Page 209 of Settle Down, Princess

“This is the moment where I share some sort of feeling,” Silas said. “Talk of my father fondly, all while acknowledging what an old bastard he is.” He shook his head slowly. “Instead, only the latter part of that is true. We should’ve done this years ago, you know that, right?”

“What matters is what we do now.”

He reached for Silas’ hand, but the other man tugged the prince into a rough hug. They thumped each other’s back and then pulled free.

“To the eradication of monsters,” Silas said, his smile so brilliant my heart felt lightened, even as my eyes ached. “To the beginning of a new era.”

So why did it feel like just the end of something as he closed the door behind him?

I jerked upright, wrapping my arms around my knees, needing to cling to something, but they would not allow that. Arik sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled me into his arms.

“I trust Silas with my life,” he assured me, holding me cradled against his chest. “I trust him to end the Raven’s.”

“Promise?”

I was being a child, I knew that. It was as if everything that had happened had forced me to regress some years, but as I stared into his eyes and watched him nod slowly, I took comfort from it, just like a child would. Anything other than taking things on face value was just too hard right now. I buried my face into his chest and just breathed him in. In and out, in and out, the spicy male scent of him soothed me somewhat, but true peace would only come when that door opened and Silas returned.

Chapter 116

Silas

The Guild headquarters were silent at this hour. In that no man’s land between night and day, the clubs had shut down for the night and most people were sleeping off whatever they’d drunk.

But not my father.

I padded through the corridors of the Guild’s primary building, passing by closed doors, hearing nothing other than slow breaths or silence, right up until the point I reached my father’s office. My hand went to the doorknob, sweat prickling across my skin, but I sucked a breath in, then another, forcing my lungs to obey a regime I set, not the adrenaline coursing through my veins. Every other male member of my family had done what I was about to do. Father had killed my grandfather and he his father. I had no uncles because they had all died in the same attempt to take control of The Guild. It was tempting to dwell on that, to consider how many people before me had failed to win a duel against the Raven. Gods knew I had done that often enough in the past. That and a total disinterest in manning the Guild’s helm had stayed my blade, I told myself.

But no more.

There was a crucial difference between me and other contenders though. I didn’t twist the knob and enter his office intending to survive this. I’d try my damnedest to do so, Jessalyn’s stricken expression stark in my mind, but… Her safety was more important than her happiness, so I jerked the door open.

The office was empty. The cold, still air, the ashes in the fireplace and the fact that the stink of cigars had all but faded told me Father had not been here for some time. I stalked over to the desk, checking the surrounds for booby traps, then used one of my knives to turn over the items left there, but I found no clues as to where he had gone.

Which made me think I knew exactly where he was.

I walked out of the office, down the corridor to the training rooms.

I’d trained in this place since I was a boy. The first time I was all of five years old and I had an audience of all of the Guild members currently unoccupied. They’d hooted and laughed each time I fumbled. At the time, I’d been focused entirely on getting better, faster, stronger. But now? I thought of Benny, Desi’s son, and questioned what madness it was, to teach such a small child to fight.

And kill.

It was only a few years later I’d learned how to do that as well.

My father liked to say Selene and I were gifts of raw iron from the gods and only he could refine us, work us, hammer us into a shape that was useful, but I wondered. I could’ve gotten Jessalyn with child just now. Would I see that child travelling the same path? Would I ‘train’ them from an early age in the same manner?

No, my heart cried, no! as I walked into the training room and there he was.

“Took you a while,” Father said, looking back over his shoulder at me, turning insultingly slowly to face me. “Had to tup that little lass of yours first, did you?”

“If you were wise at all, you’d keep all mention of my mate out of your mouth,” I snapped.

I was reacting not acting, letting him set the tone and that was not wise, but still. Something burned inside me, born from a small spark that Jessalyn had struck, and once alight, it would not be denied. All of my doubts, resignation, even ennui became its fuel, burnt to ashes leaving just this.

No man who threatened my mate would be allowed to live.

“And what’re you going to do about that, son?” Only my father could use a word like that with such scorn. All connections, all relationships were nothing but liabilities to him.

“The only thing I can do,” I replied between gritted teeth. “You had to know this was coming.”

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