Scarred (Never After #2)(52)
But he doesn’t even flinch. Doesn’t even move.
I swallow, stuck in his gaze like quicksand.
He smirks, smoke seeping out of his mouth and curling into the air.
“Regardless, there’s nothing to be done for it now,” Xander says, snapping me out of my daze.
My chest twists as I turn my attention away.
Michael paces back and forth, his eyes bouncing from one wall to the next, and I bite the inside of my cheek as I take him in, wondering why he seems so uneasy when a few short weeks ago, a decapitated head rolled at his feet and he couldn’t be bothered to care.
“Don’t worry,” Xander continues. “I’ll take care of everything.”
CHAPTER 29
Tristan
“Do you think it’s a rebel?” Edward says, adjusting the cuff on the edge of his uniform. “Someone who’s grown restless and took matters into their own hands?”
A shot of rage fires through my chest at the thought of a rebel disobeying me, and I glance at Edward, distrust weaving through my mind.
“Why would somebody wish themselves a torturous death by my hands?” I ask. “They have to know that’s what would await them.”
He nods, rubbing at the scruff on his jaw. “Do you think it’s Alexander? That pathetic little bird?”
“I think everyone is suspect at this point.” I rise from my seat, making my way to the corner of Edward’s room and staring into the mirror perched on top of his chest of drawers.
“Even Lady Beatreaux?”
Defensiveness slams down like a concrete wall, cracking my foundation with its force. I spin to face him, tilting my head. “If you have something to ask me, Edward, do it. I cannot stand guessing games.”
He swallows, lifting a shoulder. “I mean nothing by it… but she is an attractive woman.”
I clench my jaw, tamping down the urge to cut out his tongue for speaking of her as if he has any right. As if he has any clue of how devastating she truly is.
“She’s my brother’s.”
He glances at me from his peripheral as he comes to stand next to me in the mirror. “Yet you warned the rebels not to touch her.”
I sigh, tiring of his line of questioning. “I will be the one to kill her, Edward. Preferably while Michael watches.”
My mind flashes back to the dinner, when she brushed against my cock, then placed the same fingers in Michael’s hand, smiling up at him like he was her world.
A sudden thought strikes me like a sharp slap to the face.
What if it was her responsible for Takan’s death?
She’s always sneaking around in places she doesn’t belong, has knives attached to her thigh, and plays the part of a doting royal when I know for a fact she’s a silver-tongued snake.
She was also sitting next to Lord Takan at the banquet.
A huff of air escapes me as the puzzle pieces slot together, a cool trickle of relaxation sliding down my insides at the realization.
Of course, it would be her.
My little liar.
I expect to feel anger, but instead I grow aroused, delighted that if it is her, she’s far more nefarious than I thought. It makes me want to push her, see how far she’ll go until she breaks.
My cock rises to half-mast from her devious deeds, and I sink my teeth into my bottom lip, biting back a groan, recognizing that this makes her even more attractive to me than she already was.
I straighten my black vest, then walk to where my black tailcoat is thrown across the chair, picking it up and easing my arms through the sleeves.
“This changes nothing with our plans,” I say to Edward, a sly grin creeping along my face. “Might as well make tonight a two-for-one special.”
The last ball held in the Saxum castle was when Michael assumed the throne, throwing the most lavish event since the turn of the century ten years prior.
I didn’t attend.
Must have slipped my mind.
Still, I knew that by presenting Lady Beatreaux to the court, she would be the center of attention.
However, I didn’t expect for it to affect me the way it is.
I watch her from the shadows of the ballroom, my blood bubbling like a vat of acid as I watch her paraded around on the arm of a dozen different men, all clamoring for a chance to dance with their future queen.
My brother sits next to my mother in a blocked-off area meant for the royal family, underneath a shimmering black and gold awning made of the finest drapery.
“She’s quite the beauty, isn’t she?” a slurred voice murmurs behind me.
I glance over, annoyance lancing through my bones that someone thinks they can speak of her. That irritation only grows when I see a short and stocky man with far too many jewels and red hair as bright as the sun, swaying in place, his wine sloshing over his glass.
Lord Claudius, the Baron of Sulta, which is a town across the plains of Campestria near the southern border. He used to spend summers with our family at the country estate, and has always been quite envious of my brother, almost to the point of obsession.
“Hello, Claudius,” I sigh. “Good to see you’re still quite the little creeper.”
He grins, tipping up his glass and draining the wine. “And you, Your Highness, still lurking in the shadows. Still hiding from your brother like you did when we were kids?”