Page 4 of This Shattered Star

Finally, his lips slowly stretched into something far more sinister than a smile.

“On second thought.” Shivers skittered down my spine. “Maybe we could have fun, you and I.” Shadows glinted in his eyes. An unmistakable lust for violence.“I’ll find you later. That is a promise.”

Backing away slowly, he sheathed his dagger. Then turned on his heel, and casually made his way down the alley—in the opposite direction of the castle—with a swagger in his step. Like he didn’t have a care in the world.

The gentle breeze swaying though my hair did nothing to carry the smell of smoke away.

I swallowed against the lump lodged in the back of my throat.Bastard.

I had other things to worry about than his antics, or his cryptic words. He wasn’t going to kill me—at least not now.

But my grandmother would. Because I was officially late.

With a heavy sigh, I made it all but ten steps in the opposite direction before Kodhan called out to me.

“I wonder what the king would think if he knew you were out slaughtering his people in cold blood when he isn’t looking,” he mused. “His prized oddity, staining his streets red.”

Crackling ice flooded my veins.

Feet pounding hard on cobblestone, I ran, wanting to put as much distance as I could between myself and the man that was slowly beginning to feel like my right iris.

A curse, near impossible to shake.

CHAPTER TWO

“You’re late.”

My lungs strained as I tossed my cloak onto the nearest chair. Fingers flying, I popped the buttons of my tunic open, nearly ripping them from the material in the process. “I know. I encountered a minor complication.”

Only Diana Fennhaven would complain about one being late to their own demise.

“There was nothing complicated about the name I gave you, Eloise,” Diana barked. Her magic charged the air like static before a lightning strike.

It had always been equative to her temperament. One of her biggest faults to date, but I could never tell her that.

“There wasn’t. I had no problem with him.” I hurried past her, ignoring the tightness around her mouth. Her crossed arms. My dress waited patiently for me in my dressing room, untouched from where I’d hung it up before exiting the castle grounds.

Right after Diana had given me that man’s name.

Wasting no time slipping into the dark plum colored fabric and its neighboring pair of heels, exiting the dressing room proved to be a trial in itself. The hem of the flowing skirts continuously tripped me in my haste to leave. I had half a mind left to right myself so Diana could tie the corset.

She was already prepped, her silver hair twisted into a partially braided knot atop her head. Scarlet-studded pins sparkled between the strands, complimenting her fitted black gown. And around her neck had to be one of the heaviestlooking necklaces in existence. Thumb-sized diamonds, shaped similar to teardrops, reflected light from the chandelier above like hundreds of little mirrors.

“Then explain yourself,” she demanded. “Don’t tell me you wasted your time in that library again, for gods’ sake. One of these days the headmistress will demand compensation for the agony of your presence.”

My teeth bit into my tongue until I tasted copper.That librarywas the only place I could seek out solace fromher.

“People were celebrating in the alleys. Some of them realized who I was and wouldn’t let me through. They said I was wasting someone else’s position—”

“I don’t care what they said.” Her sigh pelted my back like tiny, jagged stones. She yanked hard on my corset, forcing me to stumble back a step. “You should thank the gods that I value my life over yours, girl. If he didn’t insist on keeping you alive…” The rest was mumbled incorrigibly under her breath.

The gods didn’t deserve my thanks. And there was no use in praying to ears that wouldn’t listen. If they deserved anything at all, it was to suffer for what they’d done to me.

Diana’s vitriol often reminded me of them. She would’ve been the first to order my execution if it weren’t forhim. Though changes in the king’s wants and emotions were just as frequent as the weather, always teetering between a line of fire and ice. I knew better than to assume he would never grow bored of my presence.

Maverick was anything but a simple man. If he wanted one of his prized pets to die, he would want it to be a spectacle.

And a spectacle I would be, indeed.