Page 29 of Our Vicious Oaths
“Next time someone tries to kill me in my sleep, I’ll be sure tonotmeet the threat with deadly force so you can get off on torture games properly,Your Grace,” Kadeesha snapped.
He dragged in a slow breath through his nose. The princess didn’t know it, but Malachi’s control was hanging on by a thread and she was pushing him to the edge, as per usual. This fucker had infiltrated his palace, slipped past his guards, made it all the way to Kadeesha’s room, and managed to get as far as stabbing her—someone he’d announced as belonging to him—in the chest. “I want every guard on duty tonight rounded up and questioned,” Malachi told Shionne. “I want to know what the hell they were doing to fuck up on their watch so egregiously. I also want to know if any of them helped the intruder gain access to Kadeesha. I’d like to believe none of the palace guards are so idiotic as to value their lives so little, but the attack on Kadeesha aligning with Cassius’s challenge and near-certain dissent amongst at least a portion of the lord primes points to exactly that.”
“So you think the assassin was sent by someone inside your court and not Rishaud?” Kadeesha asked.
“Yes,” Malachi answered without needing to consider it. “Rishaud is too power hungry. He wants to use the prophecy too badly and wouldn’t so hastily throw you away.”
“Even after last night’s display during the revel? Wasn’t your aim to undercut the interpretation of the prophecy that I am supposed to belong to Rishaud?”
“He’d opt for damage control and try to quash any such rumblings first.” Malachi was certain of it.
“But the assassin checked to see if I was …pregnant.” Kadeesha nearly choked on the word and Malachi locked down his face upon hearing it. “I’m not,” she said quickly as if the very notion scalded her. “This isn’t a fertility year for me.”
“I know,” Malachi responded blandly.
Her eyebrows shot up and while he would’ve toyed with her under different circumstances, the issue at hand was too severe to play games. “I would be able to scent it. It’s an Apollyon fae trait. Males can sense when females are fertile,” he explained. And he would’ve never gone anywhere near the princess if that was the case.
Kadeesha cleared her throat. “That’s peculiar.”
He shrugged. “We were the Moon Court in a former time. Those among us who possess void magic draw our power and strength from the moon. And Nyaxia, the moon Celestial, does govern fertility alongside death and rebirth. At least that’s how Nychelle explained it once.”
The princess cleared her throat again. “My point,” she said abruptly, “is that Rishaud cannot be discounted. He has no idea about my fertility cycles. I made sure of it. Since he’s so fanatical over the prophecy, he could’ve wanted confirmationif I was or was not pregnant with the child of the rival king who stole me away to his court.”
Malachi clenched his jaw. An irrational rage came over him at the thought of someone else putting their hands on Kadeesha and Rishaud being concerned with anything having to do with her body. He chalked it up to his temper already running hot over an intruder successfully sneaking into the palace.
“The prophecy concerning Kadeesha essentially makes her a kingmaker,” Jakobi pointed out. “If I were a vassal king of one of Rishaud’s dominion courts, I’d be trying my hardest to either get my hands on Kadeesha to further my own power or kill her to make sure neither Malachi nor Rishaud can use Kadeesha to increase theirs. Rishaud or a lord prime within our own court aren’t the only two possible sources behind the assassin. Perhaps some other southern royal believes the princess can be accessed easier while in this court.”
Leisha cursed. When Malachi and his Cadre had arrived, she’d been in Kadeesha’s room along with the Aether woman named Samira. “If that’s the case, this likely won’t be an isolated attempt,” the Aether woman observed.
Malachi barely held back a growl. The prospect of someone else coming after Kadeesha irked the shit out of him. He scrubbed his jaw, telling himself the intense reaction was born of innate territorial fae habits, nothing deeper. Kadeesha was sequestered in his court at the moment and he’d publicly claimed her ashis.While she remained at his court and his supposed plaything, any attempts to steal her away or kill her were a direct challenge, and he wouldn’t fucking abide that going down.
And that’s theonlyreason.
“Let them come,” Kadeesha said, unbothered. Malachi’s lips twitched at the deadly intent behind the archprincess’s declaration.“I’ll leave the next one alive,” she told Malachi, “so we can extract who sent them after me.”
“We may not have to wait,” said Shionne. She was now stooped beside the assassin and had been searching the body. She lifted up his inked hand and rubbed her thumb across the cluster of hemlock that was part of his Bane Guild brand. The ink smeared. “This one is a fake,” Shionne said. “However, he has another marking that is not.” Keeping hold of the male’s hand, Shionne rolled up his shirtsleeve to the elbow. On his upper forearm was a brand of a three-antlered stag. It was the symbol of Lady Niyarre, the Stone Warden of the south, and she stamped it on all of her soldiers.
Malachi grinned. He looked around at each member of his Cadre. They all grinned as widely back.
“Lady Niyarre didn’t act alone,” Zayvier said. “That’s not how the old guard among lord primes work. None of them would have the gall without the backing of at least one other lord prime.”
“If Kadeesha was presented to the court as your possession, that means she is under your protection while at court. Ignoring that isn’t treason, but it is a violation of Court Law, which is also punishable by death,” Dedrick pointed out gleefully.
“It is,” Malachi said, “but let’s go hunting first. I’d bet my crown that whatever backing Cassius thinks he’s secured from among the lord primes, it’s a smoke screen.IfCassius managed to win the challenge and seize the throne, the lord primes who object to me ruling based on inexperience would do the same with Cassius. I imagine there are those among the lord primes who believe one of them would be a better alternative, and Cassius is dumb enough to be used as a tool that they’re attempting to use against me before turning on him if he’s successful. Anotherof the Diamundis bloodline has the best chance of standing against me in a challenge. My void magic registers stronger, but Cassius’s is, admittedly, formidable.”
“Whatevergoing huntingmeans, I’m coming with you,” Kadeesha insisted.
Jakobi snorted. “Not a chance, Aether Princess. This is Apollyon business.”
“It is not only Apollyon business. Myqueenwas attacked. That makes this affair Aether business too,” Samira snapped.
“Plus,” said Leisha, stepping to Samira’s side and staring Malachi and Jakobi down, “if you all let an assassin slip by under your watch, then you aren’t very fucking good at handlingyourbusiness. So, if this hunt of yours relates to Kadeesha being targeted, then she goes, and we, her Nkita, go to see that the threat is actually quashed.”
Jakobi’s nostrils flared—his tell that he was about to flip a switch and not bother to keep himself in check. He took a step toward Leisha. “You have no authority here and nobody gives a fuck about your desires.”
When Jakobi was pissed, there were very few across the whole of Nimani who would think about going toe-to-toe with him. Leisha proved to be in that minority. When she took a step toward Jakobi, it was hard not to be a little impressed. It was even more difficult when the Aether woman snarled, “And I give less fucks about anything you could possibly say.”
“Leisha, let me handle it.” Kadeesha spoke the words quietly. They were less a command and more of an entreaty. The dynamic between Kadeesha and the group of female warriors she called her Nkita was interesting—similar, Malachi realized, to what existed between himself and his Cadre. When Kadeesha interacted with them, she didn’t assume the position of a royaladdressing her inferiors. She behaved as if they were on equal footing and a close-knit family.
