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Adrian’s shoulders were set confidently, Sebastian’s threat rolling right off them. But there was still a hard line to his jaw that exposed the situation he was in. His stare fell on me for a second, bouncing between my eyes and the arrow. “Let her go. Then we’ll talk.”

Sebastian laughed, full and cruel. My stomach sank, the surrender in Adrian’s tone breaking my heart. “It’s not going to be that easy. I’m going to need a little more from you.”

“What is it that you want me to do?” Adrian repeated, punctuating each word, fury lancing through the room. I could do nothing but watch.

Sebastian leaned forward, the move setting the arrow just off my chin. Enough that I could allow myself a rough, pained swallow. “I want you to kneel.”

My mouth fell open at the same time the room dimmed as a storm cloud outside eclipsed the setting sun, turning the sky midnight black. “Excuse me?”

Please,I begged silently. I couldn’t see Adrian kneel. Not for Sebastian, not for me, not for anything.

“Kneel. I’ll take that as a sign of your loyalty to your new king.” Adrian stood still, his body practically vibrating with restraint. If Sebastian hadn’t removed the option to kill him, I was pretty sure we’d be staring at his lifeless body while Adrian ordered someone to go hunt down his heir. “In case I didn’t make myself clear,” Sebastian said, resetting the arrow under my chin. “Ifyou don’t, I will kill her.”

Adrian’s storm-gray eyes went black, darker than the deadliest of tempests. “You aren’t a killer, Sebastian.”

“Would you have guessed I’d be doinganyof this?” Sebastian said, chuckling through the words. “Maybe let’s not rely on past notions of what I will and will not do.Kneel. Or is her life really worth your kingdom?”

“You kill her and you take the last bargaining chip you have.” For every second Adrian stalled, I thanked another ancestor of mine. He wouldn’t evenlookat me long enough for me to break through this conversation and tell him that he couldn’t do this.

Sebastian grinned, as if this all was nothing but a game in one of the many stories his line spun. “Surely there are other people you care about? Family? Friends?”

Oh,thatwas too fucking far. His family had been through enough. “I thought you weren’t involving Persy in this,” I quipped. Before mention of Artemis, his declaration not to involve Persy was the only time I’d seen Sebastian act without obvious intention.

Sebastian turned his head to me slowly, dragging his watercolor eyes down my face to settle on my throat. “You do realize I’m holding an arrow inches away from your vocal chords, yes?”

The statement, thrown out into the open, seemed to be the last straw for Adrian. “Reyna,” he called, his voice carrying a level of desperation that made me immediately nervous.

“No,” I said, shaking my head and uncaring of whether it caused the sharp metal at my throat to lance my skin. “Please, don’t.”

Adrian’s chest rose with a heavy breath. “Don’t askme to do that.”

“Adrian, don’t,” I begged, my body coming off the couch on its own accord before stopping as pain shot down my neck. Adrian’s rage rose considerably then, a slap of rain shaking the windows. “Please. I’m not worth it.”

Adrian’s face fell. He lookeddevastated. His eyes closed, a ragged breath leaving his lips as his head tilted with a wince.

And then he sank to his knees, his hands coming behind his head in surrender.

“No,” I sobbed, my chest wracking with such force the arrow pressed into my throat harder, sending another streak of blood dripping down my neck and down over my chest.

Adrian’s eyes never left mine as he spoke, his voice threatening vengeance. “Let. Her. Go.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.” My stomach sank, my worst fears confirmed. That I was never going to come out of this, and it was all to force Adrian to bow to Sebastian’s whims.

If that was true, I didn’t care to keep my reckless thoughts reigned in. My hand shot up in search of the arrow, but was cut off from commotion behind us.

At that moment a pained yelp stole the attention of the room.

I caught a disbelieving, relieved laugh at the last second. Adrian had clearly been trying to keep and hold Sebastian’s attention so that his plan could unfold.

Rose had wiggled her way out of her binds without a sound, then had silently taken down her guard. Emre had roused—if he was ever truly unconscious at all—and done the same to his. The third and fourth werealso on the ground, knocked out cold with Daphne and Lukas standing over them.

The yelp had come from the fifth, who Rose had in a firm headlock, not even flinching as a man twice her size struggled against her hold. After pressing down on a spot that made him whimper like a dog and collapse under the pain, she caught the syringe Daphne threw at her and plunged the needle into the guard’s neck, pressing a deep blue fluid into his bloodstream.

Sebastian forgot about me for a moment, his focus narrowed on his guard’s unconscious form. “You just signed the death sentence of someone ineverygod’s court,” he threatened.

“Really?” Adrian said, right as Rose bent and shucked up the guard’s sleeve. The tattoo on his arm was draining out of him, falling like splatters of paint down his hand and fingers before disappearing.

I stumbled away from it, moving towards Adrian on instinct. He let his strong hands wrap around me for a second before shoving me behind him. Sebastian was seething, eyes bouncing around the gods who’d appeared behind him while Adrian had him distracted.