Page 8 of Bride of the Midnight Prince

Lord Nothril motions for Pavi to go to Pelarusa. I drag in a shallow breath through my teeth as Pelarusa’s face shifts in alarm.

“And if you do not return with the Ivy Mask by the second moon, Pelarusa will join you on the hunt, and she will not be allowed to leave the human lands until the task is finished.”

“Me?” Pelarusa cries. “Stuck in the human world?”

“Do you object?” Lord Nothril asks in a cold, weighty voice.

Pelarusa’s pale skin goes ashen. She shakes her head quickly. She accepts Pavi’s blood and writes the rune on her hand. The magic locks into place, searing a tattoo into my skin at the back of my neck. I shove away the instinctual trepidation that always floods me when blood oaths are invoked.

They’ve given me three months, two on my own. It’s a very generous allotment of time. It only took me a few hours to hunt down Pavi. This tells me that they don’t want to risk the bargain being broken.

It won’t be broken.I will hunt down the Ivy Mask, hand him over, and wash my hands of the matter before the week is out.

“That is enough,” Lord Nothril declares, rising from his throne. “The wrongs of this day will all be righted. Our Pavi is back to us safely, and the Ivy Mask will be brought to justice.”

“You were in need of a new slave girl anyway,” Lady Nothril says.

“I did have her longer than usual,” Lord Nothril agrees.

“You’d better catch the Ivy Mask quickly,” Pelarusa growls irritably, getting to her feet. “I think I willdieif I have to go to the human lands. I can barely put up with the human stink of the Valehaven Tailor.”

I can think of fewer things worse than Pelarusa stuck in the human lands. I give her a nod, acknowledging her concern and offering my promise to avoid the situation she fears. She scowls at me—apparently having decided it is my fault that we’re now bound by a blood oath with Pavi’s life in the balance, even thoughIwas the one who hunted down Pavi while she did nothing.

When I’ve left the throne room, I finally let myself breathe. I go straight to my chambers, craving peace and quiet. The problem of Pavi’s behavior returns to haunt me. Pelarusa will do her best to keep Pavi in line while I’m gone, but Pavi trusts me more and follows my bidding readily.

She doesn’t realize how precariously her life hangs in the balance. She doesn’t believe Lord and Lady Nothril would kill her if they knew she’d walked out of this palace with one of our enemies. She doesn’t know, because they haven’t grabbed her by the throat and threatened to squeeze the life out of her if she didn’t obey.

But I know.

And I need to get her out of here before she finally finds out.

An idea occurs to me. What if I caught the Ivy Mask, temporarily allied with him and made him get Pavi out of Nothril—so I could not be implicated with her disappearance—and then double-crossed him? That would fulfill the terms of the blood oath. It would also ensure Pavi’s life is never again at risk.

And also that Pavi is not used to control me anymore.

I place my hand on the smooth, cold surface of my door. The wards unlock, and I push it open.

Immediately, the air is different.

I shut the door behind me and grab one sword hilt, ready to draw it. I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with the familiar scents—and the one unfamiliar one. One that smells very sooty . . . and very human.

Moving silently past my wall of weapons, I follow the scent. It’s a slave’s scent. Which one, I’m not sure, but I’ve smelled it before. What is a human slave doing in my rooms? I have given strict orders that only fae slaves are to service my rooms; the human stench is too unpleasant. It lingers and clings like a rotting carcass.

I reach the bedchamber, still not making a sound. At last, I find the culprit.

A young woman in an ill-fitting slave’s uniform is on her knees, half of her torso stuck under my bed.

I let go of my sword’s hilt. “What are you doing?”

Chapter 3

Kat

Thatlow,rumblingvoicenearly sends me flying out of my skin. Who is in the room? I swear it was empty only a minute ago!

The small jar ofolleaI found—and promptly dropped—rattles against something as I grab it. In a moment of pure desperation, I shove the jar into my mouth and clamp my jaws shut. The tiny object it rattled against remains in my palm.A lost button. Irrelevant, but I clutch it until it bites into my skin. I shove out from under the bed.

A fae towers over me. At first, his sheer size is the most terrifying thing about him. He has both brawn and height, strength emanating from the way he stands in the doorway. Then I lift my gaze past his dark, blood-streaked armor to his silvery-white hair, a hard brow hewn as though from granite, and a pair of black eyes colder than a frozen lake.

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