Page 77 of Slaying the Shifter Prince
Her eyes widened and darted to me, then Sepher.
Hounds. Tomorrow. When he’d promised to make a public example of me.
The hairs on the back of my neck sprung to attention. Another hunt. This time, with the huge hunting dogs he kept in the stable yard. I’d only seen them from a distance, but their backs had to reach my shoulders, and their eyes glinted with a kind of sharp, instinctive intelligence.
“Sepher?” Celestine straightened, fixing him with a frown. “Is this true?”
With a deep sigh, he sat up from where he’d bowed his head with Anya’s. “What?”
“You can’t hunt Zita with your dogs. They’ll rip her apart.”
Black eyes glinting, Roark leant forward.
Cadan nodded. “It was one thing when we chased her—we were in control. But your hounds—”
“Cadan.” Sepher’s teeth flashed. “I only let Celestine speak to me like that because she’s my sister. You are not.” He stared the other fae down, and something thick rolled through the air, lifting goosebumps on my arms.
Eventually, Cadan looked away and took a gulp of his wine.
Sepher nodded as though satisfied he’d asserted himself and raised an eyebrow at Celestine. “I don’t tell you how to treat your pets. Leave me to manage mine as I see fit.”
She pressed her lips together, then parted them and sucked in a breath to speak.
“Celestine.” His eyebrows clashed together. “You remember she tried to kill me, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. It’s just—”
“It wasn’t her first time.”
A beat of silence rang through the room as every head snapped his way.
As though sensing the attention upon him, he spread his hands and gave a bitter smile. “She’s the witch who cursed me.”
Anya and several others gasped. Celestine’s dawn eyes went round, flicking to me as though seeking confirmation.
Sepher huffed into his whisky glass before taking a long sip. “And frankly, I’m offended you think I’d do something as basic as hunting her with my hounds. I have something much more imaginative planned for my bird. I’m going to make hersoar.” He shot me a vicious smile before downing the rest of his drink and standing.
I couldn’t help flinching, not when his voice was so heavy with threatening promise. Soar? Was he going to throw me off one of the palace’s turrets?
He tossed his head. “You people bore me. You”—his eyes narrowed on me—“especially. Celestine, since you like her so much, you can look after her for the night.”
He swept to the door and paused, framed by the light from the hallway. “No one hurt her. You’ll be glad of it when you see what I have planned for tomorrow.” Throwing a devilish grin over his shoulder, he disappeared.
My heart drummed against my ribs. Not a hunt. Not the hounds. Then, what? Something he didn’t want me injured for.
As the chatter slowly resumed, the questions chased through me and I churned over possibilities. None of them matched the threat he’d left hanging.
It was a small comfort that Anya didn’t follow him out. He wasmine.
Celestine remained quiet and pale. Not long after Sepher disappeared, she declared she was retiring for the night and beckoned for me to join her.
Her usually elegant pace was clipped and stiff as she led me to her rooms. Her silence scraped on me, so unusual when she liked to accompany everything with a stream of chatter.
When we reached her rooms, she closed the door and leant against it with a long exhale. She shook her head as she turned to me. “How the hells are you still alive?”
I took a step back, her words ringing a discordant chime through my bones. “What do you mean?”
“You’re the one who cursed him.” A laugh laced her words. “He’s spent a decade talking about what he was going to do to the witch who got him exiled. All the ways he would make her suffer, planning exactly how he would kill her. And yet, here you are.”
