Page 3 of Heir to His Court

Lips brushed the top of my head. “Your instincts were never the least of your strengths. It is herald, and avatar.”

I tensed, but didn’t interject.

“Avatar of old, dark power that never should have wakened. Now that its gaze is turned toward Everenne, the city I have held for eight centuries. . .I cannot allow it. I will not surrender another stronghold.”

The regret in his voice warranted caution, but Renaud lowered his head, lips a soft caress as he coaxed my mouth open, his kiss long and slow and sweet. My hands rested on his shoulders, the hard muscles flexing under my touch. That wild heat between us rose, my instinct to lay under him and submit to body and teeth and power.

“It is in your nature to submit to me. Especially to me.”

Distracted by the snippet of memory, the scent of ocean brine, my blood and desire, I chased it, ignoring Renaud for a few seconds.

“Forgive me, my halfling,” he murmured against my lips. “Some of us may wake gently, but you do not have the luxury. She is crowning, and every Dark birth requires blood.”

I yanked my full attention back to him. “For—”

Stabbing pain scored my side. My breath caught in a silent gasp and I staggered back a step, looking down.

Renaud yanked the silver blade out, his hand stained with my blood. My gaze caught on the silver and lapis lazuli designs, then I looked up at him and retreated further, bracing on the dining room table, my avatar flickering into sight beside me, its shape struggling.

What had once been a playful kitten romping at my feet and nipping at the dragon’s nose had grown into a sleek black leopard in the last weeks.

Now it seemed as if it was struggling to emerge from yet another cocoon.

“Forgive me,” he said, stretching out his scarlet fingers, brushing my jaw.

Blue eyes darkened into a bruised purple, hints of the same color I had seen in the storm clouds above the city. The same shade of purple I'd seen flash in his eyes in the steam room.

I staggered back a step, controlling the pain. I'd taken worse wounds in battle. But I braced against this one, against the unraveling of my shock.

“Poison.” The same from the Black Knight. The substance wound through my veins. I tracked the symptoms now that I was aware—the strange sense of separation and infiltration. “So. You are allied with the Ancient.”

But my avatar seemed to befeedingon the substance infiltrating my blood. What I’d mistaken for my body healing was actually the avatar eating.

I held his gaze as blue eyes were eclipsed by purple and gathered my mental shieldwall.

“My blood,” I heard a deep, feminine voice say, though it was Renaud's lips that moved. “I had thought the glory of my bloodline withered and all my hopes ashes. I had not thought to wake until the universe ate all the realms.” Her beautiful, haunting, awful voice paused. “You called me, daughter of my descendants. I have come.”

They all talked too much. Talked too much, used too many words, and couched in the most dramatic language possible. I grimaced.

“Accept her,” Renaud said, taking back control of his voice. “Accept her glory. If you do, I will be yours. Everenne will be yours, and Avellonne my stronghold once more. From there Ninephe will fall, my sister avenged, and our children will found new empires. The sun will never set on our power.”

As I listened to them there was no way to quantify the depths of my weary horror—and not just at whoever had written their dialogue. That night he'd licked my seeping blood from my cheeks and throat, attempting to analyze the taint. Her influence could have infected him then.

“Raniel,” I whispered, my throat as dry as a forest gone cold after a fire. “Fight her.”

She chuckled, and somehow with her voice in his throat I wanted him even more. I closed my eyes, straining backward, but his arm caught me around the waist and held me easily.

“There is no fighting me, child,” she said in her kind voice, using his strength. His hands pressed against the small of my back, his fingers almost absently caressing the curve of my bottom. “I do not fault you for trying. My daughters were never weak. The best of them were always a trial. Forgive me for the clumsiness of your injury—you are strong, and I needed you weakened enough to accept my influence.”

“Juhainah, I presume.”

Her eyes—in Renaud's face—went impossibly wide, wide, boring into my face and swallowing me whole.

“You name me.” Then she laughed. His hands slid up my ribcage. “Your mind is mine. Your body and your womb. I will live in you, and to show my gratitude I will allow you to feel the remnants of my pleasure in my consort. Raniel is the strongest of my sons and he will seed me with a daughter even more powerful than you, Aerinne. When she is grown in her power, she will offer herself as my final vessel and be exalted over all others. You will be remembered as both my Heir, and my mother.”

What kind of twisted madness. . .Raniel was hergrandson. . .this,thiswas why one didn't draw the eye of a Prince, an Old One, and definitely not an Ancient.

“Sounds peachy,” I managed to say in English. “You crazy bitch. There's just one problem.”

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