He was going to kill me.
One-handed, I managed to block some of his strikes, but my brain rattled and I couldn’t remember Faolán’s training. Wasn’t sure I remembered my own name.
“You always thought you were better than me,” Robin spat as the blows stopped. “We’ll see how great you are when I put you in the ground.”
His fingers closed around my throat.
75
Kat
I froze.
Every moment of terror I’d ever known slammed into me with horrible clarity.
Papa shouting and smashing plates. Avice locked in a cupboard as I snuck her food.
Uncle Rufus snapping Fant?me’s neck. Dangling above the grave she shared with Dia with his grip around my neck in a reenactment of her death.
My wedding night. The nights after.
The highwayman pointing a pistol at my head. Later, being the one with the pistol, heart hammering as the Wicked Lady stopped her first victim.
The moments stretched on and on, each one clamping me in ice.
But then as I wheezed, my mind reached for something else.
Riding Vespera. Her fur tickling my face as I hugged her.
Ella’s laugh as she teased me about my name at our first meeting. The brightness of her smile, and its fragility after unCavendish hurt her.
Dancing with Bastian. Being found by him in the maze and in the library, and all the many encounters after.
And now.
Sharing these rooms with him. Choosing him to share my body and my heart.
Grey hazed around the edges of my vision and the world grew dimmer, but it was like I’d woken up.
Because this was a life—or at least the early buds of one. A life—not just survival.
I wriggled and tried pushing him away, but it would’ve been a challenge with two hands. With only one, I stood no chance.
Black blotches crept in as Robin bent closer, this look of fascination on his face.
He was enjoying this. He wanted this.
My heart thundered against my ribs as the rest of the world faded further and further away.
No. This was not it. I had too much to lose.
My hand groped across the floor.
Robin squeezed.
Thicker and darker blackness closed in, pulsing with every laboured beat of my heart.
I wanted to live. My life was worth saving. And this arsehole wasn’t about to take it from me.
My grip closed on something.
My tingling fingers barely registered how it felt. I had no idea what it was.
But only a pinprick of light remained in my vision. So I clung onto that, and I clung onto whatever I’d found.
When you have nothing left, even a scrap of something is important.
I struck.
Hot liquid spurted over me. I managed half a gasping breath.
I wanted to live.
I wanted to live.
There was only darkness and that pinpoint of light.
I reached for it. Death didn’t get to come for me today.
Not today.
Spluttering. Gurgling. More red. The weight on me grew heavier. Robin’s mouth gaped.
Someone was roaring. Not in terror or pain, but in ten years of hate and hurt and rage.
It took me long moments to register that I could breathe. My arm was still going, stabbing and stabbing and stabbing.
The roar was mine.
Robin slumped to one side, a shard of glass in his eye, his face and neck a bloody mess.
The soft bits.
I wheezed, sucking in as much air as I could, pulse hammering on my ears.
My broken wrist and sliced hand should’ve been in agony, but every part of my body was alight with terrible and glorious fire. It buzzed through me like potent magic.
Blood everywhere.
My hand, my face, slick with it.
From the state of him, he had to be dead. I didn’t need to check his pulse.
I should be sorry, shouldn’t I? Upset? Scared? Something?
But all I could do was blink at his blank eyes and slack face.
Then the shadows came.
Gentle shadows lifted Robin’s body off me and cradled my broken arm. My head spun as I sat up, something warm helping me. I had to blink several times before I registered the blackest of black hair, the silver eyes surveying me, and beyond that, the door hanging off its hinges.
Bastian’s lips moved, and he cupped my cheek, turning my face away from Robin. It was only as I took long breaths that the thunder in my ears abated enough to hear what he was saying.
“Don’t look. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
I blinked up at him, then smiled when I realised he was trying to protect me from the sight of what I’d done. “I’m… I’m all right.” Dimly, pain broke through my daze, as if speaking had brought reality back.
I pulled away from Bastian’s protection and I looked.
The shard of glass from one of Ella’s bottles glittered.
Even a scrap of something is important.
Was it ghoulish to laugh at a time like this?
Robin’s remaining eye was wide in shock. Maybe that was why he hadn’t protected himself from my blows—he hadn’t expected them.
Blood. Gore. Torn flesh.
The sight of him utterly destroyed didn’t horrify me as the people I’d poisoned had.
“He earned this.” My voice came from somewhere far away. “He… he tried to kill me. Not just now, but… all these years.” I shook my head as Bastian’s words from Lunden came back to me. “A slow death.”
Bastian nodded, eyebrows tight together. “He did. He did.” He pressed a kiss to my brow and another to my mouth—warm and alive and mine.
It was only when he pulled away with red on his lips that I realised my face was covered in blood. I reached out to wipe it away, but it coated my hand too. My dress and cleavage. The floor around me.
My gaze snagged on the broken door, shockingly white compared to the crimson.
I frowned at Bastian, somehow, impossibly here. “How did you know?”
“Urien. He couldn’t stop Robin entering, but he could come and tell me.”
More ridiculousness. I could be left alone with that man, yet being with Bastian was wrong?
He gave a long exhale, shoulders sinking. “Thank fuck he did. Though…” He glanced at Robin’s body. “It looks like you didn’t need me.”
I might’ve smiled. It was hard to say. Everything felt a bit fuzzy, except for the pain radiating from my wrist and palm.
He tore a strip from the hem of his shirt and bandaged my hand, staunching the bleeding. “I’ll send for Asher to heal you, then we can get you cleaned up.”
“No.” The firmness of my voice shocked even me. “Help me up.”
He frowned but obeyed, shadows holding my arm steady.
“You’re going to take me to the Hall of Healing, and we’re going to walk the busiest corridors of the palace to get there.”
Maybe I was losing my mind. Maybe I was still running on adrenaline. But after everything, I was standing, and Robin was not.
The corner of Bastian’s mouth rose in a bemused smile as he cocked his head.
“I will not hide away in here.” Head high, I took his arm, allowing for my sliced palm. “I’m not the one who should be ashamed. Let’s show your fellow fae what blindly clinging to their laws caused.”
76
Bastian