Page 104 of Fragile Oath

She sighed. “Fine. I would like the mattress from my room.”

I immediately wished I could take back my offer. That mattress was stars-damned heavy, even if we pulled the soldiers back in to help.

“Why do you like yours better than mine?” I asked.

She raised her eyebrows. “Because Fiona has never been naked in it…”

I wasn’t sure if the ensuing silence was because what we knew about Fiona now was so much worse than when we thought she was just a seductress. Then I caught the questioning looks and realized it was because Galina was waiting for a response.

Shaking my head, I tilted her chin up until she looked me in the eye, then I assured her that Fiona had, in fact, never been naked in Galina’s bed. That no one but Galina herself had ever stayed in that room.

Relief flashed in her eyes, and she nodded.

I couldn’t blame her. I would have set the entire bed on fire if I had known another man had shared it with her.

All in all, it was a grueling few hours, but the exertion and the banter helped ease the weight that had settled on my shoulders. When my cousins left, Galina and I sank into the small sofa in front of the fire, Malishka curled up on the bearskin rug at our feet.

All the while, I tried not to think about how easily it could all be taken from me. How it almost had been.

* * *

Whatever fleeting momentof reprieve Galina and I had stolen for ourselves was ripped away before morning came.

News came in the form of a soldier banging on the door in the middle of the night. There had been another attack on another nearby village. This time, it was Riverwell, one of the villages just south of Alech.

The one Edgar had admitted to meeting at, not that long ago.

I ran a hand over my face. We had sent men to investigate, to search for safehouses, but it hadn’t been enough to stop the attack. Instead, they died like so many others as the town was burned to the ground. Pyres of bodies were found on the other side of the river, near the border of Rionn.

Men. Women. Children. Plumes of black smoke and ashes from the bodies and the buildings hovered in the air like clouds of death and destruction, visible from the balcony Galina and I now shared.

There was some mild speculation about the attack being from our neighbors, the isolated kingdom of Rionn, but we knew better than that. Especially when this had been happening all around Lochlann, and some of the recovered bodies were littered with black veins and the Viper’s symbol carved into their flesh.

“Does the king know?” I asked.

The soldier nodded. “They’re meeting in your parent’s study, mi’laird.”

“I’ll be there shortly. Bring me Lady Shaw as well,” I ordered one of MacBay’s men, closing the door so Galina and I could both dress.

While we had been laughing and rearranging furniture, someone had been ordering the slaughter of the people under our protection.

I kicked myself, nausea twisting my stomach. If I had only taken Fiona into custody before, would this have happened? Was I responsible for the bloodshed, just as much as she was, because I hadn’t acted sooner?

Before, it hadn’t seemed like the right time to confront her. We hadn’t had all of the information we needed to make a formal accusation. The time for playing it safe was over. If I had to drag her to the dungeons to get answers from her, then I bloody well would.

But by the time I left my rooms, the soldier had returned, a frantic look on his face.

“Lady Shaw isn’t in her room.”

I let out a long breath, foreboding prickling over me. “Did you check MacBay’s?”

Color flooded his cheeks. “We did, mi’laird. He hasn’t seen her, either.”

I exchanged a look with Galina, racing to the study to find my family already waiting. Along with Camdyn MacBay.

“Where is she?” he rounded on me as soon as I entered the room.

“Probably off murdering some more innocent children,” I shot back.

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