Page 68 of A Tale of Treachery

Ryken pulled back, a beaming smile on his face. He looked so beautiful at that moment; his usual grimace and gruff attitude transformed into something light and airy.

A bang sounded at the entrance of my room, and I tightly clutched the sheet to my body. I’d forgotten where we were, that we could be caught at any minute, and that I officially belonged to someone else, regardless of my feelings. My eyes went wide at the second boom against the door. I held my breath and watched as Ryken froze.

The room went thick with tension, and Ryken drew a blade. He looked back at me, ready to strike out at the intruder, his posture tense and on guard.

My body went rigid, knowing Ryken would exterminate the threat of whoever tried to enter, and I dove to the side of the bed, my sheet tightly wrapped around my body as I gripped the remaining tatters of my gown, groaning upon realizing it would do nothing to cover me. My shift was over by the door, and I moved to grab it, not making it past the bed.

The door banged open, slamming against the wall, and Thomas entered the room with a sure step, a slimy smile spread across his lips. His eyes leered along the length of my sheet-covered body. One by one, guards filtered through behind him, their thudding steps echoing through the silence of the space. Brandon and George followed, their eyes downcast as if they had already known what they would see.

Brandon winced at the sight in front of him.

Avoiding eye contact with the men who crowded into the room, I clutched the sheet to my body as I tried my best to cover myself. There were eight men, including my friends, armed to the teeth, swords drawn.

I knew how the situation looked. It was obvious what had happened. My wild hair streamed around my shoulders in a mess of knots and tangles, surrounding a face with sweat-smeared makeup. Liquid trickled down my thigh, and I adjusted the sheet in front of me, desperate to hide the evidence of what had taken place.

Ryken straightened his spine and gritted his teeth, tilting his neck to the side in a display of warning. He reached for the dagger on his arm, ready to attack.

I wanted to beg my friends not to tell Aiden, to simply walk away and pretend nothing had happened. I was willing to bribe the guards to keep this a secret. If not for my sake, then for their own. Ryken was ready to strike them down for witnessing something they never should have seen.

I opened my mouth to speak, to plead and beg, but the words fell silent when Aiden walked through the door with a dark look that scared me. He was hurt. He was sad. And most of all, he was furious. His eyes held a glint of madness. His jaw was tight, the muscles in his cheek twitching in anger, and his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. Fury radiated from his pores, filling the room with a wrath that choked my lungs.

I looked to Ryken and braced myself for what would come next.

It wouldn’t be pretty.

CHAPTER25

“Seize him,” Aiden commanded, his voice sure and steady.

Aiden must have known what was going to happen and had prepared his men for this exact moment. I should have known by the suspicious way he’d watched me all evening, searching for any indication that my heart wasn’t with him. The whole evening had been a trap and it seemed like Brandon and George had known.

It stung to know that they had chosen him over me, that they would always choose him, their prince, their ruler. Tears gathered in my eyes, but I held strong and fought back the river that threatened to spill, pushing every ounce of the betrayal into my glare.

I was trapped and would forever be a prisoner in this palace, forced to bond with someone I no longer knew or loved, someone I no longer even considered a friend, someone who had lied to me.

Thomas and his men moved forward, ready to grab Ryken and throw him into the dungeon, but halted when he held his blade in the air and pulled the sword from the sheath strung across his chest, both raised with the intent to kill. Ryken laughed, a cold, dark sound that spread from his throat and echoed around the dim room. “Go ahead and try,” he dared.

The men back up, leaving Thomas at the forefront on his own. He looked at them. “Really?” he scoffed, continuing alone.

When Thomas approached with his sword, Ryken disarmed him in one fluid motion, striking as swiftly as a viper. He kicked Thomas’s legs out from under him and brought him to his knees, then crouched behind him. Placing his sword along Thomas’s neck, he pressed the knife in his hand to Thomas’s kidneys.

“I could kill you with a flick of my wrist,” Ryken whispered into Thomas’s ear, lightly dragging the blade across his throat. A trickle of blood flowed down the man’s neck, and a gasped grunt shot from his mouth when Ryken dug the blade shallowly into his back. Thomas froze, knowing that the slightest move would lead to his death.

“Is that all you’ve got, princeling?” Ryken mocked, locking eyes with Aiden.

Everyone in the room turned to Aiden with bated breath, curious as to what he would do next. He yawned and leaned back against the archway of the door, and raised his brow. “Go on. I’ve never liked him much anyway.”

Well, that was fair. Neither did I.

Ryken snarled, and Thomas went rigid beneath his blade. He would do it. He would get rid of everyone here just to prove a point.

I tiptoed over to Ryken, still clutching the sheet wrapped around me, and advanced with the caution of someone approaching a cornered animal. His eyes shifted to mine, and I shook my head. I wouldn’t allow him to dig himself further into this hole, refused to see him thrown into a dungeon. I couldn’t let him abandon his plan and throw his life away for me when those in Faerie needed him most.

“Don’t. Just let him go,” I entreated, squeezing his shoulder. Begging him to remember the reason he was here in the first place: to take back his crown and save his people, an undertaking that could only be completed if he were free.

Aiden’s eyes narrowed on the point of contact my hand made with Ryken’s body, like he wished he could set fire to the man crouched in front of me.

Ryken pushed Thomas forward until he fell flat on his face. Thomas scrambled away, grabbing his sword, and joining the men who had abandoned him. Air sputtered from his lips in panic, eyes darting between the prince who had betrayed him and the assassin who would have killed him.

---