Page 26 of Ravenous
Though Nadje wished she could take credit for the plot, Emilia had orchestrated most of it. The princess hadn’t asked her to sleep with Inkletter—Emilia was too decent for that—but Nadje hadn’t minded dallying with the spy.
Not at first anyway.
“Prince Co?tin alone will hunt her down,” Inkletter predicted. “Rumors say he believes she is his mate. Does the interest flow both ways?”
She snorted. “Not at all. Emilia despises him, considers his infatuation a sickness.” Even so, Co?tin—so beautiful, fallen, and twisted—intrigued Nadje. She’d learned from a source that the prince had gotten high on intoxispells and bragged about having a devastating advantage over another kingdom in the Skein—leverage so secret that even King Neculain knew nothing of it.
If true, it would change the landscape even more than Emilia’s abduction. It would changebusiness. Nadje took market conditions very seriously.
Inkletter said, “Historically, vampire royals haven’t shied from incest.”
“The other royal siblings don’t shy away from anything.” Sin and depravity marked each of their existences. Their personal servants returned to this ward with haunted eyes and bloody clothing, telling hair-raising tales. “But Emilia did.”
“She must have paid you a fortune to take such a risk. Is that how you came by this gold?”
Nadje shrugged. “She had nothing of much value.”
“Then why help a royal you barely know?”
“Because the princess hates the kingdom’s slavery and her family’s crimes.” Nadje’s own past—naive, young, begging for passage out of the Badlands—drove the rest. “Not to mention that the king’s decree is one every female should fear.” Nadje shivered, scarcely able to imagine such a scenario.
Inkletter inclined his head at her point. “So you’re not a revolutionary plotting to burn the kingdom one royal at a time?”
Not good for business.“Coin usually prevails with me.” Survival had a price, and she budgeted to afford it. Yet still she found herself asking, “Is Emilia safe among the Berserkers?” That had been Nadje’s fear: for the princess to leap out of the pan and into the fire. But Emilia had been willing to risk anything.
“Your friend is not in immediate danger.”
Nadje wouldn’t call themfriends, per se. She didn’t want or need friends. They just got killed or turned out to be liabilities. More effort than she could bother with.
Inkletter said, “The queen wed her to a Berserker shieldchief, her second-in-command.”
Nadje’s inhale was sharp. “Already?”
“Yes. But he hates vampires. With significant reason.”
The room contracted. The idea of gentle Emilia in a warrior’s bed—scorned, trapped—stoked a burn in her chest. “Will he hurt her?”
“He’s a decent male, but I honestly don’t know.”
She forced herself to file away this worry and concentrate on her own. “Are you going to tell the guards about my involvement?”
He crossed his arms, exuding all the entitlement of an untouchable male. “Not once you cut me in.”
She laughed at him. She’d hoarded this gold all her life, and one day—or night—it might be her salvation.
Undeterred, he said, “Since I can no longer spy, I must embark on a new career. You shall be my first blackmail mark.”
“Get fucked, incubus.”
He cocked his bald head. “You act as if I don’t hold all the cards.”
“You act as if we’re playing cards.”
The corners of his lips twitched, his grin giving a hint of his even white teeth and his demon fangs. “When did you figure out I was a spy?”
She let him change the subject, even though it prolonged his visit—hislastvisit. “I knew from the start. Whenever someone lies to me, the little hairs on my nape stand up. It’s as apparent to me as if I’d scented fresh blood. Besides, no male is as perfect as you, unless it’s an act.” She sounded jaded for her age of a century or so, but she had seen it all. “After that, I asked around—you’re not the only one with sources—and learned all about you. Your library in Grimrock. Your sources. Your studies.”
His posture shifted. “So everything was fake?”
