Page 63 of The Heart of Nym (The Twisted Roots Duology #1)
If not for her stubbornness and the innate desire to make him suffer for the embarrassment he'd caused her, she would have thrown caution to the wind and shamelessly thrown herself at him.
Instead, she fluffed her hair and rolled onto her side, reaching under the pillow.
When the tips of her fingers grazed metal, her eyes narrowed up in his direction.
As always, he gave no implications as to what he was feeling.
She found no answers written on the lines of his face, but those eyes held a weight that was hard for her to bear.
She swallowed, poising herself with a low sigh.
"I suppose I should have a look before I choose to accept. "
"Smart girl."
Good gods, he needed to leave. She shouldn't be aroused by his praises, but the sound of them made every nerve in her body ignite and come to life.
Nymiria curled her fingers around what was surely a hilt, slowly pulling the object out from under her pillow until she saw the dagger in her grip.
The hilt was braided with leather cords that had been dyed that same deep purple that covered every inch of Aziel's room in his palace, the scabbard a heavy metal embossed with the unmistakable design of moonflower vines.
When she unsheathed the blade and lifted it into the air, she drew in a short breath as her eyes roved over the ancient language she'd only ever seen tattooed onto the backs of the men in her mother's court.
Anam et har finna baaht. Mortem du pravi cahl.
"Life in her final form. Death will claim all."
The saying came from an excerpt in the transcripts written by the gods' most loyal servants. Life gave way to death. As the saying went, when Greia could no longer hold the threads of one's life, death would claim them.
A shiver ran down her spine, hairs raising on her arms as she turned the blade over and over in her hands.
Though she hated the thought of allowing him to see her cry, she could not stop the reaction when she realized where the metal came from.
Given the distinct, familiar shape of the ornate keyhole embossed into the hilt, she knew that this had once been her chastity belt.
"Aziel—"
"Aim for the heart, Nymiria." He said it so quickly that she could have assumed that he was embarrassed. But he didn't need to be. It was the most meaningful gift anyone had ever given her. "Always aim for the heart."
She stared at him, clutching the dagger in her hands, letting the iron tingle through her bones. "I forgive you. I accept your apology."
Aziel's hands uncurled, his shoulders lowering by just a fraction, but just enough for her to realize how worried he'd been. "Good," he smirked, that devilish gleam in his eyes returning. "Because I need your help again."
Aziel had made many mistakes in his short twenty-five years of life and he had an eternity to go on making more of them. The biggest mistake he’d ever made was having her do this. He thought that it would be fine—that Seamus would be an easy kill. Instead, Nymiria was killing him.
Three nights ago, when he first asked for assistance on this job, he didn't think it would affect him this much.
He believed, what with both of them having been in this line of work, that he would have nearly perfect discernment when it came to what was real and what was fake.
But Nymiria was a great actress, leaving Aziel bouncing between fiery jealousy and calculated calm.
He’d never seen her in action, but gods, was it a show.
Seamus was wrapped around her finger, practically salivating as he watched her twirl away from him, her pink dress billowing around her like a cloud at sunset.
Already, she had him under her spell. And it was absolutely magnificent to watch her work.
What he didn’t expect to feel while watching her performance was the painful twist of jealousy that pierced through him.
Seamus’s eyes did not leave her breasts as they danced, but the moment she spoke, their eyes would meet.
He was shameless, his fingertips brushing over the slope of her spine and dipping too close to her backside.
He had to admit that it was hard not to stare at her, even in the glamour she wore.
Despite the hair color and the tone of her skin, everything else was entirely the same.
Seamus didn’t deserve for her to even breathe in his direction, yet he was pressed against this goddess as if she belonged to him.
Aziel’s hand curled around the hilt of his sword, gaze moving to his brother.
Oran was across the room, looking pitiful as he stared up at the fiancée who still had not given him the time of day.
She was just standing there, staring out at the revelers with a sour expression on her face, arms folded over her chest.
They looked beautifully miserable with each other.
