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“I would take the time to warn you about picking fights with someone’s mate next time,” I said, raising a leg and slamming the bottom of my boot down on top of his knee.

He crumpled, leaving me to stare down at him where he knelt, waiting for the killing blow.

I thrust my hand into his chest, grabbing his heart and tearing it free from his rib cage. It beat within my hand.

Once.His body dropped to the floor, tilting sideways to sprawl as he stared forward, unseeing.

Twice.I pocketed my coin.

Silence.

***

I emerged from the shadow realm just outside Estrella’s room. Malachi protested as I flung open the door, moving far too slowly to prevent me from stepping into my mate’s space.I found her seated at her vanity with Nila brushing her hair behind her. I raised a finger to my lips, turning back to Malachi. If he kept quiet, no one needed to know how he’d failed to keep me from seeing Estrella without Mab’s permission.The other male crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at me as he jerked his head toward the door. “Five minutes and then get out,” he grumbled, his lips twisting with rage.

Estrella moved toward me, sliding her legs clad only in a silken night dress around the stool she sat on. She walked with quiet, nimble feet, approaching me as I held out the mass of tongue and heart held within my grasp.

I didn’t speak a word as I handed them to her. Her delicate fingers wrapped around the bloodied organs, studying them intently as the thick fluid ran down her hand and onto her wrists.

She looked up at me through dark lashes, her lips tipping into the hint of a smile so wicked it nearly brought tears to my eyes.

This was the mate I’d waited centuries for. A queen of death and carnage.

I smiled, watching as she tipped her head back as a silent laugh shook her chest. She lifted onto her toes, pressing herlips to mine as I summoned the shadows to return me to my room.

Her love surged down the bond, warming me as I returned to the empty rooms that missed her presence.

Soon.

***

My door crashed against the wall when it flew open the next morning.

“Have you lost your mind?” Mab demanded, stepping over the threshold to enter my room.

Holding up a single finger, I finished reading the sentence in my book, lifted the metal bookmark off the dining table, then slid it between the pages carefully.

I set it down, standing slowly to face the incredulous, outraged face of the Queen of Air and Darkness as she seethed. My leather tunic was open at my chest, the buckles undone in the privacy of my room. I gave Mab a lazy, unenthusiastic smile as I grasped the lowest buckle, hiding the lowest of my abdominal muscles and pulling the two sides together tightly.

“Nice to see you as always, my Queen,” I said, my sarcasm evident in my tone.

Her eyes dropped to my chest, sending a ripple of disgust through me as my fingers moved a bit faster to hide my skin. I turned toward the mirror leaning against the wall, the ornate silver detailing of it an ample distraction from the stepmother who would ogle an ogre if he were pretty enough.

“Don’t play games with me,” she hissed.

She raised her hand high, dropping the heart and tongue she held clasped within it onto the table. The heart rolledlopsidedly over the surface, coming to a stop against the weathered pages of my book in a way that made me sigh in frustration.

“Whose is it?”

The demand washed over me, lacking the force that the command needed to do anything but drive my frustration higher.

“No one important,” I returned with a shrug, stepping away from the mirror once my leathers were secured. I paused at the table, flicking the heart to the side with a sneer of disgust.

My heart clenched in my chest. Her snake wound itself tighter as she squeezed her hand, black nails digging into her own flesh hard enough to bleed.

“Whose. Is. It?” she repeated, and the lack of a heartbeat made my knees buckle.

I caught myself with two palms on the table, calming my rage as Estrella’s concern pulsed down the bond. “Haakon,” I growled, my upper lip peeling back to reveal teeth.