Page 8 of What Whispers in the Dark (Promises of the Marked)

O ne thing was certain. She was going to stab Malik in the fucking face.

Jade kept her silence. Didn’t speak as she sat on the thick wood of a hitching post. One knee bent near her chest with her forearm poised on it, while the other leg dangled, anchoring her boot to the grass.

Carefully sharpening her dagger, the very motion a threat, she studied the male who leaned against a considerable pillar near Brennus’s massive tent, arms folded across his chest.

His wide shoulders draped along the wood that smelled as if someone had recently suffered a whipping while tied to it. And by the fresh stains of crimson, she didn’t doubt someone had been.

Curse the fucking Flames. He burned his reptilian gaze into her leathers as she scraped the dagger she had vowed for his skull along a whetstone.

She hadn’t felt the warm rush of blood between her fingers or the indescribable feeling of sinking a blade between a male’s ribs in too long.

It was an effort not to send the weapon across the firesite.

To lodge it between his night-blue eyes.

To watch the blood seep down his face and into his black, scaly leather jacket that extended to his waist, while the back fell low behind his knees.

If she had her way, he would leave this war-camp in a starsdamned coffin.

Nothing but pure primal arrogance stared back in the animalistic gaze.

Like a dragon preparing to scorch its kill, a mannered, predatory cock of his head in her direction had her mirroring the same threat.

Even the way the breeze tickled his dark locks across his forehead boasted of his significance and pretension.

She hated males. Fuc. King. Hated. Them.

So terribly she wordlessly cursed the entire race in her home realm, Torgal, no matter the species. Dragon-shifter, harpy, stonewalker, halfbreed … fucking Flame alike. They all deserved to burn.

Especially ones such as him . A major part of it because of the horrors Malik inflicted on her High Prince, but the remaining because he was the type of male who stood poised like he couldn’t be bothered by a female’s strength and presence, and desired the sound of their knees hitting the stones beneath his boots.

Every Flame in her realm stood the very same: chin raised high, a look of perfection in every inch of fabric they wore, even their posture was stunning to the point it made her want to vomit by the authority they shoved in onlookers’ faces who had the stones to meet their eyes before they were burned out from their skulls.

Smoke-coated wind collected her red cloak and snapped it against a Raven’s purple tent beside her. It scraped over the black raven, embroidered with golden stitching and crimson eyes, drawing Malik’s attention and a slight curl of his lip as if the meaningless incident offended him personally.

It’s a tent, asshole. Your High King wasn’t draped in it. If he were, she’d be tempted to light it aflame. Pity he wasn’t there to try.

Those midnight eyes snapped back to hers.

Something in the wind whispered of warning, of something ancient and cruel and black-hearted.

But Jade didn’t balk under that incinerating glare. Instead of an act so gutless and weak, she steeled herself, drew her dagger from the whetstone, and twirled it between her fingers as she raised her chin. Starring him down in a battle for dominance.

No. She didn’t show weakness. Not even as blue flames danced along the spikes of his leather collar, which resembled those on the tips of dragon wings.

She simply sharpened her smile to wholly menacing and malicious.

Threatening. Imagining every sound his mouth would make if she were ever permitted to bind him and put her hands on his flesh.

She might have imagined it, but instead of offense and disdain, was that amusement on his face? A chuff of smoke released from his nostrils as if he extinguished his flames inside his throat. Laughing—actually laughing— finding satisfaction in her defiance.

However unlikely, she hoped he’d choke on it.

“You know,” the fucker began, but she didn’t care to listen. It seemed that when a male spoke, nothing of substance came out, just some bullshit they spewed. “If you keep your face twisted like that for too long, it will remain that displeasing forever.”

Male laughter split the air around them. Snickers from those guarding Brennus’s tent and those lazed around the campfire.

Ignoring them, Jade kept perfectly still on the hitching post, leveling Malik with a glare.

She was forged in fury, and he was going to feel her heat.

“No one asked you to speak,” she snapped through her teeth, sharp enough to feel her bite.

Her pale knuckles tightened, clenching her dagger until they turned ghostly, shackling that unquenchable need for hungry violence against the walls of her mind.

It didn’t work. Didn’t do anything to keep it from bleeding through her thoughts. By the Flames, Garrik. Allow me to kill him.

