“You’re welcome to escort me and wait in my sitting room while I change,” I offered.
Sax, or whatever the other’s name was, nodded slowly at Cyprus. “I’ll watch the hallway.”
“Okay.” Cyprus gestured for me to lead the way, then trailed behind me on too-silent feet.
I glanced back just to make sure he was there before entering my room. “I’ll be right back,” I told him, walking toward the adjoining bedroom and into my closet.
Jeans seemed appropriate.
Socks.
And a sweater.
I swapped out my wardrobe, checked my appearance in the mirror of my bathroom, and started toward the sitting area, when a thud echoed through my rooms. “Cyprus?” I called out, uncertain.
Silence.
Well, that couldn’t be good, unless I’d used the wrong name. I returned to my closet to retrieve a pair of throwing knives. Palming both blades, I turned just as something pricked the back of my neck.
I spun toward the source, my vision blurring with the movement.
Green.
That was all I saw right before my world turned black.
I forced a grin as the last of the guests wished me good night near the grand hall exit. Napia had retired thirty minutes ago, claiming exhaustion. I suspected she intended to find her consort for a nightcap, though I hadn’t seen him in a while. Perhaps he’d grown tired of watching her hang all over my arm for hours on end. Lucifer knew I was tired of it.
The door whispered to a close, leaving me alone with Adrik, Valora, and my mother. She’d insisted on staying until the bitter end, her queenly smile carefully in place. But I caught the glimmer of disapproval in her dark eyes.
I was in for a lecture.
Again.
“I already handled Yakariah,” I told her before she could begin. “He helped Zaya that night, and she remembered him incorrectly. He said he won’t make an issue out of it and that he understood.”
“What about Zaya?” she asked, arching that perfectly sculpted brow of hers.
“She’s waiting in my room.” Or I hoped she was, anyway. As I hadn’t received any updates from my guards, I assumed she was still there.
“How do you intend to punish her?” my mother pressed.
“I think she’s been punished enough for a lifetime, don’t you?” I countered.
Her eyes narrowed. “She attacked a guest of our court, son. We can’t allow that to go unpunished.”
“I suppose I should have expected that reply,” I drawled, my exhaustion getting the best of me. “What with your parenting methods and all.”
“Excuse me? And what do you mean by that?”
“You gave away your daughter and allowed her to marry a monster. Now you’re trying to force me to marry one. Although, for the life of me, I’m not sure what either of us did to earn such a punishment from you. So it stands to reason that you’d like me to inflict pain on Zaya as well. Shall I rape her in front of the court? Or, no, maybe I’ll let Yakariah do it.”
Her palm cracked across my face, stirring a ringing inside my head that did little to quell my growing anger.
For years, I’d put up with this bullshit. All the agreements, the requests, the demands on my life. And she had the gall to command more from me? “I
won’t do it,” I seethed. “Zaya has been through enough. She doesn’t need your bullshit on top of it.”
My mother gasped, her hand lifting again. But this time I dodged it.