Page 6

Chapter five

A strid woke to the rhythmic cadence of trotting hooves and carriage wheels over gravel. Pink gleamed through her eyelids, announcing daybreak—but Fates, she was cold. The chill in the air numbed her hands and Astrid pressed her tongue to her teeth to keep them from chattering.

She remained still as images of her father’s gaunt face lined with dark veins flooded her memory. His council had been massacred. And her mother… had she survived their ambush? Every noble would have traveled to her father’s palace to witness her betrothal and garner the Clorean King’s favor.

Were the walls washed in their blood?

Rage fueled her heart until its beat outpaced the horses’ gait. The memory of Dimitri’s crushing grip on her throat, pinning her against the table resurfaced. His callused hand skimming beneath her skirt and palming her ass. She’d mistaken the vortex of shadows for his soul.

An error she wouldn’t repeat.

Astrid kept her breathing even and feigned sleep between two much larger travel companions. Her abilities were known, yet they left her unbound. The hard body beside her shifted and the rough scales covering the boning of his massive wings abraded her side.

A bump jarred her spine, and she leaned onto the male, letting her hand fall onto his lap.

A sharp elbow shoved her off and Astrid opened her eyes, snatching the dagger at his waist. She swung hard at the other male, burying several inches of blade into his chest. The plates of steel over his leather armor deflected the blow and the tip slipped lower, embedding between his ribs but missing his heart.

The brute she’d stolen the dagger from stood and backhanded her. Astrid’s head snapped to one side as pain exploded over her cheek. Her knees cracked against the freezing wood as she struck the floor. The rush of battle consumed her.

The male she stabbed crumpled beside her, howling as he yanked the blade free.

Astrid gripped his face as she righted herself. The golden aura of his soul gleamed past his flesh. Astrid twisted it, stripping him of the use of his arms and weapon before focusing on the soldier who’d struck her.

Blood trickled from her nose, flowing over her lips and falling onto the wooden floor.

Neither of these males would best her again.

After she incapacitated her immediate aggressor, she would tie Dimitri’s soul to his head and decapitate him.

He would be a ball she kicked around her palace for the rest of eternity.

The male’s wings lifted behind him as he stepped toward her. Astrid gripped the leather strap across his chest and flattened her hand over his sternum.

Before she could rend his soul from his body, the male arched his back and screamed. Wet snapping echoed through the small space, and he was torn from her grasp.

Dimitri effortlessly dragged him away, then kicked the carriage door open. The cliffside raced by and Astrid glimpsed the tops of pines far below them.

“My Lord, no. I’m sorry,” her assailant wailed.

Snapped bones jutted from his back and his useless wings looked more like a wrinkled cape fisted in Dimitri’s hand. He threw the male from the carriage and his anguished screams faded as he plummeted.

Astrid’s mouth went dry. Dimitri murdered one of his own soldiers. Her mind raced as she assessed the enigma before her. He wore his own crest. Killed with no concern of consequence. His clothing rivaled that of any noble-born, but his hands were as callused as a battle-worn soldier.

He opened his embroidered suit jacket and withdrew a black handkerchief. He glanced down at the male she stabbed as though he’d forgotten there were others in the carriage with him.

“Leave us,” he grated as he meticulously wiped the blood from his hand.

To Astrid’s surprise, the wounded male didn’t object. His voice cracked as he quickly muttered, “Thank you, Lord Dimitri.”

The male awkwardly crawled without the use of his arms to the swaying cab door. He hurled himself from their moving carriage and Astrid was struck mute. There were no shouts. No halting of the caravan.

Is this commonplace? Astrid’s eyes shot back to her captor. Who was he and how was she going to get away from him?

Dimitri closed the door and turned toward her. “Sit with me.”

The order lingered between them as an unspoken threat.

Astrid hesitated and scrutinized him through her magic. His soul didn’t gleam like the others. There were no stars, no golden aura. He emitted no light. The shadowed vortex churning in his chest was the sole occupant of his vessel.

Her power had proven useless against his ominous energy, so she shifted her strategy—quietly curling her fingers around her remaining weapon.

His interest.

Apprehension stiffened Astrid’s movements as she neared him.

“Did you murder my mother?” she asked.

His lashes lowered as she approached, and Astrid’s pulse quickened beneath his gaze. A normal reaction in anticipation of a kill, she assured herself. The heat in his molten gold stare didn’t affect her.

His mouth curved into a smirk and Astrid blanked her mind.

“Not yet,” he teased.

Hope and relief swelled in her chest. “Where is she?” Astrid demanded.

Was she being held in another one of these carriages? Astrid stepped past Dimitri to the window and peered out. The narrow road ran along a cliffside. A dozen black carriages rode before and after theirs, but she didn’t see the garrison Ambrose traveled with.

