Page 82 of Feral Guardian
“Lilianna, look at me,” he says with an edge of fury.
I turn my head up and lock my eyes with his. His firm grip finds my chin, holding my face steady as my hips keep moving.
His brow pinches and he growls, “You’re high.”
I laugh. “I’m enjoying the music.”
His jaw tenses and he looks around at the men who’d moved me like a lover would. “Did you fucking dose her?” he asks in Seterian.
I’m enjoying the music, not worrying about whatever Alastair keeps prattling on about. I move my body, my chin slipping through his fingers. He grips my throat instead and my body responds, arching into the touch.
“Igor,” Alastair snarls. “Did you poison her?”
“Stop yelling, Alastair,” I whisper as my hands graze up and down his muscled arm.
Igor gives some dismissive comment in return. Alastair looks angry. He grips my face in both hands, leaning in as he says something. I can’t move anymore, and my body doesn’t like the confinement.
“You’re overreacting,” I say, moving his hands from my cheeks to my chest.
I slide against him and he groans, putting his hands on my sides to hold me still. “Who did this to you?”
“My mother is trying to kill me. Did you know that?” I ask, twisting and turning between his palms.
His arms go rigid. “What did you say?”
“My mother, she doesn’t want me on the throne—”
“Silence,” he hushes me, shaking my body and loosing me from the music’s lure.
The spell of the song shatters and the room comes back into view around me. Shit, they must’ve been true bards, their magus ability lying in the twisting of sound and song. They enchanted me…but I’ve experienced true bards before. How is it this serious? How am I losing all these thoughts, all this time?
The sweetness on Trask’s fingers.
Had he drugged me?
Alastair pulls me off the dance floor and moves us into the back. Igor’s wife is done cooking for the night and all the dishes are stacked up, cleaned and washed. My eyes rove anywhere else but over Alastair. I can’t stand the disappointment I feel in his gaze.
“What happened?” he asks.
My thoughts whisper through me, telling me to be careful. But I struggle to hold on to any caution.
“I don’t want to go home,” I blurt.
His eyes narrow. “Why?”
“She wants to kill me,” I say, still avoiding his penetrating gaze.
“Who? Your mother? How could you say this?”
Gods, it’s now or never, isn’t it?
I push back my sleeves and run my hands along my arms, revealing the marks I’d hidden long ago. Angry black runes glow beneath my skin on each arm. I let my hands trail up my neck and down my chest, unsheathing every mark she’d ever left upon me.
“She wanted me to be stronger. She wanted me strong for the throne, but I failed her,” I whisper, my eyes locked on the floor. “And now she wants me out of the way.”
“Lily,” Alastair gasps. His hand finds my chin and points it up at his face. “What is this?”
“It’s her work. She marked me with these…” I look down at the angry, jagged runes on my arms. Most are from no god of mine, no god I know.
