Page 55 of A Pact of Blood

My listing stomach compresses into an aching knot. How can I protect the men I’ve fallen for if even the most innocent gesture sets them up to be punished?

Chapter Eighteen

Lorenzo

The scorched skin on my chest still stings, more so when I move. I try to recline in the worn armchair, but with every minute that passes without Aurelia’s arrival, my hands clench tighter against the padded arms. There’s no way I’m actually relaxing.

Raul paces back and forth on the threadbare rug in the sitting room that used to connect the servants’ chambers to the hidden passages within the palace walls. It’s been several days since we last gathered here, and his feet stir up the thin layer of new dust. It tickles my nose.

He doesn’t appear to care if he’s agitating his wound. Every muscle on his massive frame bulges with tension. “Are wesurethis is where she wanted us to meet her? She couldn’t have been motioning to the library or the gardens?”

Bastien is poised on the edge of the settee, his lean body braced rigidly as if he thinks he might need to leap up at anysecond. “She indicated down and enclosed. That eliminates both. And this is the only place in the palace shecanmeet us without risking being observed. Nothing else would make sense.”

“She might not have been thinking straight after all of Marclinus’s fucking insanity.” Raul sucks a harsh breath through his teeth. “He can’tknowanything, can he? If he was even slightly sure, he’d already have chopped off our heads.”

I stay quiet, not knowing what to say. After all the music I enhanced for the court this evening, just the thought of forming my illusionary voice sets off an uncomfortable prickle in my skull.

Bastien swipes his hand over his pale forehead, ruffling his auburn hair and provoking a wince as his shirt must brush the fresh burn. “I can’t even tell whether he truly suspects there’s some fondness between us and her that we’ve been hiding or if he simply enjoys tormenting all of us. We’ve always been easier targets than the rest of the nobles.”

Raul looks toward the spot where the imperial crest is now seared into his brown skin. “As soon as I’m out from under this fucking roof, I’m?—”

A faint creak on the other side of the paneled doorway brings all our heads jerking up, Raul’s voice halting. With a sigh, the panel slides open.

Aurelia steps out, her hair loose and mussed across her shoulders, a glass jar clutched in one hand. Her gaze darts over all of us. Her blue eyes have gone even darker with her urgency.

Her voice quavers. “I’m sorry it took me so long. Marclinus told me to wait for him in my chambers, and then he took until the next bell actually coming, and— It doesn’t matter. This salve should help reduce the pain and make the burns heal faster.”

I get to my feet with a lurch of my heart at the unstatedimplications of her words, her unpinned hair. Marclinus came to herbed—she had to cater to his advances again.

Fury and jealousy flare together behind the clenching of my jaw.

Raul’s voice comes out in a growl. “If that vicious prick made you?—”

Aurelia lifts her hand to stop him. “I dealt with him the same way I always do. It’s… tolerable.”

Bastien has risen and pushed forward to meet her. Her gaze drops to his shirt. She must be picturing the brand she pressed into his chest, because she flinches. “I’m so sorry.”

He grasps her wrist with an emphatic squeeze. “It wasn’t your fault. You handled the situation perfectly.”

“Marclinus is the only one we’re upset with,” I add, ignoring the pulse of pain that comes with the illusion and casting it far enough for my foster brothers to hear me too.“Him and his brutal tests.”

Raul scowled. “He’d better get bored of them soon, or…”

He trails off, because really, how can he go on? What can any of us do right now to stop the new emperor from following every horrific whim that strikes him?

Not even his wife is safe.

Aurelia doesn’t look at all reassured by our words. Her gaze slides over all of us, shining with both affection and anguish. “You all held so strong through the whole thing… But you shouldn’t have needed to. Gods, I hate him.”

She opens the jar with a wobble of her hand and dips her fingers into the pearly blue gel inside. “Let me just— I should have enough. I’ll need to brew more when I have the chance, just in case…”

When Bastien raises his shirt at her gesture to reveal the seared flesh, her mouth twists. With delicate movements, she smears the gel over the raw spot.

Bastien stays tensed at first, but his stance softens as theinitial soothing effects must sink in. He closes his eyes. “Thank you.”

Aurelia gazes up at him and then, just as gingerly as she treated his burn, touches the side of his jaw and bobs up to kiss him.

Bastien makes a rough sound low in his throat and grasps her waist as he kisses her back. The pang of envy that hits me is much more bittersweet than before.

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