Page 93 of A Vow of Shadow and Blood

“Get off me!” I scream as they push me against the wall.

“Calm down.” The voice commands, and I immediately recognize the deep tone, but how the hell did he get here so fast?

“Karius?”

I try to push against him, but he grabs hold of both of my wrists, pinning them to the wall above me.

“Get off me,” I hiss.

“No.” His dark eyes pierce into mine, sending shivers down my spine. An intense moment passes as my chest heaves up and down, my breathing the only sound in the quiet space. “Spying on me is a sure way to get yourself into trouble.”

“What are you going to do, kill me?”

His voice drops to a whisper. “There are far more wicked things I have in mind than killing you, little witch.”

A burning heat fills my core at his words, and I hate how my body reacts to him. It’s this damn bond. It’s the only explanation.

“And I wasn’t spying on you. I was lost,” I say in a bid to take the attention off my traitorous body.

He cocks his brow. “Then instead of standing outside my study like a spy, you should have knocked and asked for help.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“No? Because the skittering of your heart says otherwise.”

“Are you going to let me go?” I growl.

He shrugs. “I don’t know, I quite like seeing you in this position.”

“Well, just the sight of you makes me feel sick.”

He laughs at this before releasing my hands, but not before plucking the letter opener out of my hand.

“Wouldn’t want you getting any silly ideas now, would we?” he tells me as he pockets it. “Now, are you going to tell me how you really ended up outside my study?”

I pause for a minute, contemplating whether I should say or not. Hearing what he said in that room with Eamon, clearly, something is going on.

“There was a strange boy. I thought he was chasing me, but I’m not sure…” I say, leaving out the part about him finding me in his brother’s room.

All signs of humor leave his face.

“Did he hurt you?”

I shake my head. “No. It was just strange, that’s all.”

He nods, but something dark fills his eyes.

“I’ll walk you back to your room. Come.”

Ithrow another punch in Ajax’s direction and miss. I shake out my hands, ready to try again, but my mind keeps dragging me back to that room with the strange boy. I didn’t sleep again last night, half expecting him to jump out of the shadows and attack me. It’s been three days since my run-in with him, and I still can’t shake the eerie feeling that he left behind. My body is in a constant state of panic.

After Karius walked me back to my room that night, I had the ridiculous urge to beg him to stay, too afraid to be alone. I thought better of it, of course, and have turned up early for training every day since. I’ve always been able to protect myself, and that isn’t about to change now.

“You’re distracted, Red.”

For the first time, I notice that he has stopped and is watching me. I stretch my neck from side to side to release the built-up tension that seems to be forever present. I feel like I’m being watched all the time, and it doesn’t help that Karius has increased the number of guards in the palace. Everywhere I turn, I seem to run into a pair of red eyes.

Between my training sessions with Ajax and my time researching with Iza, I haven’t allowed myself time for anything else. I haven’t seen Karius much, but I know that he has Iza looking into more than just the bond. She thinks I haven’t noticed, but I have. I stay quiet, biding my time to use the information to my advantage.