Page 163 of Red Ruin

“Iris,” Kevan sighs and pushes back his hair. “If this is a ploy, it isn’t very good. As for your position at my side?—”

“Did I ask about your mistress?” I grind the words through my teeth.Don’t crush the orb, don’t crush the orb. “Lend us the Eastern Legion and your Deathguard. We need to stop the lich king from rising.”

“We?” Kevan glances past me again, as if the bedroom setting is more important than my warning about the upcoming apocalypse. “Who is we?”

I lift the orb to block his view. “My new guard.”

“Which guard?”

“The one I transferred to. There’s nothing to tell if we’re not making a deal.”

Kevan tilts his head as if he’s never seen me before.

I could lead him by his frozen nose when he was lost in lich mode. When Kevan was lucid, I always jumped to hand him whatever he wanted.

This is the first time he’s meeting a version of me who realizes how fucking pointless it is trying to win him over.

I fold my arms and wait for him to catch up.

“I’ll need proof that the tomb is what you claim,” he says carefully.

“I give you my word.”

The duke pauses too long. “Can I trust you?”

Knife.

Heart.

Stars.

“It’sme,” I repeat, hollowing my soul to scrape those words out from my throat.

“Where are you? And in whose hands?”

“I’m in my own hands.”For the first time ever. “Or what? You think this is a conspiracy? Your enemies pickedmeto lure you out? Who’d bother? There’s a much better target beside you now.”

“So you do understand that I’ve imprinted.”

I drag in a sharp breath that wheezes out in a laugh. “Wow. That’s the first I’m hearing it from you.”

Kevan’s expression stays as smooth as the ice in his heart. “Come back. Our mothers will have you paired with a suitable Sentinel from a respectable house.”

I’m about to smash the orb.“I hope you regret it when you read the reports from the front. Just do me one favor? Kill me for good when you see my walking corpse. I deserve to have my afterlife to myself.”

For a second, I swear something like regret flickers in Kevan’s eyes.

Nope.

Those are pink flames, reflecting off the glass.

Before I can whirl, Vhex lifts me off the chair. He slides underneath me and hauls me back across his lap. Two possessive arms bar my waist. I’m forced to straddle his thighs. My bare pussy parts to greet the hard ridge of his shaft.

“Vhex!” I gasp, shocked by the sweet clench of muscle and his overbearing hold.

His heat wraps me in a winter coat, returning feeling to the hands I didn’t realize were numb.

How long have I been shaking?