Page 158 of A War of Crowns

And it was not his brother come to strike him down with his band of mercenaries, nor his mother finally slipping a bit of poison into his wine so she could claim the throne of Drakmor for herself.

It was a witch, wielding a sweet smile and a wicked blade, ready to pluck his soul straight from his chest.

For once, Edmund didn’t know what to do.

“Join me,” Mariana suddenly implored, all purrs and promise. “Our Lady Below’s power grows in the north. Now is the time to strike down the world and bring it under our heel.”

“Your heel,” Edmund corrected. “No matter what you say now, we both know you simply mean to take me as another pawn the moment the opportunity presents itself.”

“And yet I’d rather have you for a partner, if we’re going to be honest with one another.”

There was his opening.

“Well, then…” Edmund carefully posed, “…there you have it. We are partners.” He flicked a glance down toward the blade still poised over his heart. “So there’s no more need for that, now is there?”

He put on his most charming smile when he looked back to the witch—all warm chocolate and dark promises.

But the woman did not immediately melt into his arms. Quite the opposite, really.

Her eyes but narrowed all the more. “Do you think me an idiot?” she hissed, but Edmund held his tongue. He knew there was no right answer to that particular question.

Blessedly, she didn’t wait for him to answer.

“Gift to me the woman you love most in all the world, and then I will believe what you say, Edmund Hargrave.”

“The woman I love the most?” he echoed. His eyebrows knit together at the notion. “I hardly have time for a lover. There is no woman I love.”

The witch’s laughter in the wake of his words was abrupt and utterly jarring. But a sense of growing unease crawled its way down into his belly when Mariana ceased her laughter just as abruptly to hiss to him instead, “Wrong answer.You may try again, though.”

Edmund swallowed and glanced aside, unable to meet the witch’s unnatural gaze any longer. There was only one woman in his life. There was only one woman Mariana could possibly be referring to.

Mother.

The very thought of giving his mother of all people to this vile creature made him want to rip that dagger straight from her fingers and plunge it into her own heart. He wondered what that would do. What would happen to a witch if she was struck by her own blade?

He wasn’t in the mood to find out. Too risky.

Just as he wasn’t in the mood to make a gift of his mother to this witch. Of course he and the dowager queen had their differences. They had their squabbles.

But she was still hismother.

Edmund’s thoughts ricocheted off of one another as he hastily scoured his mind for a solution. Several possibilities he rejected outright before finally latching upon the one solution he thoughtmightjust work, if he played his cards right.

“Throw the crone in the dungeon and let her rotfor all I care,” he finally decreed.

Tipping up his chin toward the witch hovering so close to him, he let his mouth linger dangerously close to hers. He could have very well kissed her in that moment, had he so desired.

He didn’t, though.

And though his pulse raced, and his heart hammered against his chest, threatening to burst free at any moment, Edmund did hisbest to relax against the wall behind him and drawl, “I’ve grown tired of her at any rate.”

Silence was all that greeted him for a time, but the Arathian princess clearly considered his proposal. Her eyes narrowed. That strange, golden gaze of hers searched his face.

He did his best to meet her eyes stare for stare, as unnerving as it all was, as he awaited her assessment of his latest offer.

“You are a notoriously fickle man,” she decided at last, eyeing him with what he could only interpret as equal parts curiosity and lingering mistrust.

But that curiosity of hers provided him with an opening yet again, and he drove the lazy warmth of his smile into the chink in her armor that opening provided.

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