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Oxygen suddenly rushed into my lungs as his grip loosened and he fell. My body erupted into a scream as Miles landed face down in the dirt with an arrow in his back, his mask tumbling away from his head, a thick mane of shaggy obsidian hair falling around him like a halo.

No.

He groaned in pain as I dropped to my knees beside him, my hands grabbing at his arm as sunlight caught the stream of ruby red spilling from his wound. “Miles!” I screamed, bile rising in my throat. “Miles, please!”

Someone shot him.With that realization I whipped my head from side to side, searching the trees for the source of the arrow as the sobs tore from my chest, my body instinctively moving to protect him. “Who’s there?” I called, my voice laden with ire, unafraid of the fact that I could be shot with an arrow at any moment. “Who thefuckis out there?”

I spun toward the sound of hooves as a mounted horse walked slowly toward us, a figure silhouetted by the sun. I could just make out a bow slung over their back.

Miles moaned into the earth again and I silently thanked the Saints he was still alive as I scrambled to my feet, forgoing my thin blade in favor of his broadsword. I allowed the fury that had been building inside me to smolder. With no effort, fire traveled up the pommel of the broadsword, igniting across the blade like wildfire as I stalked toward the rider. My control was slipping away, and I knew one wrong move would set the forest ablaze. But still I marched, flaming sword in hand. Whoever shot Miles was going to burn at the end of it.

“Petra,” a voice called from horseback. My heart stopped — or maybe it started beating so quickly I could no longer feel it. My blood went from boiling to freezing as the sword’s flames were extinguished in an instant.

He dismounted, his own sword drawn as his molten gemstone eyes traveled from me to Miles’ crumpled form. The broadsword fell from my grasp, still smoking, and I stared at him, words turning to ash on my tongue. The bruises had faded slightly since I’d seen him standing next to his father, but the gash on his forehead was still angry and jagged.

Calomyr —Belin— took a hesitant step toward me. And all at once those gemstone eyes held me in place. “Are you okay?”

PART II

CALOMYR

Chapter 15

Four Years Ago

Fuck her if you have to. That’s what Castemont said. The words echoed through my mind. When I held Petra as she lay limp in the street in the pouring rain, unconscious and barely breathing after Castemont ordered her house be set ablaze… I knew if I continued to see her, I was going to lose my nerve. I’d given in and fucking kissed her. I couldn’t lie to myself and say it had been a part of the plan. I kissed her because I wanted to. I shouldn’t have, but I did. And it was going to make it so much harder to do what I needed to do.

So I holed myself up in the King’s Keep for a week and tried to straighten out my mind. I wasn’t in this for love. I was in this to save the realm. My feelings for her couldn’t be stronger than my commitment to the plan.

Petra’s delicate hand was wrapped in mine as I led her over the ledges and ridges of the cliff face. What radiated from her was heated anticipation, and it infected me like a damned fever that my body couldn’t fight. She gave my hand a squeeze, and the movement was so subtle, so insignificant, that I may not have even noticed it if it’d been anyone else. But it washer, so it almost derailed me completely. I was teetering on the edge of surrender.

Fuck her if you have to.

There was a difference between what Castemont told me to do and what I was about to do. I didn’thaveto do this. I could have carried on with Castemont’s plan without doing this. But I wanted to do this, and I’d been a fucking fool to think I didn’t want to take her to the cave and ravage every inch of her fucking body.

But the dark cloud that was the incessant truth followed me everywhere I went. My want couldn’t exist on its own, because I couldn’t exist in Petra’s world without Castemont. I was the King. Untouchable. Invisible. Our paths wouldn’t have crossed —couldn’thave crossed — if Castemont hadn’t designed the map.

Did this all-consuming desire I had for her come from that fact? Did I only want her because she was the one person in the entire realm that I couldn’t have? Anyone else. I could have anyone else, but it was Petra, and it’d been Petra from the moment I met her.

It’s just sex.I repeated it to myself over and over.It’s just sex.Feelings didn’t have to be involved. Feelingsweren’tinvolved. Maybe I was close to losing my nerve, but I had the control and discipline to keep it.

Right?

She had no idea these thoughts ran unrestrained through my mind as she followed behind me. Her eyes were hooded, her bottom lip pulled between her teeth every time I looked back at her.Fuck. There was absolutely no way she didn’t know what that look was doing to me, what those autumn eyes were telling me without a word. She had to know.

The dagger was tucked into my boot. And if it worked out, she’d soon be in her most vulnerable position, pinned beneath me in the throes of ecstasy as I moved inside her. I could kill her and be done with it.

Fuck her if you have to.

Maybe I wouldn’t kill her this time. But I wouldn’t let myself enjoy this. I absolutely couldn’t. But she could. That was going to be a part of the plan, I decided. I was going to make sure she enjoyed it, and I’d end her life another time.

Fuck her if you have to.

I all but threw her into the cave and finally let myself do what I’d wanted to do since the moment I first saw her at Cindregala. My hands roved over her hips and I pinned her to the cave wall as she writhed with need. She moved against me like the Saints made her body to fit mine.They didn’t, I reminded myself. I hooked her legs around my waist and ground into her, closing my eyes. I was afraid that if I looked at her, I’d crumble.

This means nothing to you. This is a part of the plan. It’s just sex.

But I couldn’t help it. I had to look into her eyes. I needed to see the anticipation that was there because of me. I pulled back, instantly knowing I’d made the best decision and worst mistake of my life, because what I saw in her gaze… If she wanted to burn the world to the ground, I’d light the match for her. All she had to do was give me that look.