Page 224 of The Dawn of the Cursed Queen

He looked down the bar as someone yelled for him. He held his finger up before grinning at me. “One second.”

I sighed and leaned against the bar as I waited.

“Anything?”

“You know, I didn’t know gods were so protective,” I murmured, glancing around the busy tavern.

“It’s been five minutes.”

I turned on my stool and looked around the room. A bathroom sign flashed in the corner, portraying images of beings washing their hands.

“They are in the bathroom. I have not been kidnapped or maimed, and all your favorite bits are in place.”

He chuckled. “All right.”

“Talk to you in five more minutes, you worrywart.”

A deep rumble vibrated through me before the warmth of our connection faded, and I was alone in my head again.

I turned back toward the bar, looking at the array of clear and multicolored bottles on the back wall. The bartender returned and dropped a platter down in front of me. Blood dripped from the edges, the scent nearly overwhelming. Veruka and Orym’s heads lay atop it, their eyes drawn back and mouths agape as if they’d died screaming.

“Is this what you were looking for?” the bartender asked with an amiable smile.

My stool clattered as I jumped up from my seat. A chill raced across my spine. The oracle’s sick, wet laugh mocked me. I wouldn’t follow her, headless boy, or you’ll have a twin to match. And match they did. My eyes darted to the smiling bartender as I shook my head slowly. “That is not what I’m looking for.”

A deep voice a few steps down asked, “You sure you’re not looking for the two-for-one special?” He sipped at the blood in his glass, and a sound of contempt left his lips. “A liar and a traitor?”

He resembled Samkiel and Kaden so much you’d have to be ignorant not to know he was their brother. I felt so dumb for not seeing the resemblance between Kaden and Samkiel sooner. Their demeanor, arrogance, over-the-top cockiness, and the enormous egos that made them believe that nothing living or dead could touch them.

“So, what’s your superpower? Are you like Alistair? Mind control an entire city to do your bidding?”

He held up a pure emerald stone. “Witches, actually.”

He crushed the stone in his fist, and the room flashed. All the beings that had been chatting, dancing, drinking, and laughing now lay dead. Pieces of them splattered across the walls and bar as if they had exploded from the inside out. The blood he drank looked like it had come from the bartender, who was half slumped in the seat next to him.

“It’s a glamour,” he said, lifting his glass and taking another drink. He pointed with the same hand toward the platter. “Except them, of course. They’ve been dead for hours.”

My heart thudded, and I took a step back, sliding a bit on the blood-slicked floor.

He stared at me, his tongue sliding over his teeth. He watched me as a predator would prey before it went in for the kill. “So you’re her? We haven’t been properly introduced. I am Isaiah. I didn’t get a good look at you when you stormed in and caused all kinds of chaos before running away with the corpse of my little brother.”

My fists clenched at my sides, nails biting into my palms.

Isaiah was suddenly on his feet and invading my space. My head tipped back as he stared down at me. His gaze moved over me from head to toe, not in lust but in clear disappointment.

“This is what you’d risk everything for? Where is the rest of her?” he asked, his eyes dropping to my chest. “She barely has any tits.”

My skin prickled, and my breathing quickened at the familiar sound of those boots against the floor, the measured steps I had conditioned myself to listen for. One step, then another, and every cell in my body went on high alert.

“She makes up for it in other places.”

Kaden.

My body trembled, the Ig’Morruthen in me thrashing and biting. It wanted to crawl to the surface and rip him to pieces for every single thing he had done, everything he had taken from me, but the rational part of my brain, the part Samkiel had trained, told me to wait and calculate my odds first. They lured me here to this desolate planet for a reason, and the fact that both of them were here meant they had no intention of leaving without me.

I turned toward him, the very bane of my existence. I forced myself to relax, refusing to let him see that every cell in my body was on high alert. They hadn’t come alone. A handful of his generals fanned out behind him. I forced a smile. Holding my hands out to my sides, I spun, noting every window and door. “I’ve got to say it was smart to drag me so far away, Kaden. Were you worried I’d torch a place you like?” I stopped and smirked at him. “I’m flattered, really.”

I angled my body and clasped my hands behind my back, slipping my ring off and placing it into my pocket. Samkiel couldn’t know what was going on here. He wasn’t healed, and if he showed up, not only would he be in danger, but they would know he was alive. They would go straight to Nismera with that information, and she couldn’t know. Not yet.

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