Page 34 of A Promise of Peridot
Spineless twat was not only unobservant, he was a puppet for his parents. Always had been.
“Listen to the prince,” Crawford groaned from the dark carpet. “We can work this out easily.”
“No, I don’t believe we can.” I rolled my shirtsleeves up and stepped closer to Crawford. Rhett flinched and Trevyn scampered into the corner on all fours. “Fedrik, if you would so kindly take my healer, her brother, and the witch back to the palace, Griffin and I will be right behind you.”
When Crawford tried to crawl for his desk, I dug my boot into his outstretched fingers until I produced a satisfyingcrunch.
His pained moan curved my lips upward.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Arwen said, arms folded. “I’m owed a blade.”
“Arwen,” her brother chided. I cut a glance back at him, still out in the game room, one arm wrapped around Mari’s shoulders. “Come on.”
“Go back to the palace, Ryder,” Arwen said. “And take Mari with you.”
He didn’t need to be asked again.
Ryder and Mari filed out with haste and Fedrik only looked back at us once before following after them.
I faced Griffin. “Make sure he doesn’t go straight to the queen.”
“Yep.” Griffin jerked his chin back toward Arwen, as if to say,And what about her?
“She’ll be fine.”
I wasn’t sure, but for an instant it seemed like that was pride gleaming in Arwen’s eyes.
12
arwen
Kane hauled Crawford up by his tunic and threw him deeper into the room with a grunt. Then he turned to Rhett and Trevyn, the latter’s collar trembling at his bobbing throat. “Do not call for help. Do not alert anyone that we are here or neither of you, nor your employer, will live to see daybreak.”
“Now, wait one moment,” Rhett began, voice weak—
Kane slammed the door shut with only that vicious split of shadowed mist, shaking the thin walls around us and producing a yelp from Trevyn. He crawled on all fours to the door, wrenched it open with quivering hands, and dashed out the other side.
“And you?”
Rhett wasted no time abandoning Crawford as well, even going so far as to close the door politely behind him. Kane smirked.
“You’re demented.” Crawford’s eyes shimmered with the first hint of fear as Kane stalked toward him, small tendrils of wicked power unfurling around his feet as he moved.
The burly noble didn’t waste a second to see what Kane hadplanned. He threw himself against the wall at the back of the room, sending two paintings in antique frames clattering down to the floor. Bathed in the dim candlelight, he tried to climb toward the window above like a scurrying rodent. But it was too tall, just barely out of reach even for a man of his stature, and his feet couldn’t find purchase against the wood.
Kane closed in on him with ease and turned Crawford to face us, wrapping a large hand around his throat and holding him high against the wall he had tried to scamper up, his feet jolting uselessly in the air.
“You’ll regret this,” Crawford swore. “I’ll keep your eyes in a jar in my villa.” He scraped and clawed, trying to grasp at Kane’s face, but Kane had the more significant arm span. Even Crawford’s kicks barely connected.
“The Blade of the Sun,” Kane said. “Immediately. Before this café becomes a pitiful pile of stone and playing cards.”
“I’ve never heard of such a weapon.”
“Bullshit,” Kane thundered, bashing Crawford’s head into the wall.
I couldn’t help my flinch.
But the rest of his words were lost on me. Kane’s violence had dislodged a few paintings and debris from the walls, and something was poking through shattered glass on the floor. It looked—
