Page 63 of What Sleeps Within the Cove

I lunged forward, grasping him by the collar of his tunic where it peeked out from beneath his armor. Tugging him back to me, I waited until he’d turned to face me, his mouth parted to ask me a question he never got to voice.

I pulled him down until his mouth crashed against mine, his reaction immediate. The moment his lips pressed into mine, he shoved his tongue into my parted lips and deepened the kiss, his distraction fully immersed when his hands dropped from the stone of the wall to my lower back. He guided me where he wanted me, shoving the tray of tea to the floor and lifting me so that I sat on the edge of the table with the vase pressed into the small of my back.

He tasted of ale as I let him take what he wanted, shoving the fabric of my dress down from my shoulder to get bare skin. As his mouthdropped there, I reached into the pocket of my gown and wrapped my fingers around the hilt of the dagger I’d brought with me.

Any hesitation I might have had was erased as he nipped at the flesh of my collarbone with sharp teeth, marking me in a way that should have belonged to only one male.

I moved slowly, not alerting him to anything that was wrong as a fake moan slid free from my mouth. Tugging at the hem of his shirt, I motioned to raise it above his head. He let me unlatch his armor as he raised his arms for me to slide it over his head, the leatherlike fabric parting on the side. I shoved it out of the way, using my free hand to tear it over his head and toss it to the side. He hadn’t even lowered his arms before I slid my knife free from my pocket, immediately thrusting it forward into the center of his chest.

He froze as I shoved it forward, the motion too slow as it penetrated his rib cage. The crack vibrated through my hand as the blade finally sank into the fleshy meat of his heart, his body freezing immediately as the iron worked its magic and pulled everything from him.

This was not an injury he would survive, and he lowered his forehead to mine to stare at me in shock. I groaned, disgust rolling through me at the contact now that I didn’t have to keep up any appearances. I shoved him forward, watching as he fell to his back on the stone floor before me. The knife still protruded from his chest, his eyes going blank as I jumped down from the table, adjusted my dress, and strode past him to help Imelda in the Queen’s bedroom.

I shoved the door open, ignoring the snakes that slithered along the surface. The gilded bedframe against the back wall shouldn’t have come as a surprise, a symbol of complete and utter opulence. Imelda stood beside the bed, her fingers touching the crown. Her arms shook, her face twisted into a pained expression. I watched in horror as her fingers that were so like Estrella’s turned to stone against the crown, but still she fought to remove the crown from Mab’s head.

She shook her head, her mismatched obsidian and white eyes turning to meet my gaze. The panic on her face was all that I needed to stride forward, taking the dagger Imelda had placed upon the nightstand. I turned it in my hand, prepared to plunge it down into Mab’s heart.

I made the motion, raising the dagger over my head to gain the momentum to make this wound much more quickly than I hadDravenor’s. There was no time to spare with the Queen of Air and Darkness, no guarantee that she would die as quickly as he had.

Mab’s eyes flew open as she thrust out a hand, launching Imelda and I back as she sat up with a shrill scream. I crashed into the door, the snakes slithering down to touch my shoulders. I’d thought Mab would kill us both immediately for our insolence, but instead she pressed a hand tightly to her chest, her face pained as her lungs heaved with the exertion of breathing.

“No,” she rasped, her nails clawing at her own skin. “That’s not possible.”

Imelda recovered first, grabbing my hand and slipping us both out the door and into the hallway. Mab hadn’t seemed to see us at all, so lost in whatever had happened to make her so distracted the only thing to save us from her vengeance.

“Dravenor!” she screamed, but the guard would not answer her. She didn’t seem to care, instead continuing on as if he was there to do her bidding as Imelda guided me toward the stairwell. We paused there to listen for a moment that we probably shouldn’t have risked, curiosity getting the best of us. “Bring me Caldris! I want to see his fucking heart for myself when I rip it from his chest.”

There was a moment of silence while Mab waited for a response, and Imelda took my hand in hers and dragged me down the first set of stairs until we disappeared from view. We heard the door creak open as she poked into the hallway, furious energy reaching us as we moved quietly. Half to listen, half to hide from her notice as we fled the site of the murder I’d committed. My hands were covered in Dravenor’s blood, but I couldn’t make myself regret his death.

Not when we’d come so close to killing Mab and still had our lives intact. Not when we knew something had happened to infuriate her so.

Imelda pulled me into an alcove that was tucked into the stairwell, pressing a finger to her lips as we listened in the silence of the night. Mab’s voice was a hushed whisper from this far away, accompanied only by her footsteps as she paced back and forth in the hall outside her rooms.

“Impossible. Only I can remove you from still beating hearts, my loves,” Mab said.

Imelda’s face spread into a wide smile as she pressed a hand to her mouth to silence her laughter, pulling me down the rest of the stairs. I didn’t dare to speak until we’d returned to the sanctuary ofthe kitchen, surrounded by Fae who wanted to know if we’d been successful.

While we hadn’t, the room was quiet as Imelda relayed the story of all we’d heard.

“What does it mean?” one of them asked as Imelda and I exchanged a knowing smile.

“It means Estrella and Caldris are both free from Mab’s influence,” Imelda said, her teeth gleaming brightly in the dark with the joy we both felt.

I added the truth of the meaning, the underlying message that we needed to cling to. “It means we have hope.”

FORTY

CALDRIS

Medusa’s smile was apologetic even as the feeling of her fist burst through my chest. I felt her fingers, and the long black talons that adorned them all the way to the thick muscle of my heart. Estrella cried out, motioning toward us as if she might interfere. A single look from her mother silenced any further attempt to interfere on my behalf, and though her body remained tense, she froze in place and I nodded even though the pain was excruciating.

Medusa could have killed me already if that was her intention, with the way her hand was wrapped around my heart. She could have pulled it from my body, could have taken the very core of my soul from me before I dared to blink.

“I’m okay,” I said, reassuring my mate’s wide-eyed stare. Medusa’s gaze turned to the hole she’d made in my chest, remaining fixated as her fingers shifted and moved within me. I grimaced, a growl rumbling in my throat that Estrella echoed.

Only the hope that she might be able to offer freedom from the imprisonment that had existed within my own body for longer than I could remember was enough to keep me still. Medusa’s finger glided over a particularly sensitive spot, her mouth twitching into a smile as she pressed into whatever she’d found. Something loosened within me, like cords snapping in two, and then suddenly I was dropping. I fell to my knees, relief like a shock to my system, Medusa moving with me as she pulled her hand free. The small stone figure of a snake rested in her palm, fading into ash and blowing in the breeze as I watched.

Estrella moved for me immediately, dropping onto her knees so harshly that the ground shook beneath her. She grasped my face in her hands, staring down at my chest as the wound healed over and Medusa got to her feet beside me.

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