Page 13 of A Pact of Blood

Fuck. I was so focused on her I was hardly thinking straight. They just got married—of course he’ll be exerting his marital rights as often and as thoroughly as he can.

A surge of fury rushes through me. My hands ball at my sides with the urge to grasp the nearest swatch of shadow, harden it into a blade, and carve open the prick from throat to gut.

I tense my muscles against the anger with as even a breath as I can draw. No. I can’t be an idiot about this and let my temper take over.

As much as a very large part of me would like to storm in there and pummel the imperial asshole to smithereens, I knowhisguard wouldn’t fail to notice such an aggressive intrusion. I’d be throwing my own life away and lucky to deal out so much as a scratch in the process.

I grapple with my options, listening the snores carry on. I’ve definitely never heard a sound like that out of Marclinus when hewasn’toutright unconscious.

There’s a chance Aurelia is still awake. I can give her an opening, whatever she thinks is best to do with the chance.

Bastien would say I’m insane, but Idoknow this woman. If he’d get the stick out of his ass, he’d realize he does too.

I slide my hand through the darkness to the spot that’ll release the panel and press firmly.

As the hidden door slides open with the faintest of rasps, my entire body tenses. If Marclinus reacts or his guards outside charge in—I think I can shut the panel again before they’d have the wherewithal to figure out what’s going on. Even if they found the hidden doorway afterward, I’d be long gone within the walls.

But I’d have to be awfully fast. And this point of access would be cut off to me forever.

There are no yells or stomping feet, though. Not even a stutter in Marclinus’s next snore.

The panel halts at its farthest point. I adjust my position so I can peer toward the bed without stepping out—just as the figure at the end closer to me sits up with a rustle of the sheets.

Only the dimmest light from a lantern outside the palace seeps past the closed curtains, but I’m at ease in the dark even when I can’t bring my gift to bear. I recognize the fall of Aurelia’s wavy hair, tumbling over her shoulders with the wildness that suits her so much better than the upswept styles of the past two days.

She stares at me, her deep blue eyes turned black by the night. Her voice comes out in a stiff whisper. “What are you?—”

I hold up my hand to stop her and pitch my voice equally low. “I only came to talk. But we’re safer having a conversation in here.”

Aurelia’s posture turns even more rigid than her voice. “I’m not slipping away into the wall with you.”

Why should she trust me when we were all staring daggers at her two evenings ago throughout her marriageceremony and the celebrations? When my foster brothers have kept up the glowers ever since?

I’ve tried to catch her eyes only briefly, to convey that I’m still with her but that I recognize the need for caution, but maybe she took my approach for animosity too.

Fuck.

I hold out my hand. “Please. I swear to you on my own life that I’m not here to do you any harm.”

Aurelia’s fingers clench around the bedcovers. “You should go before anyone notices. You know what the guards would do to you.”

I could take that statement as a threat, but instead my heart leaps with a flicker of hopeful recognition.

She’swarningme. She’s afraid of what would happen to me.

For her own benefit too, Bastien would say, but the knowledge gives me enough confidence to switch the cards I’m playing.

I meet her gaze unwaveringly. “If you don’t come with me, I’m going to have to confess to an executable crime right here where the emperor might hear me. Because I’m going to tell you one way or another. It’s up to you how.”

Aurelia’s expression ticks with a brief widening of her eyes. For just an instant, I’m not sure the gambit will be enough.

Then she pushes aside the covers and eases off the bed.

Relief rushes through me, sharp and poignant, at the proof that she cares more about protecting me than whatever fears she has for her own safety. If the others could see this, they’d have to know that she’s never faked her feelings for us.

As Aurelia darts around the bedside table to the passage, the filmy fabric of her robe sways with her movements. My relief crumples under a wave of desire.

By all that’s holy, she’s coming to me practically naked.The scrap of a garment barely covers her upper thighs; it’s so thin I can make out every detail of her perfect breasts.

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