Page 20 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

Another squeak of noise.

“Ow!” came the same male voice again before it sounded like a struggle broke out, and I finally heard that suffering metal door slam shut.

Footsteps crunching over the gritty stone floors traveled closer and closer, until a figure eclipsed the flickering blue light reflecting in the hall. Had I not known better, I could’ve sworn my warden’s shoulders lost a bit of the tension they were so carefully strung back with.

I couldn’t tell if the man who’d entered the cell block was a warrior or a mage, not with his heavy black and gray garb, a mixture of leather plate and draped cloth, that seemed equally suited for both lines of work.

It was of little help that he wore a hood dripping with unnatural shadows, leaving only the hard line of his stubbled jaw and thin-drawn lips in clear view. Even when he reached for my cell door to nudge it open the rest of the way, his hands were gloved. A cloaked executioner, maybe. What a joy.

“Apologies, my liege,” he muttered as he tucked himself into the darkest corner, hands clasped behind his back. “Got tied up in Embervale.”

“Don’t worry. You’re in the nick of time.” My warden turned his unsettling amber attention back to me and grinned.

“I was just about to explain to Miss Wynn here that the king she thought she was betrothed to has been dead for years.”

It took a long moment for those words to wash over me.

“Dead? That’s…impossible.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “I saw the contract myself. The signatures, the seals. I…”

“All forgeries, I’m afraid. And good ones, I’ll give you that much. But, fortunately for me, and less so for you, I suppose, King Callum is dead.” He retrieved a dagger from a sheath strapped to his thigh and tossed it at my feet. “By that blade, actually. I had a hell of a time separating the vertebrae of his neck once I’d stabbed him through the heart, but it did the job.”

My attention bounced between him and the dagger for longer than I’d care to admit before I rasped, “You…?”

His horns shone a little in the dim light of my cell as he straightened and said, “Killed my father? Yes, I did.”

The awful, feverish flush from earlier came back in a nauseating rush, turning my skin tacky, as what this man was setting out in front of me clicked together like pieces of the sharpest, most uncomfortable puzzle cutting away at my fingers.

I swallowed. “And that makes you…?”

“The King of Grimmoria? It does.” He pressed his right hand to his chest, and his lopsided grin came as a flash of white teeth against pale pewter skin. “Maksym Blackspire, at your service.”

Fuck me. I stared at this Maksym as he observed me with unnatural stillness, betraying the way I was sure he was ready to strike if I even hinted at making a move he did not approve of.

Dark fae of all varieties, after all, were known for their martial prowess—for being just a little faster and a lot more brutal than the other races on the continent, plus their infamous abilities with magic, especially compared to a lowly Odessan like myself. I was hard-pressed to believe a young king of such brutal people wouldn’t be as fit as his soldiers, especially if he was the one responsible for taking his father’s head. I was screwed in so many ways.

“My liege?” the mage, or warrior, or whatever the fuck he was, asked quietly from his dark corner, and the king’s attention snapped over to him.

“Yes? What is—oh, Mina strike me. How rude.” He chuckled, and his unsettling gaze drifted back to me. “Miss Wynn, this is my high mage, Jasper.”

Jasper. The same name my first jailer had mentioned.

“You’re the one who helped deal with my wounds?” I asked, and his only response was a subtle dip of his head.

It was pretty fucking hard to see with his hood and the shadows and how my head was throbbing again, but mages were always a strange bunch like that. My father’s own council of high mages barely spoke to anyone, and they wore the most gaudy standards that made them impossible to tell apart.

“Well, thank you for that,” I felt obligated to add, but I forced my attention back to Maksym quickly. “When did your king die?”

He pursed his thin lips and cast his gaze upward. “Oh, let’s see. Three, maybe four turns ago, I believe.”

My lip curled at both his cockiness and the vagueness he clearly used with purpose, and I scoffed. “You can’t expect me to believe that something as major as a king being killed happened that long ago, and word never made it to Odessa? My father was apprised of everything happening on the continent.”

Maksym’s dark eyebrows climbed. “Was he now? And what makes you so confident your dear father didn’t know, hm?”

“If he knew, my brother would have been informed when he took my father’s seat, as I’m sure you were about many pressing matters after you murdered your father.”

At that, Maksym shrugged in the most infuriating way.

Good thing I had plenty stirring around in my mind.