Page 150 of A Dance of Shadows

“Then—”

Marc’s attention jerks to the men behind me. Something dangerous glitters in his eyes. “Them.” The pieces must click together in his head. He glares at Bastien. “You.”

Bastien glares right back at him, the knife he’s drawn gleaming in his hand with the wavering lantern light. “Me. Don’t you dare say a word against her. Just because you all but threw her away doesn’t mean no one else was going to recognize what she’s worth.”

In the weighted silence that follows, Marc’s gaze cuts across all of us. I brace myself for hurled insults and caustic accusations.

Instead, he tips back his head and laughs.

There’s no humor in his laughter. It might be the bleakest sound I’ve ever heard, hollow and raw, but there’s no anger in it either.

No, I’d call that agony.

I draw my own knife. Holding it pointed at his heart and setting my other hand on the side of the chair arm for balance, I lean toward him. “Well? How much do you love me now? Am I the wife you dreamed of?”

“Aurelia,” Raul says like a warning, but my grip on the weapon doesn’t falter. I know exactly where to drive it if I need to. It’s not so short it wouldn’t pierce his heart.

Marc’s awful laugh fades away. He meets my eyes again, with a fervor in his now that looks almost like Linus’s mania.

“I wouldn’t have dared to dream of you. I suppose that’s my failing. Gods above—even with all Linus’s paranoid ranting, you managed to convince him there was nothing between you and them—that you barely tolerated their company.”

I flex my fingers around the knife handle. “I did what I had to do to survive and protect the people I care about. I doubt you’dhave done much different in my position, whether you believe it or not.”

“Oh, I do.” Despite the fire in Marc’s eyes, his voice has gone strangely subdued. “You know the most absurd thing? I worried you were too kind and accommodating to hold your own. I praised your strength when I’d barely seen a fragment of it. But you were the strongest out of all of us the entire time. You defeated me. I can’t imagine Linus will give you much trouble after that.”

His eerie calm wobbles through my nerves. I prod his shirt with the tip of the blade. “What are you saying? Since when does His Imperial Majesty give up?”

Marc’s chuckle is as raw as his laugh was. “I don’t think it’s giving up when I can see how thoroughly I’m beaten. If you can kill me, then I deserve to die.Conquer all.You’ve held up the first tenet of the empire better than I have.”

I can’t drive my knife into his chest when he’s practically giving me permission. “Don’t try to turn this into another game.”

“I’m not. I’m out of moves.” As he gazes up at me, a melancholy note comes into his voice. “I’d like to think I’d have made different ones if I’d known what I know now.”

With a hiss of inhaled breath, I jerk away from him. My knife hand sways at my side.

Raul strides forward. “You shouldn’t have to listen to any more of his shit. I can?—”

Pain smacks me right in the middle of my pelvis. I hunch over with a gasp.

Fucking cramps.

But this one doesn’t stop. It radiates all the way to my hips, squeezing and twisting every muscle at the base of my belly.

In an instant, all three of the princes have circled me.

“Aurelia, what do you need?”Lorenzo asks in a taut tone.

Bastien grips my arm. “We’ve got you. How can we help?”

Raul’s head jerks toward Marc with a low growl. “Ifhedid something to you?—”

I manage to shake my head, but that’s all I can find the wherewithal to do as the pain swells on and on. I barely notice that it’s started to ebb until my thoughts swim back into sharper clarity.

A sigh rushes out of me. Gathering myself, I ease straighter upright. “I’m okay. Just another cramp.” One that packed a lot more punch than the earlier ones, but it is what it is. “We have to?—”

Another wallop of pain drives through my abdomen. I clutch at Bastien, losing my breath all over again. The searing ache stabs deep between my hips.

And it occurs to me that this isn’t just a cramp. These are full contractions.

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