Did her betrothed even travel with his promised soldiers? A third of Ledivion’s army he would never forfeit as her bride price since he murdered every high-ranking official in her father’s council.

Dimitri’s callused hand circled her wrist and firmly guided her to his side as he took his seat. “If you want her life, you’ll have to bargain with me.” He smoothed his fingertips down her wrist and over her palm.

Astrid swallowed the urge to recoil and sweetly twined her fingers with his. “What do you want?”

Bargains were regularly struck among the Fae. While they weren’t magically binding, it was believed to be an agreement stitched in fate.

Breaking such a promise reaped dire consequences.

Astrid considered the marked gentleness in his touch. She needed information to devise an escape. Their location, the size of the entourage they traveled with, her mother’s location, all were plots and points required to contrive her gambit.

Killing a handful of males would have been a simple task, but a battalion? Her betrothed supposedly traveled with a full garrison. Even if half the soldiers had been left to defend the palace they’d stolen, she couldn’t fight them all.

Astrid swallowed. Dimitri’s desire was the only weapon in her arsenal. She would play her part…

Until she extracted his secrets and secured his death.

Astrid lowered herself on his thigh, sitting on his knee, as far from him as possible.

Dimitri’s lips parted in an arrogant smile as he leaned closer. She nearly moaned at the heat of his hand on the small of her back. His touch glided over her side as his arm circled her waist. There was no hesitation in his movements. No gauging her response.

The winged brute simply took.

His fingertips moved higher, lightly caressing the underside of her breast. “What are you offering?” he asked, dabbing his handkerchief under her nose.

His warmth and scent surrounded her, an offer of comfort Astrid knew was a lie. He was a winter night—crisp, clean, and deadly. An unforgiving beauty with notes of warmth meant to lure the unsuspecting to their demise.

If she could manage to hack off his wings, he would be the most stunning male she’d ever seen.

His eyes drew her in as he methodically kept to task, cleaning the blood from her face.

This close his eyes were like molten gold streaked in sunlight.

His dark lashes raised, and Astrid averted her gaze to stare out the window.

His chuckle reignited her resolve. She was the Anima Carnifex.

Males cowered before her. Her anger cooled only with her plans.

She would keep his head for eternity, leave him a voice.

The corners of her lips lifted into a sweet smile as she envisioned kicking his gagged head down her palace halls.

It was a strange thing, when she confined a soul to the head it didn’t need lungs to speak.

She’d look forward to removing his gag and listening to his broken cries as he begged for death.

A death she would never grant.

Astrid dismissed her daydreams of their future and focused on the present. If he was entertaining a trade, her mother would be safe for the time being.

She studied the passing scenery. The snowy forest far below them and the sheer face of a towering mountain blurred with the motion of the carriage. All she could ascertain was they traveled north for so much snow to remain piled on the trees.

Astrid rubbed her arm and exhaled a calculated breath, letting it fog. She turned a pleading gaze to her captor. “It’s cold. Where are we?”

“We’re heading to the southern palace,” he answered.

Their southern palace was less than a mile from the edge of her northern borders.

Astrid embraced the winter chill and let her teeth chatter. “Will we be there soon? I’m not dressed for your weather.”

“We’ll arrive within the hour,” he purred. “You can bundle under the furs on my bed.”

Astrid instantly bristled but masked her expression. The only thing she would be bundling in his bed was his cold, lifeless body.

Ledivion’s southern palace was the first conquest she planned in her subjugation of the war-mongering kingdom.

She would reduce the sprawling estate along the trade route between their kingdoms to ashes in the snow.

The cliffside road confirmed her location.

There were game trails that branched through the forest. She could escape him and reach her cousin Sorin in two days.

Dimitri pinched her chin and tilted her head to one side, inspecting her injury.

She endured his caress and prodding gaze.

With her father dead, she would retake her birthright.

If her cousins argued a female couldn’t wear the Serpents’ Crown…

she would bind them to their bodies and leave them spiked outside her palace as a warning to any who dared to oppose her.

My reign begins now , she assured herself. Dispatch Dimitri. Kill the coachman. Steer the carriage to the game trail and block her pursuers. Unhitch a horse and escape.

Confident in her plan, Astrid glided her night-streaked nails up the side of Dimitri’s throat. The corners of his mouth tilted up as she trailed her thumb over the strong cut of his jaw. Her fingers tangled in his short dark hair and Astrid’s power flowed through him.

His energy was a wild current, centered in the vortex of shadows within his chest. Astrid focused her magic, engulfing his. His soul’s natural ebb and flow didn’t bend to her will. It pulsed beneath her hold like a purring cat.

His muscular arms encircled her, and Astrid gasped as he dragged her closer, up his thigh. Panic seized her and her mind blanked. He was too close. Too strong. Her breasts molded to his unyielding body…

And his lips met hers.