Page 72 of The Princess's Chosen

"You don't want to. What is it, Danny Boy? Hoping with me tied up, you'll get to slide into position at last, make Roderick happy and daddy proud?"

I stayed silent, poised against the wall, watching as Emory scooted forward into the light. He looked like one of the madmen they found in Rumsbrooke's gutters in the winter.

"Roderick was never counting on you," Emory hissed. "The council always knew it was going to come down to getting rid of the girl. To come down tome. There's a spare heir. This bitch'll never make it to the throne."

I blinked, my body remaining placid but for the way my fingers scratched at the rough stone wall behind me, wanting to tear open the cell, to beat Emory down to little useless scraps.

"No, you just want her, don't you? Just want that pretty little cunt to look at you and not see the waste of space you are. Our father would've better spent his seed into a bucket than your mother, Danny Boy," Emory said, laughing a little, although the sound was wet and ragged.

I stiffened and stared at Emory. Emory without a last name. Emory who never fucking bothered using mine. Who'd sought me out on a night of revelry with my few friends from school. Who'd dragged me into his filthy world and begged for me to bring Jonathon, to create a line of communication.

"Your mother was a maid, mine was a whore," he said, flat and toneless. I stared at him, my chest a vise around my heart, my stomach churning. There wasn't much of a resemblance between us. I looked like my mother's side of the family.

Maybe therewassome of my father in Emory though. Some of that elegance I lacked. And maybe his beauty came from his mother.

And maybe he was just a liar trying to weasel his way out of the cell I'd helped put him in and he didn't have a clue who his father was.

"Let me out, brother," Emory whispered. "Find a way. You can keep your hero cock in her."

Footsteps were approaching and Emory's voice lowered with every echo.

It might be true, his claim. It might not be. Family was beginning to mean a great deal less to me than it had just weeks ago.

Cresswell Stark entered the room, arms crossed over his chest, breathing a little roughly from the smoke he'd inhaled earlier. He glanced at me briefly, eyes narrowing.

"He said the council was always planning to have him assassinate her." Emory snarled from the cell, but I ignored him and continued, "I never heard the words directly, but the night of the festival he implied he was behind the attempt against her. I was told to blame any mishaps on Aric's court, but I assumed they meant thieving not—"

"You fucking snake!" Emory growled, staggering up from the corner.

"Who is they?"

"Emory, Jonathon Roderick. I doubt Jon was the only one aware," I said.

Cresswell grunted as Emory hurled poisonous insults in my direction, a dark, wheezing laughing cracking through the words.

"We'll question him."

I nodded, heading for the doorway, trying to feel the burn of Emory's anger at my back.

"You think your neck won't fit in a noose too, Dan?!" Emory bellowed.

I was positive it would, and entirely unsure if spilling my guts to Cresswell, toanyone, would save me from that fate.

My steps scuttled as a shadow overtook me in the narrow stairwell, and I pressed myself to the wall as Aric Martin appeared and stalled in his own path.

"Ah. Farraque."

"Guard Stark is waiting for you," I said.

"Mm. I…Bryony wants to speak with you. I think she's gone to your rooms," he said.

I stiffened, and my head shot up to stare at the older man. His stare was scrutinizing and more aware than I was comfortable with. Bryony was…

The bite of her nails in my cheek as she covered my mouth, the desperate grip and slide of her on my cock.

Aric only stared back at me, eyes narrowed, less suspicious than the others but clearly trying to read me.

"Is she…all right?"

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