Page 38 of Nightingale (The Broken Kingdoms #1)
E verything inside of him told him that it wouldn’t be long now before someone would come to see him, or attempt to kill him.
Rian could see it going either way.
He’d been left alone for what seemed like four hours, with nothing to do but wait out his future, waiting for Queen Casta to preside over him. But he’d seen the look in Eamin’s cold eyes, the ones that narrowed in pure hatred as soon as they saw him. The ones that squinted in silent questions, as he asked what is he doing here?
Eamin was the one to watch out for.
Even the reports that he’d read about the vicious heir painted him in nothing less than a malicious light. He’d read the way the heir fought on the battlefield, how his poisons were used for the most painful effect possible. He liked to watch his victims suffer, clawing at their throats for reprieve as the toxin swirled through their system. Vrea had carefully shared the story about the scar from high on her thigh to her knee, how her sibling had been the cause of it. She’d shared their trials and tribulations over the years and each story only added to the painting of portrayal that the Prince had built for himself.
That was the heir that he didn’t want to cross.
They hadn’t even stood in Vasthold’s compound for ten minutes and he’d already seen signs of distress with Eamin.
Vrea became as still as stone, as stressed as river rapids that bounced off of river rocks, if Rian could properly read the tells of her figure. He liked to think he could, especially after the night in the tent. There was another thing inside her mind, something that stirred her up and mixed her confidence into a smaller dose.
Rian considered the way she’d acted towards him of late, of the softer side she’d shown him since he’d almost died to the Blacklegs. Had she gone and fallen in love with him? Had he taken her heart? He wouldn’t dare call it a gentler change in her, not when she could still plunge either of her daggers into his chest at any given time, or when she gave him looks just as sharp and lethal. Personally, he wanted to see her kill the shorter of her brothers on the stairs, and she’d looked as though she wanted to, with the glare she shot his way.
But something between them had shifted.
It was undeniable.
Even Rian felt a faint rumble of affection for the pretty female. She was attractive, very much so, with her mossy green eyes that turned more toward grey whenever she felt strongly about something, the bangs that drifted over her brows or the short chestnut hair that fell a couple inches lower than her chin. Even her skin glowed a beautiful sienna, rich with bronze where the sun hit it in certain spots.
The pressured lock on his door flipped, metal groaning in protest as the door creaked open, a form entering his chamber.
His visitor wasn’t unexpected.
Not after the calculated leers.
“You’re here.” The male drawled as the miserable shadows hid his face. No one had lit a candle for him, or even provided one for him to light himself.
“It would appear so.” Rian stood, rising from the horizontal position on the bed he’d taken up in an attempt to catch up on sleep before he was summoned before the Queen and her brood. “Can I help you?”
“I want to know why.”
“And I want to know why you’re in my room, but you haven’t given me an answer for that yet, so why should I give you one?” He ground out, angling himself in an attempt to see his company better. His feet met the floor and he cracked his spine.
“I’m surprised it wasn’t Regulus, since he was the one I’d been corresponding with.” The darkness parted to reveal Eamin, his features neutral. “Imagine my disappointment to find you, standing on our doorstep like an impatient, hungry hound. Especially after I sent my little sister to take you out and instead she brings you here, of all places. Imagine my shock.”
Confusion bolted through him, “What do you mean by that?”
“Has no one filled you in, Rian?” Eamin snickered, his cream tunic rustling as he tucked his hands into his pockets and took a turn about the long room. “Regulus and I have been sending letters for the past three years, regarding my sister. He was supposed to take her out, and yet it seemed he failed to do even that. So when I heard that a Moordian Prince arrived at our gates, I wasn’t expecting the youngest of the litter.”
Rian’s body went loose, understanding filling him like drops of sand in an hourglass as they fell, one at a time. “You were the one that told him what she looked like, when she was coming, and who she was going after. You’re the reason she was caught in the first place.”
He didn’t try to deny it, seemed to bask in it.
“I was hoping to get rid of her without getting my hands dirty, but it seems as though you’ve left me no option.” He spun on his foot in a clean sweep, “Why did you bring her back here, Rian?”
He didn’t back down, meeting his challenge with just as much fury. “Versus what, leaving her to rot in my father’s castle? Leave her to perish an uncomfortable, boring death? You take one look at her and tell me that that’s how she’s supposed to die.”
Anger swept through him at the idea of her lovely body slowly rotting away in the locked room, at the loss of light in her eyes, the sallow expression that she would have gained over time. In her three years, he’d already begun to see signs of it, the contemplation of throwing herself out the balcony and ending it all.
“You could have killed her.” Eamin suggested with a wicked smirk. “You could have left her on the road, fed her to the Blacklegs even. You could have wiped your hands free of her and been praised by your father even, for taking down a Greenvass.”
“Are you trying to convince me to kill her?” Rian interrogated with a snap, “Because I won’t do it.”
He’d promised Castil he wouldn’t.
“Why, Rian?” The male asked quietly, dangerously, judgmentally. “Has she managed to sink her little claws into your heart? Has she wriggled her way into your mind like a filthy earthworm? Has she swam deep into your soul and made a home for herself there?”
He shoved him back, tired of whatever game the slippery eel was trying to play with him. “Get out of this room, Eamin, before I find the most dull item in here and smash your skull in with it. Trust me when I say that I have no problem with killing you. I want to, so come on. Egg me on. Push my buttons and see just how far you can get before I snap. I won’t kill her because I respect her. Yes, there is a bit of attraction that I feel for her. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Eamin barked out a rough laugh as Rian firmly grasped a handful of his shirt. “Oh you poor, miserable soul. You have fallen in love with her, haven’t you?”
