I dropped to my knees, rolled across the floor and burst forward, weapon out, before he’d finished the question, and looked up into the eyes of a killer.
Vennix. The assassin was here, and he was inches away from murdering my father.
7
Trinity
“What do you think you’re doing?” The tip of the knife was still shoved painfully against my ribs, but now the blade was at my back. Still inches away from my heart, so not much of an improvement.
“Following orders. Which is what you should be doing. And I told you to stop talking,” Zel hissed in my ear as he twirled the tip of blade just enough to cut through the fine fabric of my dress and break my skin. It stung, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
“Where is my mother?” I asked. He had to know where she was.
“I said, stop talking.” His free hand squeezed my shoulder, directing my steps through the winding maze of hallways and rooms in the palace. The place was too quiet. Deserted. Apparently, no one had wanted to miss the party.
Lucky me.
But I never was good at following orders from a bully. Destiny had taught me well. “You said you were going to take me to my mother, which is the only reason I didn’t scream bloody murder on the terrace and have all of Alera come running. So, where is she?”
“Alive. For now. If you give my master what he wants.” He laughed, and the sound was like listening to a hyena. Twisted, coming from a human being. But then, not exactly a human. An Aleran. At least, I assumed he was Aleran. He could have been some other species I didn’t know about. I heard the Everians looked just like humans as well. Or so close it was very difficult to tell them apart. But he was crazy. Insane. Perhaps he was losing his mind slowly, or struggling with orders. I hadn’t been alone on Alera until the ball. His patience was wearing thin, or his master’s was.
“And what is it you want from me?” I shouldn’t have asked, but since his grip was so freaking painful it felt like he was slowly cracking my collarbone in half, it was either talk or scream. Screaming would give me a knife up and between my ribs.
I’d ditched one shoe, then the other, hoping people would see it for what it was, a Hansel and Gretel breadcrumb trail.
“The jewels, Princess. Where are the royal jewels?”
I put my hands up to my ears, felt the large tear-drop gems, tugged them off.
What? No, he wasn’t talking about my stupid earrings. Oh shit. “That’s why you idiots kidnapped my mother? For some stupid black rocks?”
He howled in delight, as if he’d gone just a bit mad in the last few minutes. We continued to walk as we spoke and I dropped one of the earrings on the floor as we went. “Black? So you have seen them! Tell me where they are and I won’t kill you.”
Shit. I could use the pain in my shoulder and the knife at my back as an excuse for my stupid, loose tongue, but I wasn’t one to lie to myself. I’d just made a dumb mistake. Damn it. “I don’t know.”
“Oh, you do. And if you don’t tell me, you’ll tell him. When he’s done with you, you’ll beg him to take them from wherever you’ve hidden them.”
Great. Threats of death and torture. Completely irrational, based on Zel’s heavy breathing and overall excitement level. Faith would say something sarcastic. Destiny would have probably tossed him against the wall and smashed his throat with her boot by now.
Why did I have to be the cool-headed analyst?
And as I pondered that question, the thought that had been tickling the back of my mind since this hostile turn of events blurted out of my mouth. “Why did you try to save our lives when we arrived, but threaten to kill me now? Why are you dragging me off with a fucking knife in my side?”
“Oh, you royals really are just as stupid as my master said you were.” He shoved me into a room I’d never seen before. Based on the musty smell and the light coating of dust on the desk and shelves next to the huge, canopied bed, I guessed this room hadn’t been used in quite some time. At least the knife wasn’t jabbing me now.
“Stupid, stupid princess.”
He laughed again as he shut the door behind him, but this time I didn’t find it at all entertaining.
* * *
Leo
“Leo, no!” My father stepped in front of the deadliest assassin I’d ever known and blocked my kill shot with his own body.
“Get out of the way, Father!” Standing behind him with a condescending grin on his face, Vennix—or Nix when we’d been on friendlier terms—used my father as a shield, and fucking smiled at me as he did it. He didn’t blink. Didn’t even flinch that he was about to die. I could take the head shot. I had a few inches of leeway. But it was my father’s brains I’d blow all over the fucking ground if I missed.
Fuck.