Fall of Ruin and Wrath (Awakening, #1)

“It isn’t— ”

“Answer me!” Claude yelled, smacking a hand onto the table and causing me to jump. He took a deep breath, looking away. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not perfect and there is so much that I could do better when it comes to you— with all of this.” He gestured to the hall with a wide sweep of his arm as his gaze returned to me. Several moments passed. “But especially you. The gods know I want more for us— for you, but I know why you stay, Lis. I do.”

I fell silent, a knot lodging in my throat.

“The fear you have of being back out there— you and Grady living off the streets? It’s a horrible thing to live with, one that I’ve been lucky enough to never know.” He laughed, but it was without humor. “But I’ve capitalized on that fear. I’ve benefited from it when I should’ve done the exact opposite.”

I . . . I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I hadn’t known that he . . . he realized. That he knew. The knot expanded.

“I wish I could say I’m a better person, but I know I’m not,” he continued, jaw working. “However, I have never raised a hand against you— against any of my paramours. That is the one thing I could take comfort in providing you. Safety. Security. Because that is why you stay.”

I clutched the back of a chair as my throat thickened and my eyes stung. “You . . . you have given me that.”

“I clearly haven’t.” His stare met mine. “Was it Hymel?”

I hesitated, because the gods knew I didn’t want to protect that bastard, but I feared what Hymel would do if Claude confronted him. To Grady. Even to the Baron. “No,” I said. “I honestly don’t know how I got it. I swear to you.”

Claude said nothing for many moments; then he looked away, picking up his glass and swallowing the sweet liquor. “I’m actually relieved by the Prince’s demand.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Who else would you be safer with than the Prince of Vytrus?” he appealed.

My fingers pressed into the wood of the chair. “I don’t need to be safe.”

Claude raised his brows.

“Okay, that didn’t come out right,” I said. “What I meant is that I don’t need to be protected.”

“Obviously you do.”

I stiffened. “I am safe here. I promise— ”

“I’m not even talking about that,” he interrupted. “Vayne Beylen and the Iron Knights are heading this way. You said so yourself. He’s coming.”

Well, I wasn’t so sure that my premonition had been about Beylen, but that was beside the point. “We may get lucky, and the sheer force of the Royal regiment will sway the Westlands and the Iron Knights away from attempting to seize Archwood.”

Claude snorted. “Beylen is many things, but easily swayed is not one of them. If he was given an order to take Archwood, he will follow through.”

“How can you know that?”

The Baron said nothing.

Pressure clamped down on my chest, and my senses opened immediately. My intuition stretched out as that string formed in my mind. I came into that gray wall and pushed. “You do know him.”

Claude turned a look of disapproval on me. “Don’t read me, Lis.”

“I would apologize for doing so, but my gods, if you know the Commander of the Iron Knights, don’t you think that’s something you should’ve let Prince Thorne know before either he or the King learns of this from anyone else?” I dropped into the seat. “If they find out . . .”

“I’ll be hanging from the gallows?” Claude laughed roughly. “Trust me, I know.” He let his head tip back against his chair. “We’re actually related, Lis. Thankfully, a cousin distant enough that it would be hard to find exactly where our family tree meets.”

If I hadn’t been sitting, I would’ve fallen down. “If you’re related . . .” I placed my hands on the table. “On which side of the family?”

“Father’s.”

“Then that . . . that would mean he’s a caelestia,” I whispered. “The leader of the lowborn rebellion isn’t even a lowborn?”

Claude saluted his glass as answer, chuckling. “Sorry, I do love seeing you surprised. It is such a rarity.”

I fell back in the chair. “Well, maybe that answers why he would join forces with a Hyhborn— something you pretended to have no clue about.”

“I wasn’t pretending. I too am . . . surprised by that, but Beylen isn’t . . .” His eyes closed. “We spent a few years together when I was a boy.”

“He’s from the Midlands?” I asked. “How did he end up in the Westlands, a mortal commanding a Court army?”

“He’s starborn,” he said, and I frowned. Not only because that told me nothing at all, but because there was something vaguely familiar about that phrase. “None of that matters right now. What does is that Beylen won’t be swayed and there’s no place safer to be than with a Hyhborn prince.”

I was still stuck on the fact that he was related to the Commander of the Iron Knights. That was more important than Prince Thorne’s demand. “Then Beylen knows you’re the Baron of Archwood. You’re family.”

“Family isn’t always everything,” he murmured, stare fixed on the candles. “Not when it comes to what he . . .” Claude shook his head. “There are things far stronger than blood.”

A tiny shiver erupted, and my thoughts flashed to Maven and to what the Baron knew about my abilities— the gray shield protecting their thoughts. “How did you know it would be easier to crack the shield of a Hyhborn that wasn’t as powerful as a prince?”

His brows knitted. “What?”

“This morning, you said that.”

He took a drink. “I truly have no idea what you’re speaking of.”

Doubt rose. “How could— ”

“You should be readying yourself, Lis,” he interrupted. “The Prince will return for you and you have little time.”

“I don’t care about that right now.”

A brief smile appeared. “You and I both know that’s not true.”

“All right, I do care about that, but we can get back to that mess in a minute.”

“Mess?” He chuckled. “I’m not sure why you’re even protesting so much. You appeared to thoroughly enjoy his attentions,” he pointed out. “I don’t think I’ve seen a person come as hard as you did.”

My cheeks caught fire as I muttered, “I doubt that’s true.”

“Come now, pet. Nothing I’ve done with my cock or my tongue has ever come close to what he did with his fingers,” he said. “Even I can admit I never brought that sort of ecstasy to your face.”

“I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation.” I reached for a bottle of wine left on the table and drank straight from it. “None of that matters, Claude. I’m not an object to be given or taken.”

“And you’re not owned. You stated that clearly enough at supper, but you?” He lifted a finger from his glass, pointing it at me. “You’re wrong. We all are owned by the King. We are his subjects, in flesh and spirit.”

“Okay, well, besides that.” I clutched the neck of the bottle. “He wants to use me so he can feed, Claude.”

“I sincerely doubt that is the sole reason, Lis. There are innumerable ways he could feed that don’t require him doing so from one person.”

“Then why me?”

He raised a brow. “Good question, is it not?”

It wasn’t. Not at all. “I don’t want to go with him and be— be under his mercy, his command.”

“I have a feeling that being under his command and at his mercy will only involve being under him,” Claude replied.

A sharp twist of desire pulsed through me despite my anger, and that made me really want to smack myself. “I want to throw this bottle at you.”

Claude laughed. “You should rest your throwing arm for when you’re with the Prince. I have this distinct impression that such an act will arouse him.”

“Oh my gods.” I fell against the back of the chair, shaking my head. “What if he thinks I’m a conjurer?”

“But you’re not.”

“That hasn’t stopped you from worrying about the Hyhborn accusing me of such in the past,” I reminded him.

“Yes, but he won’t think that,” he argued.

“And how do you know that?”