Page 20 of The War Queen's Daughter

Then again, I’m not the law here, and talent this good really deserves the chance to improve.

I’m grinning again as I slip through the door. Moonlight filters through high windows, but it’s thin, the rising crescent barely visible. Towering shelves packed with books stretch up to the vaulted ceiling, lit by the bobbing lantern that has circled the first shelves. I realize this place is bigger than I expected, and they’re now far ahead of me again for my caution.

They pause at the same moment I peek around the end of the stack, handsome holding the light close enough that I see his flash of a smile as he finds what he seeks. His hulking friend is whispering something to him as he pulls free a book and opens it.

Not carefully enough, because as he does, whatever is inside falls out.

Hitting the floor hard enough to rattle, metal on metal.

At the exact moment that someone comes to the library door.

We all freeze in place, the thief shuttering his light as the guard pokes his nose in, his lantern flashing over the room. I press my back to the end of the book stack. At least if I’m caught, I have an excuse, but I’ll never live it down, not in my own mind, so discovery is not an option. Least of all to one of these ridiculous guards.

Gorgeous turns his head as I join him and his friend on their side of the books, deliberately revealing myself. I can’t make out his features, but he’s not surprised to see me, makes no indication if he is. Which means he’s known all along I’ve beentracking them, and now I’m the one who needs a refresher and a rundown of my failings.

How fun is this night turning out to be?

“It’s nothing,” the guard grumbles to someone outside the door, his voice muffled as he closes it behind him. “No one comes up—”

I wait for the sound of his now unintelligible voice to fade, but my truly handsome new companion doesn’t.

“You really shouldn’t be following strangers, princess,” he says, his words a playful warning, a hint of that familiar smirk in his tone. He eases open the shutter on his lantern, the light revealing that his smile has returned, if it ever left. “Especially not into places where you don’t belong.”

His hulking friend crouches with surprising speed and retrieves what fell from the book, what almost gave us away.

Them. Gavethemaway. I’m not with them. Am I?

“We need to go.” His voice is so deep that my bones vibrate with it. Drakonkin, no doubt about it. Silver eyes skip over me before he leans closer to his friend. “Are we just going to leave her here, or do you want me to…?” he trails off without a hint of emotion despite just suggesting he kill me.

Try to kill me. Justtry. I flash my teeth at them both and laugh at the very idea.

“I think our little excursion is safe with our lovely new friend.” Gorgeous winks at me. “Right, princess?”

I shrug. “That depends,” I say. “What brought you here,friend?”

He laughs at me, pocketing whatever it was his drakonkin partner picked up. “Another time,” he says. “We’re a bit late, I’m afraid, and I don’t have time to explain it. But I’d like the chance, if you’re willing.”

They’re going out the window. The same one that’s behind me. I see it in the shift of their weight, the way they’re tryingto avoid looking over my shoulder. There’s an escape route planned, sure enough, and I’m in the way of it. This is not random thieving, no search for gold or jewels. They were here for a specific item that has nothing to do with me.

And while it’s been fun and a welcome adventure, I have no stake in their job and no inclination to interfere. Not even if the Overprince himself appeared right at this moment and begged me to be his bride. They’ve earned their escape.

I step aside, gesturing grandly at the window. “I’d love to hear all about it,” I say. “You know where my quarters are when you’re ready to explain yourself.”

My gorgeous new friend chuckles, though it’s clear he’s surprised by the offer, if intrigued. “Don’t tempt me,” he growls on the way by, but pauses. And then laughs, a low, husky sound that sends a shiver down my spine. “Honor among princesses, in this place?” He shakes his head, then steps even closer, invading my space. “You’re a contradiction, Remalla of Heald. A warrior in a dress, a woman of principle in a nest of vipers, risking everything for a piece of fruit and a very particular key.” Fruit refers to the apple in the street. And a key?

The item he retrieved. But a key to what?

His golden eyes hold mine, intense and magnetic. “I like contradictions.” His hand reaches out, swift as a striking viper, and gently brushes a stray strand of hair from my face. His fingers, surprisingly warm, graze my cheek. Neither of us expects the spark, sharp and instant, that jumps from him to me and back again. It’s not just a physical sensation, not really. More a deep, resonant hum after the fact, a feeling of recognition that vibrates through my very bones.

From the widening of his eyes and the way he stares at me, shock and open vulnerability there, he’s as floored as I am. I don’t know what it is, but it’s powerful, undeniable. And I want more.

“Zenthris!” His hulking drakonkin friend hisses his name in a whisper from outside the window, pulling him away. “We need to go!”

Zenthris. I hang onto his name as he breaks eye contact, his gaze flickering to the open window. “Duty calls,” he says, a sigh in his voice. He looks back at me, his smirk returning, softer now, warmer. “We’ll meet again, my princess. And next time, perhaps you’ll come with us.”

He blows me a kiss, a ridiculously charming, utterly audacious gesture, and then, with a fluid, impossible grace, he leaps through the open window. They’re both gone and descending before I can reach the edge, looking down. He’s landed silently on a narrow ledge, then with a blur of movement, he’s scaling the palace wall, using its ornate carvings as footholds, moving with the agility of a cat. His friends are already dropping from higher windows, parkouring their way across rooftops, a shadowy blur against the moonlight.

There’s a pattern of stone on the wall that forms a very convenient ladder that takes them as far as the top of the wall. I wonder why they didn’t simply climb this way when I watch them race across the white stone and vanish, melting into the shadows of the city as they do.

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