He didn’t answer, instead slamming the male against the closest wall with a dull thud. He grunted, eyes fluttering to the back of his head.
“I want to feel your hot blood running down my skin when I kill you.” Rian brought his mouth to the Prince’s ear, so close that he could have ripped it off with his teeth if he wished. “I want to crack your skull open and drink wine from the remains, to spill it over your decaying corpse after I’m done with you.”
Eamin had the decency to look scared, fear darting back and forth between his cinnamon shaded eyes. His face tightened, muscles in his jaw working as he tried to figure out what to say next.
Rian beat him to the punch.
“You don’t touch a hair on her head, do you understand me?”
“Or what?” He coughed out, clawing at the arm that braced him against the wall. Rian held tight, refusing to let him go, to drop him as he dangled him off the ground a few inches to let his warning sink in further.
“Or else,” He chuckled, shaking his head as he lowered his chin. “You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
Rian murmured, “You want a Greenvass dead, Eamin?” He went one step further. His teeth latched on to his ear, jerking his head in a quick motion and spitting the chunk of flesh as the taste of metallic blood filled his mouth.
Eamin screamed.
It was music to his ears.
Rian chuckled darkly, crimson dripping from his mouth and splattering on the polished floor as he said. “Then you’ll be the one I kill first.”
The doors slammed open as Rian dropped the cowering Prince to the floor, falling back as four guards rushed in. He held his hands up by his head. His surprise was handed to him though as the one in charge stared back at him.
A woman, tall and lean.
Her attention slowly dragged to the ground, watching Eamin as he slithered across it like a wounded snake, hand cupping his bleeding ear as he struggled to find the missing piece that Rian had bitten off.
The ear was a couple of feet away.
“Let me guess,” She started with a glance up at him, hand resting on her blade, but in a stance that alerted Rian that she wasn’t about to whip it out. “He was being an asshole?”
There was no desire to slit his throat for assaulting an heir, no move within her to clap him in irons and drag him down to the lowest levels of the castle. There wasn’t even a hint of astonishment at his actions. As if she knew the male would act like that.
As if she’d been the one to let him in.
His eyebrows flicked up in delighted shock. “Obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have threatened him.”
Her grin was practically lupine as it rose up one side. “I figured as much. Get off the ground Eamin, you look like a simpering child.” Her boot kicked at his side and he swatted at it like a hissing cat.
“ Fuck off , Imogen.” He pushed upwards, swiping the bit of flesh and shoving it into his pocket as he glanced at his hand, covered in red. “Why are you just standing there?!?! Arrest him, kill him, do something other than just standing there!”
“No, I’m good.” Imogen raised and lowered her shoulders in false consideration. “Besides, I don’t answer to you, I answer to Vrea. Last I checked, you’re too much of a dick to be her.”
His focus swung towards her at the name.
“You’re friends with Vrea?”
“Friends is a loose term. I’m her assigned guardian whilst she’s here. All the stuck-up heirs have one, for extra precaution.” She quickly glanced back towards Eamin, who slunk towards the door with a grunt of pain. “Though, I’m not sure where his is.”
She checked around, as if he were somewhere in the room with them and found no one, returning her attention to him.
“Where is she?” Rian knew he didn’t have to clarify, since there were only two women of importance within Vasthold, and anyone would know that he didn’t mean the Queen, but the one he’d come here with.
Imogen’s chiselled jaw slanted upward at the ceiling and he followed with his eyes. “Waiting for an audience with the Queen. About you, actually.”
Eamin scowled, “You shouldn’t be giving away private, confidential information about anyone, Imogen. That’s not part of your job, that’s not what we pay you to do.” He released the side of the door, a bloody print left on the white wood.
She flipped around to him. “Actually, you pay me to make sure that your sister doesn’t die. Or at least to make sure that it doesn’t happen for quite some time. Oh wait, it’s your mother that pays me, not you. And guess what, Eamin? Even if she doesn’t care who you kill, try to kill, or hire someone else to kill,” Her thumb jerked in Rian’s direction, “It doesn’t stop me from being able to kill you . And considering that I like your sister far better than I like you, I would maybe take that under consideration. Now get your snivelling ass out of Rian’s room before I shove my foot so far up there that you won’t be able to find it for days.”
One of the men choked down a chuckle, trying to disguise it as a cough.
The Prince turned to ice, as white as snow.
She only waved her fingers at him, slouched over and batted her eyelashes in a dramatic, flirtatious way. “Bye now.”
His lip twitched in rage, his face straining vermillion before he cursed and slammed the door behind him with a loud bang.
Imogen pinched her crooked nose, broken from what appeared to be a long-ago fight if the curve in the middle was any indication. “I’d apologise for him, but then that would show that I care enough to clean up after his messes, and I truly don’t.”
Rian grinned, “Pleasure to meet you, regardless. Anyone who talks to Prince Eamin like that, I definitely want to know.”
She looked at the door, at the red hand stain. “Yeah well, he can kill his siblings and your people, but he’s not allowed to kill me. Therefore, I have no fear of watching how I speak to him.”
“Still, so elegantly proficient with your insults.” He complimented, wiping at his mouth and licking the residue of blood off his white teeth. It was bitter, just like the male it’d come from.
Imogen mocked a bow, swirling her wrist several times. “I live to serve Vrea.”
His face scrunched and she read his hesitation.
“She wanted me to make sure that you didn’t die before her mother… well, sentences you to die.” Imogen unfolded with a wince, shrugging from side to side.
“My chances are grim, I take it?”
“You may have brought Vrea back here, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re a Moordian. The Golden Prince, and all that bullshit.” She helpfully offered up, agreeing with a flat press of her lips in agreement. “Unfortunately, I’d say so.”