Instead, all I get is the quiet snick of wood. Yet somehow, Osrik hears it and appears around the corner, his black leathers peeling him from the shadows as he waits for me.
For a big bastard, he’s quiet when he wants to be. All my Wrath are. They’ve had to learn skills like that over the years. Some of those skills are as harmless as learning to move silently, while other skills are...not so harmless.
Osrik takes one look at my expression and cocks a bushy brow. Stroking a hand down his brown beard, he studies me as I stalk down the hall toward him. He steps up to my side and matches my pace, and even though I’m not a short male by any means, Osrik’s height dwarfs mine, his bulky body swaying with every booted step.
“So, nice visit with Auren then?” he asks wryly, a smirk playing on his mouth.
I pin him with a glare. “Why don’t you take that piercing in your bottom lip and stick it through your top one too?”
Osrik lets out a chuckle, tongue flicking over the tiny piercing of Fourth’s twisted tree branch sigil. It’s one of his only tells. He flicks at it when he’s thinking, or pissed, or amused. So actually, I guess it’s a pretty shit tell.
“She’s done a number on you, huh?”
My irritation twitches with the vein in my temple. Beneath my skin, I can feel my power writhing like infected veins, rooting around for a source to latch onto. My fury feels the same, but I know exactly who I want to take it out on.
“He fucking hit her.”
Osrik stops in his tracks. I turn to face him, and his brown eyes blink at me, his round face going ruddy beneath his scruff. “What the fuck did you say?”
Only because we’re in a deserted hallway does he know he can talk to me like this. When we’re around others, we have to keep up the act of formality. But I don’t consider my Wrath my subjects or servants. They’re the only people in this whole damn world I trust. So when we’re not forced to play court, we can speak freely.
I’m glad for the anger I see on his face. Misery may love company, but anger thrives on it.
“Midas struck her. After the welcome dinner. She has a fucking bruise on her cheek.”
Osrik curses unde
r his breath, but just saying it aloud makes me fist my hands at my sides. I hadn’t noticed the mark at first—I’d thought the dim lighting and the shadows were the reason behind the slight darkening along her cheek. Just the thought that the slimy shithead put his hands on her makes my blood boil.
“What do you wanna do?” Osrik asks evenly. “Kill the fucker?”
I have to smirk at the way he so effortlessly proposes we kill a king.
The thing is, if I asked them to, any of my Wrath would do it in a heartbeat. No hesitation, no questions asked. They’d slit Midas’s throat and be happy for the bloodstain on their blade.
Yet like I told Auren, there’s a reason why I’ve held back. Not just because of the political problems that would arise—and they would arise. Especially if it became known that I killed him or had any hand in it. I don’t even want to think about the repercussions my kingdom would face, and my people don’t deserve that.
The other kingdoms would form an alliance to get rid of me, no doubt. Then my people would be forced to live through more war, and if the others succeeded, my kingdom would have to live beneath a new king or queen.
Fuck that.
However, aside from those reasons, I’d still kill him if Auren asked me to. But she won’t. Just like she didn’t ask me not to leave Ranhold.
I let out a frustrated sigh. “As much as I want to...no.”
Auren’s eyes are opened now, she sees the bars for what they are, but killing the captor she loved is another matter entirely. So for now, I can do nothing, and that alone makes me rage, makes my irascible power grow moody and demanding. Or perhaps it’s the thought of her leaving, disappearing. As if she needs to run away from not just Midas, but me as well.
At my reply, Osrik lifts his lip in a disappointed sneer. “What if I just maim him a bit?”
A chuckle comes out of me, helping to dispose of the black cloud that’s looming over my thoughts. The two of us start walking the halls again while I think. Ranhold is a maze of corridors and staircases, and it can be easy to get lost within its stone and glass walls, though I’ve made a point to familiarize myself with most of it.
“I’ll let you know on the maiming,” I reply. “I wouldn’t mind castrating him.”
Osrik gives me a grunt in return.
“No moves on the prince?” I ask, switching subjects.
He shakes his head, the fasten around his long hair pulled at his nape. “No. Lu’s just left her watch for the night. If Midas is planning on killing the little twat, he’s not doing anything yet.”