Page 21 of A Reign of Roses
Lazarus didn’t so much assmirk as I joined him.
His eyes were unreadable, trained on mine, and I remembered he could read my thoughts as plainly as if I’d screamed them at him.
He said nothing as I stepped one foot down into the shallow steps, and then descended until my body was submerged. The rush of flowing water and bubbling of springs filled my head and I dipped myself under.
Enveloped by warm silence, all I could hear was my own pulse in my eardrums.
Liquid, peaceful stillness.
When I emerged and wiped my eyes, Lazarus wasn’t even looking.
“Quite the performance,” he said, his back to me as he surveyed his steamy, water-lush domain. “I’d title itWoman Proves She Is Different Now.”
I only scowled.
A gnarled scar cut down the muscled planes along his spine. Thedamaged skin undulated, rippling as he spread his arms across the water’s surface. Kane had bestowed that upon him. Wielding the Blade of the Sun, all those years ago.
I stilled my mutilated heart into submission. Lazarus wouldn’t hear my longing.
But I could channel that rage. Could try to use any minutes alone with him to my advantage.
“Was it your own revenge? Back at Hemlock…” Despite the agony, I allowed myself to think of Kane’s roars of anguish. “Making him think you’d killed me?”
“Nothing of the sort.” Lazarus turned, expression still unreadable. “My son has always been ruled by his emotions. I only sought to heighten them. However, it appears I got more than I bargained for—your prince hasn’t been seen in months. Perhaps I succeeded in breaking him completely. Perhaps he’s gone mad from the loss. Or perhaps…a fate far more tragic: death at his own hand.”
Even as dread curled around my lungs, I didn’t break from his unflinching stare. “Kane would never abandon his people.”
Lazarus reclined against the pool’s edge. “Your love is enviable. My own wife died many years ago.”
I could have screamed. “Youkilledher.”
“Spoken like someone who’s never been forced to sacrifice for a greater cause.”
I would have sacrificed my very life to end you.
If he’d heard my thoughts, he didn’t comment. “But you will. You and I, Arwen, are the last two of our kind in existence. Together we will repopulate an entire race of strong, powerful true Fae. No weak halflings, no dirty mortals. That sacrifice will be your legacy. You should be on your knees, thanking me for such an honor.”
Before I could spit at him, Kane’s voice snarled softly through my mind.Don’t play into his game, bird. That’s what he wants.
“There are only two of us, we’ll never have an entire realm of true Fae. They’d have to—”
It was his smug, pleased expression that silenced my words and sent my stomach churning.
“Inbreeding?”
“Many great monarchies kept the bloodline pure with such practices. Ancient Fae and mortal alike.”
The revolting thought was too much to comprehend. My own children, forced to breed with one another. With their own father, surely. “You foul, repugnant—”
“Those burns.” Lazarus motioned to my torso. “Are they from my sergeant, whom you murdered?”
I fought the urge to cover myself as the memory of Halden’s blistering iron sizzled against my skin. “Yes.”
“And the one across your collarbone, or those down your back, are they all from him as well? A bit of a sadist, my sergeant.” Lazarus tutted as if it was a shame. “Scarring my property…I’d take his other hand for that, were he still alive.”
Revulsion twisted in my gut at the thought of Lazarus studying my naked body with such careful precision, like I was some prized specimen. Those scars were my memories. My strength fighting his wolflike mercenary. My will, unbroken by my stepfather’s belt.
I sneered at him.
