Page 61 of Storm of Shadows

I duck my head away.

“I told you, I don’t want it.”

He considers me for a moment, then obviously decides to change tactics. “It will keep you safe.”

“I don’t need the three of you to keep me safe. I can look after myself.”

“You know you can’t win at this little game of yours, right?”

I stand up and storm towards the door before he can stop me.

“Make sure you’re back here again, same time Saturday night.”

“We’ll see,” I tell him.

“Yeah,” he says, “we will.”

His words irk me but I resist the urge to snipe back and keep walking out of the kitchen and into the hallway. The light isextinguished out here and as I walk towards the door, I almost don’t see him lurking in the darkness. The third Prince. The third shadow weaver. Thorne.

He’s watching me with that same look of disdain painted all over his face. Beaufort might be insistent that he and his brothers want me but it’s clear as day that Thorne does not. Everything in his expression tells me how much he despises and loathes me. A commoner. A Slate girl. Clearly not worthy of a man like him.

“Don’t worry,” I snap, “I’m going. I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here.”

His face doesn’t alter and he doesn’t say a word.

I toss my head in annoyance and stride right out of the door.

I won’t be back.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Thorne

I watch from the window as the little thing dashes out of the tower and scurries away.

Beaufort has always enjoyed playing with his prey. I remember as a kid how he’d go scavenging out in the palace gardens for insects and small creatures – collecting them up in glass jars and making homes for them in discarded boxes. He never hurt them – never tortured them like some kids did. But he didn’t let them go either. They were his pets. His playthings.

He didn’t like to share back then either. Given his status in the realm, he didn’t have to.

Things are different now. Fate has tied us together and we’re bound to share for eternity.

That includes the girl.

A girl I have an aching desire to protect.

Is that fate again? Dictating my actions? Manipulating my emotions?

It doesn’t matter either way. The desire is too strong to ignore.

Knowing both Beaufort and Dray are in their rooms – our guests long departed – I step out into the night unseen.

Someone – probably more than one person – has been using the girl as a punchbag. Every day she has a new injury. It ends now.

I will no longer let that happen.

I will be her private protector. Her shadow. Blending unseen into the darkness.

I follow her through the cobbled pathways that weave between the towers of the academy, treading silently on the ground, hiding in the dark. Perhaps she senses me. Three times she peers over her shoulder and once she stops completely, spinning around.