Page 7 of Wicked Prince of Carnage
Sterling sank down into the chair opposite him and crossed her arms. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping Marla with chores?”
Her brother arched a brow, his gaze locked on hers. “Weren’t you supposed to come back with meat?”
Cyan was such a little nuisance with a smart mouth. She’d tried andtriedto teach him how to hunt, but he wouldn’t kill an ant if his life depended on it. Besides that, he was a terrible shot and preferred sticking to the garden.
Sterling shrugged, then leaned back in her seat. “The animal slipped from my fingertips.” It wasn’t untrue—the wolf had changed back into a man, after all. Cyan didn’t know she was Red Riding Hood, but she was certain he would figure it out at some point.
She peered toward the counter, finding no one behind it. “Where’s Marla?”
Cyan finished creasing his paper figurine before answering, “She said she doesn’t get paid enough to workandwatch over me, so she left.”
“Were you asking her questions again? I told you not to do that,” Sterling groaned. Cyan endlessly asked questions from the moment she woke up until the moment she went to bed.Why do we have eyelids? How far away is the sun? How much information can a brain hold?But there was one question Sterling never minded.What was Mama like?Either way, Marla could’ve at least waited until Sterling came to the shop before up and leaving.
Cyan blew out a breath. “Yes, but I made her a paper pigeon. I thought this one would stay,” he whispered, his small voice defeated.
Sterling’s chest clenched at his crestfallen expression. “You know what? Fuck her. If she couldn’t handle you asking a few questions, then we don’t need her here.” The chair’s legs scraped against the floor as she pulled it beside him. “I know I’m not all the things our mother would’ve been to you, but I’m here for you whenever you need it, aren’t I?”
He nodded, and a few tears gathered on his dark lashes.
“Now. Wipe your tears away.” Sterling sighed. “There are things in life we don’t like to do, but sometimes we must do them anyway. I’m not going to make you slaughter animals. I know how you feel about that, but I really need you to help with the meat. You can’t simply watch.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Can’t we just sell the things from my garden?”
“We’re working on that, expanding our wares little by little. But for now, we make the most money from selling meat and the hide. I want to make certain you’re taken care of if anything ever happens to me.” Sterling thought about her revenge tactics over the years with the wolf shifters. At times, she’d wanted to stop, but her grandmother’s mangled face came to mind and she selfishly couldn’t. Wolves constantly hurt humans, so she gladly returned the favor.
“You’re not going away like Mama or Grandmother, are you?” he gasped, his lower lip wobbling.
Sterling never watered the truth down. Her brother always needed to know that at any minute, of any day, what was most important to someone could be ripped away. “I’m not planning to, but in this court, anything can happen.”
Cyan patted the dagger at his hip that she’d given him. She knew he’d let himself die before stabbing someone, but it made her feel better that he carried it. He wrapped his gangly arms around Sterling and squeezed her tight. She held him back, still finding it hard after all these years to open her heart fully to him, for fear he would be yanked away from her too. But she would continue to protect him.
The bell clanged as the shop’s door opened. Sterling glanced over her shoulder to find her friend, Nareth, carrying an empty crate. Chestnut hair skated across his forehead, and life danced in his brown eyes.
After escaping Prince Winter years ago, Sterling had run back to her mother’s cottagewith her tail between her legs. She’d had no idea how to survive, not when there was a new baby brother in tow. But Nareth was the son of a barmaid her mother had known, and he’d helped sneak goat’s milk to Cyan while teaching her how to properly use her bow. He’d been the only one she’d ever told about what Prince Winter had done, and she’d sworn him to secrecy.
“Marla left,” Cyan told him immediately.
Nareth raked a hand through his hair. “Already?”
Sterling rolled her eyes and stood from her chair. She clucked her tongue, then patted Nareth on the shoulder. “Looks as though you’ll be working here temporarily.”
“Not again,” he grumbled.
“Please.” She blinked all doe-eyed while clasping her hands. “You know I can’t have Cyan run the shop by himself.”
Nareth studied her a long moment, then gave in as usual. “Since I’m between trades right now, I think it’s a fine idea.” He was always between trades, quitting his job as a bodyguard at the brothel, then going back to it. A place where Winter would frequent, even though he loathed humans… Apparently, hatred didn’t put fucking the harlots off limits.
“Thank you. Can you be here first thing in the morning? There’s a hanging in the town’s center I want to attend.” One she didn’t want to miss.
He cocked his head. “I’ll be here as soon as the sun rises, but do they have to make it so public?”
“Do they have to hang anyone at all?” Cyan huffed. “Doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance?”
“No,” Sterling snapped, recalling how the prince so easily allowed his wolves to tear their grandmother to pieces. How the wolves pierced her wrinkled flesh with their teeth as though she were nothing. None of them deserved a second chance. “Noteveryone.These wolvesdisobeyedthe royals, and it’s the prince’s decision. Winter has been the acting king for nearly three weeks while his father’s health improves.”Ifthe king got better from the hunter attack, that was. She would easily wager that, to make it look natural, Winter was slowly poisoning his own father to gain the crown instead of outright slaughtering him.
“May I go to the bakery for a little while?” Cyan asked. “Archie wanted to play marbles with me there, and I want to give him the craft I made him.”
Sterling bit her lip and frowned. It was only two shops down, not on the other side of the court, though she couldn’t help worrying. “Go, but be back here before the sun sets.”
