Page 126 of A War of Crowns

Praise the Lord for that.

Whatever else the little monster atop her was about to snarl into her ear shifted into a strangled growl as he fended off the winged serpent’s ferocious assault with the hand not currently crushed against her face.

And that was when he finally made a mistake.

The very moment he shifted his hand’s grip over her mouth to press the meat of his middle finger between her lips, she didn’t hesitate for a single moment.

Seraphina bit down.Hard.

Abandoning all that remained of her dignity, she bit the hand of the man who dared think he could murder her in her own home, in her own bed, on her ownbirthday, with all the ferocity she could muster. Like a varhound ripping into a dire bear’s jugular.

His vile blood filled her mouth, and she didn’t even care.

She no longer cared about anything at all except surviving that moment.

When the Crow finally snatched his bleeding hand from her face, Seraphina sucked in a gloriously deep breath. She wanted nothing more than to bask in that small victory. She wanted to simply sit there andbreathe.

But there was no time.

Vision swimming, Seraphina blinked the dark spots from her gaze and scrambled backward along the bed. She put as much distance as she could between her and her fiancé-turned-assassin.

But now her senses were no longer being filled byhim, Seraphina became aware of a most horrifying realization.

They were not alone.

And the other man had a knife.

“Aldric!” Seraphina tried to scream, though the word was little more than a strangled whisper on her lips.

Still kneeling on her bed, wrestling with Alyx, the Crow turned without hesitation to face the true assassin. And though he was unarmed save for the dagger jutting from his thigh, still the man launched himself at the intruder. In a tangle of thrashing limbs and beating wings, they tumbled to the floor.

Alyx went down with them.

By the Light, she had stabbed him. And he had only been there to…protect her?

I’ve killed him, she realized with a growing sense of horror.

But that didn’t make any sense. His being there didn’t make any sense.

Nothing at all made any sense as Seraphina frantically wiped the Crow’s blood from her mouth and scrambled her way off the bed. Her initial adrenaline had already oozed away, leaving her shaking like a newborn foal.

Fear settled into the chasm left in the adrenaline’s absence, like icy fingers gripping her heart.

“Run!” Aldric snarled to her the moment her bare feet touched the floor.

Her legs threatened to give out, almost unable to bear her own weight. But even once she steadied herself, she still couldn’t find it in herself to run.

She should have run. Sheknewshe should have run. She should have called for help.

She should have done something,anythingat all to save herself.

But there was Aldric, fighting for his life. Fighting forherlife. And Alyx alongside him.

The assassin’s dagger flickered in the moonlight, and though Aldric was quick, he wasn’t quick enough. His nightshirt soon became dark with blood.

The smell of it choked her senses. The sight of it turned her stomach.

Without warning, Seraphina’s body decided her fate for her.

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