Shamelessly, he turned his attention back to Nymiria, an odd feeling of displeasure coursing through him when he saw her hands smooth over Seamus's chest. The poor bastard was stumbling over his words and angling his hips so that his half-erect cock would not be noticeable.
Nymiria may not have noticed it, but Aziel did. And it sent a fucking fire blazing through his veins that made him wish he could gut the filthy prick right here on the polished marble floors.
He hated having to use his brother's birthday as an excuse to kill someone, but Seamus rarely graced anyone with his presence and when he'd overheard talks of the Duke of Gillian coming to celebrate the prince, the plan formulated itself.
This kill was far riskier than the others he'd slipped onto Dorid's desk over the last few months, as the king had declined the request for Seamus Kelly's death.
Seamus was one of the many keys to getting Dorid what he wanted.
He was the son of the Duke of Gillian, a spoiled Marquess that was born of a Mystic mother.
How they'd allowed his lineage to slip through the cracks was unbeknownst to Aziel, but he assumed it had something to do with the aura that the man gave off.
He led the Gillian March, a group of brawny men who were said to defend all of Yaar from what lurked in The South Mists.
Aziel had seen the man at work, watching him cut down beasts and creatures with horns and bark for skin without an ounce of remorse, and he wore his successes proudly on his chest. He was heavily ornamented and heavily guarded solely for that fact.
His guards were merely feet away from where Aziel stood, their wishful eyes following Nymiria as she was twirled through the crowd by their leader.
Aziel ground his teeth, forcing himself to look away from the performance just long enough to catch Camalia's heated gaze.
Her eyes bore into him, his spine going rigid the moment she arched her brow at him.
She knew.
No matter how many times he assured her that nothing was going on between him and Nymiria, Camalia knew better. Everyone seemed to know better, as much as he tried to hide his affections for her—as much distance as he'd put between the two of them over the course of the last few days.
Perhaps it was only natural for them to sense something so strong and powerful.
Just as fae could sense humans and their intentions, the humans could also sense things that were considered a threat.
They were weak and fragile creatures, but all it took was one act of insane bravery for the Mystics to be confined to camps—their necks shackled in iron and the strength of their powers doused from the nullifying elements in the metal.
What existed between him and Nymiria went beyond even fae understanding. They were the last of their kind, true heirs to forces that kept a peaceful balance in the world, and they were mates.
A shiver crawled up his straightened spine, eyes narrowing on the queen that had him locked in her trance.
He could feel her pull on him, slithering up the center of his back where she'd carved those runes into him all those years ago, trying to pry her way into his being and keep his attention all for herself.
It did not matter how much she wished to control the places where his eyes landed, there was not a strength of power in the entire world that could keep him from seeing her.
Camalia's disbelief spread through him in the form of fire, his eyes closing against the burning under his skin, breathing sharply through his nose to try and conceal the pain he felt crawling across his back.
Aziel gripped the pommel of his sword, releasing a low growl that was inaudible to those around him.
He would endure it.
Ten years had passed and he'd been as patient as he possibly could to end all of this. The time was coming. Yaar was nearly wiped out of leaders and each territory was having to appoint new ones to replace the ones he and Nymiria had killed over the last four months.
The plan was coming together nicely.
Without Seamus's guiding hand steering his men to the most vulnerable places in the Divide, the army they built in Eadyn would be able to slip through without issue.
He and Nymiria just needed to play their cards perfectly and they would be making strides in the complete destruction of Yaar, but the careless mask of an assassin was starting to fracture and split apart, revealing a man that wanted nothing more than to drive his sword straight through the heart of the bastard that now had a handful of Nymiria's ass, pressing her curves to his worthless body and reveling in the feeling to have her so close.
As if she'd felt his hand tighten around his sword and could sense all of his rage, Nymiria finally looked at him.
Her lips were parted, her chest rising and falling with panted breaths.
Strands of loose golden waves were laid across her face, clinging to the small droplets of sweat that were beaded up on her flushed cheeks.