Page 52 of The Frost Queen's Blade

“I’m not exactly in a state for visitors,” Rune said, already on his feet, taking Elma’s hand and lifting her easily to join him. She clung to him for a breath, unsteady on her legs. And then she backed away quickly, hating herself for how much she enjoyed touching him. How all she wanted to do, just then, was tumble into bed with him and see if she could make him beg.

The knock sounded again.

Glancing down, Elma realized she was still only in her undergarments. Dark blood pooled only inches from her bare feet. She ought to have retched or recoiled, but at that moment, she felt only a distant humiliation. Had she lost hermind? Letting her assassin lick her senseless with a body only inches away? And the worst of it was, she had liked it. She wanted to do it again, as much as possible.

While Elma’s thoughts threatened to undo her, Rune was already at Elma’s wardrobe, fetching her a robe. He held it out for her while she shoved her still-shaking arms into its sleeves.

“There’s blood on your clothes,” he said, wrapping the robe tightly and securing it at Elma’s waist. His movements were professional, distant. As if he hadn’t just murmured nonsensically into the skin of her inner thigh momentsbefore. “Don’t want anyone asking why you’ve been rolling around in gore, do we?”

“Good god,” Elma breathed, moving to the door. “Nothing happened. If you say anything…” she swallowed dryly.

He cocked an eyebrow. “Say anything about what? How good you taste? The sound you make when you come? How much I want to kill whoever’s outside your door and lay you out on the bed just so I can hear that sound again?” He smiled serenely. “I won’t say a word.”

Renewed heat flared between Elma’s legs, and she took a long, steadying breath, leaning against the doorjamb. “Just keep your mouth shut,” she muttered. This would not happen again.Couldnot happen again.

At last, she threw open the door to her chambers. Luca and Godwin’s concerned gazes met her in the corridor, and the guard wasted no time in shoving past her into her receiving room.

“Where’s your blasted assassin?” he spat, his expression dark. “We heard you might be in trouble. Cora came to warn us of a disturbance.”

Heat flushed Elma’s face. What had Cora heard? Edvin attacking the queen, or Rune pleasuring her?

“Right here,” said Rune, coming to lean on the doorframe to Elma’s bedroom. His leather trousers were dark with blood where he’d knelt in it.

Luca’s gaze turned to ice, and he made to lunge at the assassin, but Elma put out an arm to stop him. “Hesavedme,” she said. “Only moments ago. If he hadn’t been here, I might be…” the words wouldn’t come.

But it didn’t matter that she couldn’t speak, that the events of the night were forming in her memory with increasing clarity, filling her withan unspeakable dread. Godwin and Luca were already pushing past her into the bedroom and then cursing loudly and vehemently — they’d just seen the dead Slödavan.

Rune joined them, the three men conversing in sharp tones. They spoke of Slödava and blood and death.

But Elma stayed in the other room, their voices a distant hum. Edvin had not come out of thin air. He had been waiting for her. And while the citadel walls were technically scalable, Elma’s window did not open to the outside. And she was always surrounded by guards, by Rune.

Someone had let him in.

“Godwin,” she said so quietly she hardly heard herself. She went into her bedroom at last, once again met with the small sea of blood, the assassin’s guts opened wide, red and death and gore. “Godwin.”

Her uncle turned to her, frowning deeply. “What is it, Elma? This is grave indeed—”

“Someone let him in,” she said.

“That’s been established,” Luca said.

Elma wanted to hit something. She was so tired of feeling lost and alone, isolated in her distrust; of being treated like a girl when tomorrow she’d be queen. She knew who had done this, who had sent for Edvin — the same advisors who had tried to poison her. But she couldn’t name them, couldn’t risk anyone knowing that she suspected. Not even Godwin or Luca. Not yet, not until she was lawfully queen.

“I’ve beenbetrayed,” she said, her voice at last finding its footing, firm and commanding. “Again. And the three of you are, what… Dawdling? I want thisthingout of my room immediately. I want the traitors found and executed.”

Godwin and Luca exchanged looks. “Majesty,” Luca said, his gaze flitting to Rune, “it’s just as likely that whoever snuckin the other one…”

“It was not my bodyguard,” Elma said. “He killed this man just as he killed the other one. I’m beginning to wonder, Luca, if you have full control of your guards. I am to be crowned queen tomorrow, and a man lies dead in my chambers.”

“Majesty,” Godwin said, “this is Slödava’s doing. If there is ever a time to—”

“It’s alwayswarwith you!” Elma roared; all that pent-up pain of betrayal, the fear of her crown, rising in her like a gale. Her throat was raw with the force of her words. “Godwin, Luca. Get out of my room. Bring the body with you. And if either of you bring up war with Slödava again, I will take your eyes out.”

Rune watched her with something like lustful awe, his mouth falling open slightly.

“Yes, Majesty,” Luca murmured. Godwin was silent, but Elma saw in his eyes that he would obey.

“With me,” Elma said, gesturing for Rune to follow her. “I need to breathe.”

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