Scorched Treachery (Imdalind, #3)(51)

I watched him kill men with my own eyes, but he was able to turn around and find something to smile about. I had never been able to do that before. I had always just dwelled in my cynical life, relishing it.

Part of me wished that Edmund had never changed that by bringing Thom into my life.

Our child had been born without the royal eyes and, what was worse, without my unique ability for fire magic, Edmund’s great experiment was useless to him. Useless things were disposable. Thom had tried to prove that she wasn’t useless, that she was powerful, but Edmund never saw it. So, we made plans to escape, to take our child and run.

It would have worked if Edmund had not caught wind of our plan. As punishment, our child was tortured in front of us. My own father gladly took part in the hideous act.

I couldn’t get her screams out of my head. Edmund had finally found a punishment that suited me; he had found a way to make me pay. He had done more than punish us, however; he had lost our loyalty. If only he would have guessed what we were truly capable of, perhaps he would have rethought his actions.

Thom left. I would have gone with him if it weren’t for Cail’s constant supervision. He never left me alone; his worry over me was paramount. He held me as I mourned the loss of the one beautiful thing, the one person, I loved.

I thought I would never recover, until Ilyan found me.

He stood before me, his face screwed up in a strangely alluring smirk. His sandy hair sheared short against his head. He balanced his weight on an ornate walking stick, looking like he had just been caught taking a stroll on his enemies land.

I was one touch away from murder, my hand posed above the trunk of the tree, ready to send a million shards of wood into his skin. But I didn’t, all because of that stupid hat. The hat he held in his hands, Thom’s hat. He held it gently in his fingers, offering it to me.

“Thom asked me to give this to you,” he said quietly in Czech. I looked around the forest that surrounded Edmund’s estate, wondering how he had gotten in here. A large shape loomed behind him, probably that hulking bodyguard of his attempting to hide behind a tree.

“Thom?” I asked, the fabric of the cap soft in my fingers as I took it from him.

“Yes, he and Sain are in my care. I came to offer the same asylum to you.” I clenched the hat in my fist, the feather turning to ash as my magic flared. I wanted to say yes. Oh, how I wanted to leave right then, leave the giggles that haunted my dreams and the perfectly laundered children’s gown that still hung in my closet. But I couldn’t. There was one thing I couldn’t leave.

“I can’t,” I sighed, my own words stinging my throat.

“You want revenge.” My head shot up, my heart thumping at his words. I wanted to ask how he knew, but I could see that he shared the same aspiration.

“Yes.” My voice was a wispy pant of desire; it dripped off my tongue and into the air in a heady need.

“Then work for me.” He smiled and moved the walking stick in front of him, where he leaned on it like the village boys would against a fence.

“Work for you?”

“Yes, I have something you want, after all.” He smiled and leaned forward, making me fight the urge to slap him. His eyes were so much like Thom’s. Thom, who had left me behind.

I laughed lightly, using the tinkling sound of my voice to draw him in. “What could you possibly have that I would want?”

He smirked, but it was different from the smirk that most men gave me. It wasn’t a smirk of desire, the light in his eyes only showed strength.

“I can offer you a way to betray the man who betrayed you.”

He kept his eyes on me, his fingers clenching and unclenching on that walking stick of his. I arched my eyebrow, my hand dropping just enough that my threat was lessened but not enough that the danger was gone.

But then again, this was Ilyan; my threat to him may have never been present. I had watched him rip the arms off a man and wipe the brain of another only a decade before, all while still tied to a tree. There was a reason no one had done away with him yet.

There was also a reason my heart was thudding in my chest.

“What do you have inside that pretty head of yours, Ilyan?” I trilled, bringing my hands to the hips of the scandalous red peasant dress I had chosen to wear that day. “What would you have me do?”

He hesitated, his breathing level as he studied me. Part of me wondered if he was scared of me as well. The sheer tension of the situation made me smile. I popped my hip and raised my eyebrows at him before stepping forward. Ilyan stayed still, his hand still resting on the long staff in his hands.

“What do you want from me?”

“I don’t want your power, Wynifred.”

“You don’t?” I laughed. I found that hard to believe. “What of your silent companion? Would you have him take my power, to better protect you?”

I saw the hulking mass stiffen behind the tree. At least my words seemed to be affecting someone.

“Talon does what I bid him, Wynifred. If it wasn’t for that, he would be driving you through.”

A wicked smile spread across my lips at his words, ah yes, Talon. So it wasn’t my power, or even the fact that I was a woman that was affecting him, it was the murder of his younger sister not more than five years ago. Probably best not to mention how she moaned for him before I snapped her neck.

“So that’s a no then?” Finally Ilyan smiled, his teeth flashing briefly before hiding themselves behind his lips.