I hated how her mother treated her—like an object, like a chess piece. Like a brood goddamned mare. Her mother led her from cluster to cluster of mingling guests, introducing her to the prince’s people. I altered my pacing slightly, to stay back from where she was. If I got too fucking close to her, I might just grab her for myself. Kidnap her, keep her, consequences be damned.
But I stayed back. Shit was complicated enough for her as it was without me asserting my claim over her right here in front of everybody.
What I wouldn’t give to fucking act on that impulse, though. I could see it now: I’d throw that asshole prince up against the wall, run him through with a pair of ten-point buck horns, and take her over my shoulder into the woods to fuck her until dawn.
I shook off the fantasy and grabbed a passing glass of malt, downing it in one gulp. I was within earshot to hear some of what her mother was saying.
“Meet your new mother-in-law.”
I tried to hide the fact that I was staring at the woman, a villainous-looking crone who looked more suited to dropping dried raven’s feet into a boiling pot of poison than here among civilized people in our trophy room.
Onto some grubby little shits that were “very happy to become her new little cousins.” Not a fucking chance. These people weren’t her family and as far as I was concerned, they would never be.
I was her family. I was her destiny. I alone.
I downed another malt and approached them from behind so I could hear more. Between rounds of introductions, her mother got on her ass about this, that, or the other goddamned inconsequential thing.
“Your curtsy is an embarrassment.”
“You look like a boy pretending to be a girl.”
“How ironic that my daughter would be such an awkward little disgrace.”
Whore. Maybe once I killed the so-called “prince,” I would garrote her mother, too.
Now they moved on, to a couple who looked slightly less dimwitted than the rest of them, who her mother introduced as her new aunt and uncle.
“After the wedding, you’ll ride with them back to Prince Galen’s kingdom…”
The fuck she would.
“…in only a fortnight!” Her mother cooed, clapping her hands.
The red mist descended so hard and fast, I felt like I’d been shot between the eyes with an arrow. Two weeks. Two fucking weeks?
I gripped my tight fist with my other hand, ready to throw a punch at someone, fucking anyone. But I didn’t have a chance to think much how short two weeks really was, because now, coming at us, was Prince Insufferable Motherfucker himself.
“My lady,” he said, bowing deeply. And actually touching her goddamned hand.
I clenched my jaw hard enough to make my molars ache.
Anika pulled her hand back and placed it behind her, hooking her fingers together behind her back. On her wrist, I saw she wore a bracelet I had left for her ages ago. It was the first thing I’d ever left her. A string of oblong pearls separated by small diamonds. Our birthstones together. Focusing on it got me out of my red mist just enough to raise my eyes to pay attention to what was happening in front of me again.
Now he bowed to Anika’s mother.
“My Queen,” he said, pressing the back of her palm to his lips. Her mother responded by sighing deeply. I was close enough to see her cheeks flush.
She placed her hand to her collarbone and said, “It’s a pleasure, Prince Galen.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” he said, still in his bow but now lifting his eyes. “And may I be so fortunate to have Anika ripen into a woman as beautiful as you as she ages.”
Now he turned his face to Anika. And slid his eyes up and down her, letting them land on her womb.
That’s it. Done. Murder was the only answer.
My eyes locked on a longsword, hanging on the wall. Mere feet away. All it would take was two steps and a single plunge into his guts to rid myself of this problem forever. I could already hear him gurgling as he drowned in his own blood. He had all the marks of a whimperer, and I couldn’t wait to hear him die.
The hilt of the sword was right there. Right fucking there.
But then my eyes fell on Anika. On the curve of her neck, the little curls at the base of her braided hair. From behind, I watched her breathing, the way her shoulders rose and fell. She clasped her hands behind her back and gently touched the pearls, like it was the only way she could find some comfort.
Fuck, I still wanted his blood on my hands. But to kill him front of her, to upset her like that…I just couldn’t do it. Not now. Not like this.