Page 48 of Trapped By Vengeance

Konrad’s grin stretches, and he steps closer. “May I?”

“I don’t know?” I tuck a half-sodden strand of hair behind my ear. “How charming can youpretendto be?”

He steps closer, the warmth of his body coming as close to affecting my corpse-like shell as anything can. I almost feel alive again. “I can be quite convincing if I wish to be.” Konrad’s hands stretch around my waist. Then he tugs me flush against him.

I lean forward, resting my face against his chest so I can hear his heartbeat. It is such a delightful rhythm. I honestly could listen to it all day.

Except for the part where I’m supposed to be the one to halt it. Because I’m the heartless monster who lost my own rhythm nearly six years ago.

Konrad ducks his head close to mine, his lips on my earlobe. “If you desire, I can even convince you into thinking I am one of the noble rogues from your stories.”

Desire. Will Konrad have any left for me when he discovers what I truly am?

My fingers reach across Konrad’s chest to his coat lapel. I tug it gently. “And you’re not roguish in the least?” Oh, yes, this definitely reminds me of my days as a mere mortal with warmth in my own body.

“The problem is more with my ‘nobility’.” Konrad’s tone cools, and he takes a step back, though his hands remain on my waist. “If I were a noble, I could provide for you the way you deserve, baroness that you are.”

“You’ve always treated me like a lady.”

He grunts. Then Konrad hefts me into the air, setting me sidesaddle behind Eloise, who is sticking her tongue out at both of us.

I quickly situate my skirt so he doesn’t see my garter sheath that once again bears my little black digger. Eloise hasn’t noticed yet that I lifted it from her in her sleep.

“I’ve treated you as well as I can afford,” Konrad mutters, grabbing the horse’s reins and leading it forward. “Which isn’t near as much as you deserve. So, you shall return to your father, who can provide for you the way you deserve and make penance enough that I can provide for Eloise, too.”

I glance down at the little girl as I situate myself better on the horse. And my stomach churns a bit at his guilt. He’s notgreedy; he’s just trying to make a life for himself and his daughter in a world where they were both born at a disadvantage.

I’ve tried so hard to hide away from the knowledge that, despite his protests, he is a good man and not the villain he paints himself as. Which is unfortunate and only gives me the strangest sensation of second-hand guilt.

Or maybe it’s firsthand. Because not even a wicked man deserves what I have in store for Konrad of Schwerin.

We are coming upon my home far too quickly. I can see the silhouette of the formidable keep rising in the distance. My hunt is almost at an end, with my prey willingly walking into his trap.

I glance down at Konrad, who is unknowingly marching to his doom. He has become more than my prey and more than my captor. For all the secrets I’ve had to keep from him, I’ve never been able to speak to someone as easily as I do to him. I think, if we were normal mortals, we would call what we have friendship.

Friendship . . . with a little something more. Because I enjoy kissing him as much as talking.

It’s almost as though my gift has somehow backfired on me.

Eloise yawns and stretches as the horse takes us through the half-dead forest surrounding my childhood home. “Are we almost there yet?”

Konrad gestures forward with the one free, weary arm. “Do you not see the castle right there on top of that hill?”

Thunder cracks through the sky at his words, and a fork of lightning better illuminates it for a moment. The scene is ominous, especially since no rain yet falls.

Dread fills me for what they don’t know yet. What the little chickpea should never have had to know.

Then again, she’s not essential to this. She can continue to live in her ignorance. But I don’t dare give Konrad an express order and discover it isn’t my thrall-like kiss that has him trust me so implicitly.

I’m not sure if I could bear it to know he genuinely trusts me as I lead him to the slaughter.

But not Eloise. She has no part of what is coming. She shouldn’t even be here.

Konrad might forgive me for what I have planned for him. But neither of us would forgive me if something happened to Eloise.

“Actually, chickpea,” I say to the elfling riding in front of me, “I changed my mind.”

Eloise looked up at me, her brows furrowed in confusion. “About what?”

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