shrugged. “Not my kingdom,” he replied. “If they want to see me, they can wait on me to go through my morning routine.”
The memory of the night before invaded her mind at the sight of the shadows beneath his eyes. He did a double-take at the look on her face, and she heard him sigh heavily. “I’m fine, Aydra,” he muttered.
“Liar,” she accused.
A small smile slipped onto his lips, and he struck the match against the wall. “Get out of here, my Queen,” he said in a rasp. “I’ll meet you in the Great Hall soon.”
Rhaif was pacing in front of the great doors when she arrived, and there was a sleepy Dorian coming down the adjacent hall when she turned. She paused in front of Dorian to straighten his crown and the shirt he’d obviously grabbed off the floor to put on.
She was wiping a stain off his jaw and cursing at him for not bathing properly when she suddenly felt Rhaif standing over her shoulder. Aydra tensed at his annoyed energy.
“Something you’d like to say, brother dear?” she miffed.
Rhaif’s huff hit her neck, but he didn’t have time to utter a word as Nyssa came running up behind them then.
“I’m sorry!” she exclaimed, holding her crown on her head. “I’m sorry. Willow, she—”
Aydra brushed Dorian’s shoulders and then turned to Nyssa to finish fixing her. “How long before they’re here?” she asked Rhaif.
“Minutes,” he replied.
“And have you heard how many they are bringing with them?” she asked.
Rhaif’s jaw tightened. “Thirty total.” He did a double-take at her as she finally turned and joined him at the top of the steps by his side. “Perhaps if you’d come to my study last night once I’d received word—”
“What, so you could burn me again?” she spat.
“—and not gone off galavanting with the Venari King, you would know more about the nature and number of our guests.”
Her eyes met his, and for a moment she felt the agony of his words fill her. But she pushed it to the back of her mind before it tore through the surface, and she turned and held her chin high in the air.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she affirmed.
He leaned closer, breath on her shoulder as he hissed in her ear. “You think I haven’t noticed the pair of you? Heard the pair of you? Moans and screams echoing in our halls as though you are animals?”
“Sounds like you’re jealous.”
“I am not—”
She watched as his hand clenched and unclenched just above her arm, and she could feel heat from his body against hers. His jaw tightened again, and he straightened himself up.
“You will end it,” he hissed quietly.
She almost laughed. “I will not.”
“He is using you,” Rhaif accused. “Do you not remember all the times past Venari Kings have tried to take over our kingdom? How Duarb tried to seduce our mother? The time when their Infi brothers walked our streets without restraint, raping and pillaging our kingdom and how long it took our ancestors to rid us of their filth?”
“Exaggerations of the Chronicles,” Aydra spat, the story of the night before filling her thoughts.
“You invite that kind of madness back into our walls by consorting with him. You are weak, my sister. He has manipulated and seduced you—”
“Do you two think you could put aside your bickering long enough for us to meet our guests?” Dorian interjected as he leaned around Rhaif.
The great gate opened then, and Aydra felt her weight shift. She clasped her hands in front of her and straightened her dress.
Rhaif glared sideways at her. “We’ll talk about this when they’ve left.”
“There is nothing to discuss,” she argued under her breath as the carriages came closer.
“There is,” he hissed. “There is the fact that you have betrayed your kingdom for the taste of a foreign fuck.”
“I am not discussing this with you here,” she whispered, meeting his gaze. “We have guests.”
“Guests whom you’ll surely drop the Venari for tonight and wrap your legs around their heads instead. You are playing with the safety of our kingdom by letting him into your bed. What do you think will happen when you inevitably leave him for your next conquest? Do you think he will stand by and allow our kingdom to go on without punishing it?”
“I love him.”
The words seethed from her clenched mouth in such a dark voice that she felt the birds stop chirping overhead.
Color evacuated from Rhaif’s face. She felt her nostrils flaring as her gaze blazed through his empty eyes. His stare fluttered back into reality, and then he turned straight ahead, the veins in
