Page 6 of Nightingale (The Broken Kingdoms #1)

H is heart was an uncontrollable thing, beating rapidly enough that he thought it might give him away as he stalked down the hallway, hands trembling at his sides. Castil curled his fingers inwards, his nails biting into his skin. Vrea Greenvass had always set him on edge, the teetering point of a blade turned on its side. Toppling to one side meant his death, by his father’s hands or hers, and he couldn’t decide which would be worse.

The other side-

Was also death, if he was honest with himself.

Leaving the only thing for him to do was to remain tiptoed on that precarious point, balancing his life and hers, before anyone came and pushed him over.

She was close to that, every single day she remained at Hawksmoor Keep, stuck in that dreadful room that had become her golden cage over the last few years. Even the prettiest of birds required freedom, no matter their size, no matter how glorious their bars had become. Vrea had fought for her freedom for the majority of her capture, refusing to sit down and die- which was admirable.

They all played such a dangerous game.

Queen Casta Greenvass and her entire brood, his father and his siblings. Death wasn’t something that they should have been messing with and yet both sides treated war like a simple children’s strategy game, meant to keep their minds sharp and their steel even sharper. They both involved all of their heirs in one way or another. Either sending them to fight and die, drowning in blood and bones on the battlefield or selling them off to a marriage bed like breeding livestock should one with a handy alliance appear.

Both equally disgusting.

Castil was grateful that he hadn’t been sold like a stallion meant for producing heirs, but it didn’t make the constant battles worth it. Either way, he was fucked. Truthfully, he was fucked both ways.

He’d seen the way Vrea’s green eyes had darkened as she watched the girl on Rian’s lap tease him, skillful fingers toying with his clothes and finding the secretive slips of skin. The way her breathing pattern had changed, the way she’d clenched her legs tighter, as if she too lusted after that. Castil didn’t need sex as often as some of his other brothers, but he couldn’t imagine going three years without it, at least not without any madness following suit.

Sex wasn’t just the act of penetration either, but all those intimate acts that surrounded it. The closeness it afforded the partners engaging in it. The trust and companionship that came with it, regardless of whether a relationship blossomed or not.

There was a passion in the Princess that was slowly overflowing with a desire to be explored, and held. One that might drown her if it wasn’t tended to soon enough. A passion that she transformed into anger in the right moments. Ones that he pushed her to because their father forbade anyone from entering her bed in that way, so riding Rian was not an option for her to look at.

Castil refused to let her die.

A slip up on her part would confirm her execution and the King was itching to swing the axe down on her neck.

She was too important, a great power in ending this war. Vrea Greenvass wasn’t only the last surviving daughter of the Niroulian Queen, but her known favourite child and chosen heir. Which was why he kept fighting for her life, to use her as a bargaining chip for those desperate things that the King wanted more than blood.

The monarch was growing impatient.

This meant the grains of sand in the glass were running short, and there was only a matter of time before he dragged the woman to the butcher block and sawed at her throat until it separated from her head.

Castil needed to act fast.