Page 53 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
Mareena leaned closer, close enough that Alina caught her scent—honey and rosemary, impossibly gentle in the heart of the desert. Noticing her curiosity, Mareena drew a small pouch from her pocket. ‘I rub it on my neck.’
Alina smiled despite herself.
‘All men can be seduced,’ Mareena said, inching closer still, until their breaths mingled. For a fleeting moment, Alina forgot the storm, the staff, the blood, the danger. Her gaze dropped, unbidden, to Mareena’s lips. ‘One simply needs to know the art of seduction.’
Alina’s breath hitched the instant Mareena pressed a kiss to her cheek, those lips lingering close enough to her mouth to leave a ghost of warmth behind. With a knowing smile, Mareena straightened and walked away, leaving Alina sittingthere, heart pounding far too loudly in her chest. She wondered, dazedly, whether Mareena had turned that art of seduction upon her instead simply to prove a point.
Alina had never been adept at such things. No matter how many elaborate gowns her mother had draped her in, no matter how carefully her blonde hair had been brushed, braided, and adorned, seduction had never come naturally to her. She had never known how to wield it.
No. Alina was not like women such as Mareena, who could sway their hips and draw every stare in the room, who could still men with nothing more than a look. She was not made for that kind of power.
Alina was something else entirely.
And Alina would do what she did best.
She would bend others to her will through manipulation and deceit.
…
The sandstorm had been raging at full force for the past two hours, and Dawn had kept herself as far from the cave’s mouth as possible, away from where the desert howled and clawed. The caverns branched and burrowed deep into the rock, some tunnels dipping low into the earth and opening into hidden chambers where small, natural pools gleamed like secret jewels. Since discovering them, the group had taken turns washing their clothes and bathing, grateful for such rare mercy in the midst of the desert.
Dawn had waited patiently for her turn. Now she sat submerged in the pool, eyes closed, her body slack with relief, the warm water easing aches she had carried for far too long. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, she was at peace.
Until someone stepped into the water and shattered it.
Dawn snapped her eyes open and sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of Alina standing in the pool, naked as the day she was born, water sliding over skin as if she had no shame of it at all.
‘I thought we were taking turns,’ Dawn said, struggling to keep the edge from her voice as she stared at Alina’s unexpected intrusion.
‘I wanted to talk to you.’
Dawn let out a humourless huff. ‘Of course you did.’
Alina smiled, a slow, knowing curve of her lips that spoke only of trouble. Dawn studied the Fire Princess with care. She had changed, irrevocably so, from the girl Dawn had once known, back when she herself had hidden behind the drakonian noble’s name, Adara. In those days, Alina Acheron had been sharp-tongued and arrogant, a know-it-all princess cushioned by privilege, living beneath a crown in a kingdom that quietly crushed its women into obedience.
Now… now Alina was something else entirely.
Dawn could not yet name it.
‘What do you want?’ Dawn asked at last, unwilling to dance in circles or waste breath on pleasantries.
‘Why do you want to kill Hagan?’ Alina asked.
The question struck like a blade.
Dawn’s body went taut, every instinct flaring. How could she possibly answerthat?She would not confess that Hagan was her half-brother. She would not admit that her hatred was rooted in something far more poisonous—that their mother had chosen him over them. Nor would she reveal the deeper truth: that she did not truly care whether Hagan lived or died. His fate meant nothing to her.
She wanted someone else’s head.
Ash Acheron’s.
But Dawn would rather bite her own tongue out than bare any of that to Alina. Not to the same girl who had once been her closest friend. The girl she had whispered secrets with in the dark, giggling beneath blankets, talking of boys and futures that had never come to pass.
‘Never mind,’ Alina said lightly. ‘I don’t particularly care whether you wish to kill him or not. Everyone else seems convinced you do, but I know you too well for that.’
Dawn’s eyes hardened. ‘What do you want, Alina?’
‘I want you to teach me blood magic,’ Alina replied, her brown eyes locking onto Dawn with unnerving focus. ‘I want you to teach me how to fight it. So that no witch can ever use it against me.’
