Ari turned to the left, leaving the path in favor of cutting a direct line toward the voices and nearly tripped over a small bush.
“Daka!” she swore as her toe connected with a thorn. Hastily, she moved around the bush and climbed into a flower bed. Her shoes crushed blossoms into the dirt as she ran.
“You signed a contract.” The stranger’s voice reminded Ari of the thick, weighted calm that covered the kingdom right before a storm unleashed itself on the land. “You don’t try to break a contract with my employer without suffering the consequences.”
She had the sudden, sick feeling that Ajax hadn’t been as discreet as he should’ve been while making plans to find and kill Teague.
Maybe this wasn’t about Cleo after all.
Maybe Ari was in danger of losing Thad.
Would Teague hold Ajax’s actions against her brother?
The nearly healed bruise on her neck throbbed in time with her pulse, a vivid reminder that Teague would do as he pleased.
Ari slid over a patch of rocky soil and nearly dropped the cudgel. She was almost there. A handful of trees was all that separated her from her brother.
The fact that she didn’t know what she was going to do when she got there didn’t matter. She’d figure it out.
“Who said anything about breaking the contract?” Ajax asked.
Ari moved into the trees.
“This is insulting.” Thad sounded furious. “I’ve done nothing to warrant this. I’ve held back the city guard and turned a blind eye to Teague’s business. I’ve upheld my end of our bargain. You have no right—”
“Your man here has a reputation for killing lesser fae than my boss. Now we hear rumors that he’s got his sights set on Teague himself. That was a mistake.”
“Rumors and lies.” Ajax sounded angry, but Ari could hear the thread of fear beneath it.
The stranger laughed, though he didn’t sound amused. “You boys are in so far over your heads, you don’t even have the sense to know you’re drowning.”
The dull thud of a fist smacking flesh sent Ari hurtling forward. She skidded around a tree and stopped as she took in the scene.
Thad was on his knees, holding his rib cage, while terrified rage lit his face. His guard rushed for the stranger, and the man pivoted and slammed his fists into the side of Ajax’s face as he passed. Ajax fell to the ground, and then a knife was in the stranger’s hand, driving into Ajax’s side.
Turning, the stranger stood over Thad with his back to Ari and said grimly, “My employer has a message for you.”
His fist crashed into Thad’s nose, and blood flowed.
Ari wrapped her hands around the cudgel and lifted it above her head.
“You cannot get out of the contract you signed.” He kicked Thad in the stomach.
Ari crept forward as her brother moaned and retched.
“You cannot protect yourself from him.” The knife flashed, and Thad cried out as it sliced into his arm.
Ari judged the remaining paces between herself and the stranger and prayed she wouldn’t miss.
“You should’ve enjoyed your last nine years of freedom so that you would never have to see my face.” The man raised the knife.
Ari lunged forward, closed the distance between them, and swung the cudgel at the stranger’s head like she was hammering a nail.
The weapon hit the man with a terrible wet crunch. He dropped to the ground and lay motionless.
Thad fell back, moaning in pain, and Ari raised the cudgel, her body trembling as she waited to see if the man would get up and threaten her brother again.
“Princess!”
She looked up the path, and then Sebastian was there.
“He was hurting my brother.” Ari’s voice shook, and her teeth began to chatter uncontrollably as the man lay silent and still, blood pouring from his head to form a viscous ring around him. “I had to stop him.”
Sebastian crouched beside the man and pressed two fingers against his neck. “You can put the weapon down, Princess. He’s dead.”
“Oh, stars.” Ari dropped the weapon and backed away from the body.
Carefully, Sebastian rolled the man onto his back, and then went still.
“You were right, Princess. This is Daan, Teague’s collector. His top employee.” His voice was hard. “If Teague finds out his collector died here, you’ll be in more trouble than you can possibly imagine.”
FOURTEEN
SEBASTIAN’S MIND RACED as he stared at the dead body of Alistair Teague’s collector. Footsteps crashed through the garden, and he whirled, fists raised, but it was only Cleo, a sack of cookies in her hands.
“Cleo!” The princess stumbled toward her friend. “What are you doing here? Never mind, don’t answer that. Just go.”
“I was bringing a snack to the new boy who works in the stables and I heard a commotion.” Cleo clutched the cookies to her chest, her eyes wide as she stared at the king, still doubled over on the ground, at Ajax with blood spreading across his uniform, and finally at the body of Teague’s collector.
“Is he—”
“Yes,” Sebastian said quietly.
“Cleo, go inside.” The princess’s voice shook.
“You clearly need help, so stop ordering me to leave,” Cleo said, though her voice was just as shaky as the princess’s. “Should we call the palace guard?”
“No,” the king said, crawling to Ajax and pressing his hands against the knife wound in the man’s side. “No guards.”
“We keep this to ourselves,” Sebastian said as he calculated the odds of somehow handling this without Teague learning the truth.
If Teague discovered that the princess had killed his most valuable employee, he’d make her pay for it, and she probably wouldn’t survive. And, of course, Teague would know that his man had been at the palace. His collector didn’t visit anyone unless he’d been sent.
Which meant Teague was expecting Daan to return with an update on his conversation with the king. How long did Sebastian have to protect the princess from the wrath of the most dangerous man in Súndraille?
He looked up. The moon was halfway between the eastern horizon and the midpoint in the sky.
Still early evening. Teague had no way of knowing how long it would take Daan to find a way to confront the king. Surely that bought Sebastian at least until midnight, if not longer.
He’d have to use the time to get the body as far from the palace as possible.
“We have to hide the body,” the princess said as if she could read his mind.
Sebastian met her gaze. Her eyes were wide with the residue of panic and she still trembled with shock, but she wore the tiny frown she got when she was thinking hard.
“Yes,” he agreed. “But not here. Not on the palace grounds. Teague has to think his man delivered his message and left without coming to harm.”
“We could toss him into the sea,” Cleo said. “Just drag him to the south field. It ends in a cliff.”