Page 77 of Of Blood and Banes
The sound alone makes me flinch. Triggering the memory of those two prisoners back in Arterias forced off the outlook tower, their necks snapping as they hit the end of their ropes. How he had been the one to sign off on their deaths. At the time, I didn’t recognize the full meaning when he announced ‘in the name of the King’ at the execution. But now I do. Because he’s the heir to the throne.
Gods, I feel so stupid I didn’t piece it together sooner.
He drawls on, “Aaaand how you can defeat him...ifyou kiss my ass.”
Narrowing my eyes, I snag the closest thing to me—my father’s journal—and chuck it at him. It misses his face by an inch too low, smacking him in the shoulder. His eyes flash wide in surprise, then he settles into a wicked smirk of amusement.
“You really think you’re funny, don’t you?” I challenge.
“And you really think you have all this sway. I’m not fucking helping you until you release me.”
Is his voice tipping into…desperation?I root myself in self-composure, deciding not to give into his antics. “Well, that’s not happening. I’m not releasing you until you prove yourself trustworthy—and you give me what I want.”
“Trustworthy?” he laughs. “And how do you anticipate I do that? I think you and I both know there isn’t a world where I could do anything to gain that from you. So, let’s cut our losses with that one.”
“I know how much Edith means to you,” I blurt. And as soon as the words slip off my lips, I’m ripped back to the night he held me in his arms and carried me to his room. When I told him I wouldn’t use Edith to manipulate him. But it’s too late. The words have already left.
His expression ripples into something deadly serious.
But godsdamnit. That look tells me enough—it works. The one thing I know can convince him to do the right thing. Something more powerful than torture or bribes. Would it be so terrible of me to persuade him, on the behalf of all humans and dragons? When thousands and thousands of lives hang in the balance?
I continue, treading cautiously, “And…I know she’s in a coma. I know you’d do anything to help her. To save her.”
His face is still, his lips barely moving to let the words slip out as he glares. “You are so sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
I stalk closer to him. “I am sure of myself, because I’ve been where you are. Twice. And let me tell you, Darian, being on the side I’m on now where they’re already gone is not something you can come back from. So, if you want to avoid that reality, then you need to work with me.”
He holds my gaze, his chin tilting up toward me as I stop a few steps from him. “There is nothing you can do to stop him.”
“Then why are you so against helping me, hmm? If you think we’re such a lost cause?”
He hesitates, his eyes falling away from my face and down to my hand. To the Blood Ring. I flick a look back up at him, my mouth parting. Realization floods me, rushing through my fingers as I struggle to grasp onto a single thought. “You…knewwhat this was all along, didn’t you? The King wants this ring. Heneedsit for something. And soyouwant it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he sneers.
I lift my hand, facing the ring toward him. “Celeste never wanted to marry Cole, did she?”
Holyfuck.When Cole confessed all that happened between the time we had split up in Padmoor to when I arrived at the outpost, he mentioned he was sent down to Arterias for a trial with the King for deserting the military. He should have been executed for abandoning his post when he left to find me in Padmoor. But if Cole had his mother’s ring and had seen the King…
Marge said he was searching for it for years. And if Cole showed up with that ring, he had to secure it somehow. Being promoted to a military captain was already a feat in itself. But to be promoted following such a serious transgression? Cole’s words back in Arterias ring inside my mind:
And then I was offered a proposal. If I married Celeste, I would be wed into a wealthy family. I’d have a handsome dowry, and I could send that money back to my family. My life sentence would be lifted so I could be with her.
The King proposed a betrothal to Celeste because, naturally, Cole would have given her his mother’s ring in marriage. And she would have had possession of the Blood Ring. Willingly. Easily. Which begs the question…why wouldn’t the King just forcibly take the ring from Cole in the first place?
A smile splits across my face. “The King is scared, isn’t he?”
Darian rolls his eyes. “Of a puny, incompetent woman like you? Not likely.”
I grab his chin in my hand and turn him to face me, getting awfully sick of men implying I’m any less capable than them. “Then I’ll become something he can be scared of.”
He twists his face out of my grasp, fury edging his expression. It all makes sense. The way Darian easily flip-flopped back and forth between kindness and brutality. He was only trying to get the ring. Everything I experienced in Arterias with him?
Wasn’t real.
A cloud of anger rises in my chest, blotting out the rest of the thoughts rushing into my mind. “The only reason you fucked me in Arterias was because you thought I had the Blood Ring, wasn’t it?”
“Don’t sound so disappointed,” he purrs.
