Page 134 of Bound to the Shadow Prince

“It’s lost, Candra.” Nemeth’s tone is easy. Relaxed. Of course, the maledidjust come inside me, but still. “You don’t need it.”

“It’s magic,” I protest. “My sister gave it to me. It can help us?—”

“If he’s fleeing the two I killed, he’s heading the opposite direction of the castle. I won’t spend precious time hunting him down for a blade. You don’t need it.”

I probably don’t, but I still feel vulnerable without it. I miss the reassurance that it provided me, not for its sharp edge butfor the questions I could ask. It’s always been there. “I didn’t get a chance to ask it much about the baby.”

“Are you worried?” His fingers strum over my clit again.

I’m too sensitive, having come twice already, and I squirm in place. As I’m still locked against his knot, this only makes me pant harder, deeply aware of the press of him inside me. “Of course I’m worried. I’m not supposed to be pregnant. I’m the one with the cursed blood.”

“Maybe that’s why,” he muses, even as he ignores my attempts to wriggle away from his hand. This is part of the game, and I love it as much as it makes me absolutely crazy. He locks me onto his knot, and as we wait for it to go down, he continues to toy with my body, making me come over and over again. It always feels like too much.

It always makes me come so damned hard.

“Maybe your blood isn’t cursed,” Nemeth says lazily. “Maybe you’ve just got too much Fellian in you.”

I moan at the double entendre.

“What do you think,milettahn?” he murmurs even as he rubs the pad of one finger against the side of my clit again. “Do you have too much Fellian inside you right now?”

My body squeezes around him again and I decide that I both hate him and want to kiss him forever as he wrings yet another orgasm out of me.

I do, however, forget all about my knife.

Chapter

Sixty-Eight

The walls of Lios are legendary.

I’ve seen them more or less every day of my life. Even when we’d travel, the Vestalins inevitably return to Castle Lios. It’s where we belong, in the beating heart of our country. We belong behind its tall white walls, nestled high on the cliffs above the sea. Winding roads lead up to it, surrounded by rolling farmlands and fields of all kinds of crops on one side, the blue, endless ocean on the other. The walls of Lios are tall and impenetrable, as old and venerable as Lios itself. Legend says that Ravendor Vestalin had the walls built when she took the throne. The walls were there when I was born, and I always assumed I’d die behind the walls, sheltered like a bird in its nest.

But a day later, at sunset, I see the massive hole punched through Lios’s endless walls, and it feels like a hole punched through my chest.

I stare at it, numb, half-expecting to see people spilling forth from the crevasse in the walls, like blood flowing from a wound. But it’s empty.

Everything is just…empty.

It’s been a miserable day and a half since we left the manor house. We spent half the day in bed, eating horse meat andgathering our strength. Then, when everything was cooked and we could delay no longer, we stepped back out into the endless rain and continued on our way to Lios.

It feels like the gods themselves are crying as the rain washes over me.

My city is gone.

I thought Lios would always be here. That even though the world has gone to pieces around us, surely Lios would remain. Lios would be safe, and we’d push in with all of the other refugees hungry for food. We’d collect my potion, enough to last us as we traveled to Darkfell, and I’d see my sister again. I’d say a mental goodbye to my people.

I’d bepreparedto leave them behind.

I’m not prepared for this. Nothing could prepare me for this.

I’ve ignored all the signs up until now. That every village and city deserted and empty meant nothing. That the wreckage that dots the shoreline and covers the beaches is irrelevant to the war and the fleet of mighty ships commanded by King Lionel. That the rain won’t be affecting my home like it is the outlying towns and people. Lios would be fine. Lios would be there.

I cling to the wet horse, feeling drained and hopeless, and I stare at the enormous hole to the left of Lios’s thick gates. “What makes a hole like that?” I ask Nemeth, my voice unsteady.

“A ballista. One with enchantments upon it.”

Of course. Fellians do love their enchantments. “You could have just flown over the walls,” I point out, numb, as the horse plods ever forward, up the muddy road. “Why destroy the walls?”

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