Starsdamnit, she couldn’t do it here. Not in the High King’s camp.

Even as equal rank, even as Garrik’s Shadow Order, murdering one of Brennus’s elite would be punishable by death.

Especially Malik, one so treasured by Magnelis.

One of his highest, most ruthless torturers and magic-washers known in the whole of Elysian.

But one day … outside the piss-poor protection of the High General and his ilk … for Garrik … one day she would.

Malik’s death would be her doing. She’d take his name. It’d be wiped from existence and the histories. No one would mourn him.

The male seemed to have materialized by the magic-washing serpent’s side one afternoon as she introduced him to Magnelis’s court like a prized pet.

A mercenary from another kingdom who never pleaded for an absence to visit anyone important that she knew of—she’d followed him enough times to know for certain.

Truly, soullessly alone.

Only caring for her commands and the hellish magic Magnelis allowed him to keep in order to enact his every whim. The very magic he flaunted any moment he could, as if the fear Jade attempted to keep from her eyes brought him immeasurable pleasure.

Shouts in the distance, over the force of purple canvases spread over the land like vermin, drew their attention.

Soldiers returning from Telldaira, announcing the change of guard.

Jade regarded Thalon, who stood like an immovable mountain by Ghost, who was grazing with her tack removed.

His golden-runed, familial sword stabbed into the dirt as he burned his brimstoned gaze into the guards standing post outside Brennus’s tent.

They had the good sense to shut up and look nervous.

It seemed Brennus’s unease regarding Tarrent-Garren Guardians had filtered into his army. The slight shake of their hands around their spears and their downcast eyes pleased her more than she could describe.

Males cowering was?—

“Mmm mmm,” a smooth voice cleared his throat, forcing her attention back to the pillar.

Jade curled her lip at the male. “What? There are no mirrors around for you to look at yourself, so you demand my eyes for your reflection?” she sneered, and he seemed to pleasure in it.

Just like a Flame. Just like any male that considered her a lesser.

Held under their torch for their own sick amusement.

It disgusted her.

Made her feel as if her damned collar was secured around her neck once more. Burning her until she’d submit.

When Malik said nothing, Jade snarled, “ What ?”

But it was Thalon who called across the firesite, standing stone-faced, holy fury in his eyes, “Leave it, Jade. He’s not worth it.”

Thalon was right. The male could die for all she cared. Buried beneath the dirt as fertilizer, though nothing good would grow from it.

The dark-haired prick ignored Thalon, much the same as he did during Garrik’s imprisonment.

Then that reptilian grin twisted. “I was merely thinking how delightful it would be to see into that mind. To learn where something like you came from. Of who owned you before your beloved Savage Prince. Must have been someone terrible for you to cling to him so.” No doubt one of his tactics as a magic-washer.

To claw into her mind and change her every intention until only the High King’s pompous, wicked desires were her own.

Jade was tempted to wrap her fingers around her necklace, as one name hit her like a damning blow. Kieran. Shivers threatened to wave across her body at his memory. Even the burn scars on her body itched.

She didn’t give him the satisfaction of a physical response as he raked his eyes over her face, her neck, and stopped at that melted coin and spine like he hadn’t seen it a thousand times.

She never hid it. Always proud to acquaint her enemies with what she could do if they approached her.

Malik was no exception. She’d proudly rip out his spine and wear it too, but that honor she reserved for Garrik if he ever wanted it.

Studying her, Malik angled his head. The movement calculated, lethal. A predator measuring its prey before the kill. The leather cord burned around her neck, and she wasn’t certain he hadn’t ignited it with his flames before he mused, “How curious.”

He could keep wondering.

Unless she’d give him any reason to cart her to Galdheir to his dungeon of horrors, he would never see into her mind. And she wasn’t foolish enough to endanger the entire rebellion over one male who she couldn’t give a damn about, past spilling blood from his veins.

It was a low blow, but she never concealed her retorts to nurse a male’s ego.

“Run back to your snake, Malik. I’m sure her bed is lonely.

” They could both rot in it. Dying from some flesh-eating plague.

Slowly , with no cure. Perhaps one of the Mystics in the legion carried such powers…

If not, maybe one of Eldacar’s books harbored such knowledge of ailments.