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Roksana offered dessert. I was too full to accept. We didn’t linger for drinks, and she didn’t invite us to. A small mercy, that.

We said goodnight and left Elora glowering and Roksana with her serene smile back in place.

Arran waited until we were well away before speaking. “They could both be the threat.”

“Or neither,” I sighed heavily.

Nothing had been revealed. Even Elora, who was worse at playing the game of hiding emotions than me, was impossible to judge. I was so tired. This sort of parrying of words and smiles for which Arthur had been so well suited exhausted me. More than sparring in the ring or running through the mountains.

But as the doors swung open to my rooms, Gwen and Lyrena stepping aside, twin guards of night and sun, I realized I was about to be denied the rest I craved.

54

ARRAN

“I believe I warned you about loitering in the queen’s chambers.”

It was the only warning I’d give. The beast in my chest was demanding I shift, that I tear out his throat.

Arrogant trash, sitting on her chaise like he had any right to be there.

Cool fingers closed around my arm, their temperature infiltrating my skin even through the tunic I wore. “I told you, he is my friend,” Veyka ground out.

“Which is the only reason he is still alive.”

Veyka cursed under her breath.Mule-headed terrestrial bastard.

She could curse all she liked as long as she let me tear the limbs from Parys’ body. Starting with the one he’d been foolish enough to insert inside ofmyQueen.

The elemental courtier was making a good show of smiling, flipping that ridiculously long mop of brown curls over his forehead. If I commented aloud, Veyka would point out that my hair also reached my shoulders. But it was always tied back.

He could play the roguish courtier.

But I could smell his fear.

Apparently, so could Veyka.

She released my arm, only to plant her other hand in the middle of my chest and shove me bodily backward. I felt every inch of that contact, too.

Even with her considerable strength, I could have held my ground. But I allowed her that bit of control. She craved it, I’d begun to realize. Though why, I hadn’t yet deduced.

The more space between me and Parys, the better.

Veyka shot me a look, all command.Stay, dog.

I flashed my canines.

She rolled her eyes and turned back to Parys, scrubbing a hand over her face. She was tired—and the bastard was disturbing her. That dinner with her royal councilors had been its own particular sort of torture. Not that I’d intended to leave her at her door.

But for what I’d had planned for her, she could be flat on her back.

A shiver snaked down Veyka’s spine, her shoulders shifting slightly, her wide hips giving a delightful wobble, as if she’d heard my thoughts.

Or the growl of my beast.

“I’m tired, Parys,” she sighed, crossing her arms over her body. “What is it?”

Parys made a show of stretching his arms above his head. “I know the feeling,” he said with an exaggerated yawn. “I’ve been in the library for hours.”