Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
“We went after the Makepeace chit, two males in an alley against a lone female, and she somehow survived,” Arnaud reminded her.
Even all those months ago, this was a concern.
One of those assassins had been deliberately disposed of (though, when he took the task, he didn’t know that).
The assassin she’d sent actually to perform that task had shared some human had thwarted this effort, using weapons he’d never seen before.
He’d vowed to best this challenge the next time she’d sent him.
He’d failed again, got caught, and she’d not only lost an assassin, albeit a poor one (obviously, though he’d come highly recommended), she’d also lost his compatriot, and an important mission went unaccomplished.
“And we used trolls, for fuck’s sake,” Arnaud went on. “Then they massacred the lot of them.”
With hindsight, she could see now she’d been too ambitious with that one.
And too impatient.
That said, she’d been waiting for well over three decades.
She’d wanted to take them all out in one fell swoop.
Of course they’d have their defenses up, something she’d factored in, so she knew the trolls wouldn’t survive. But she thought they’d take out at least one royal in the process (though, as noted, she’d wanted them all).
They got none.
They hadn’t even wounded any, for Lucifer’s sake.
In times like these with her son, Tatra knew her best recourse.
Deflection.
“I’d like to understand why you murdered that little girl,” Tatra stated.
Her son refused to meet her gaze.
“I told you, she was being annoying,” he mumbled. He lifted his eyes to hers. “She thought she was already queen and was acting like that.”
Considering she was twelve, and he’d asked her to marry him, Tatra was not surprised she’d gotten uppity.
“And she wasn’t a little girl,” he spat. “Our beings had taken younger when we were as we should be. Actual demons.”
“It exposed you. I needed you in play,” she snapped.
“The trolls exposed me, Mother,” he returned, achieving a rarity.
Being right.
“How you expected me to remain in play after you sent trolls to the Midnight Masque of all events for the gods’ sakes, I can’t imagine,” her son continued.
“You would have been fighting alongside the rest of them,” she retorted, though she had her doubts about that.
There was a good possibility he would not have fought, and instead, hidden to save himself.
“You could have told me,” Arnaud complained.
“You wouldn’t have been able to beat the truth serum if I did.”
“I had the potion to beat it,” he snipped.
“Which was fortunate, considering you also had to deny you murdered that child,” she fired back.
Arnaud seethed.
Tatra was seeing the errors of her ways in allowing this behavior from her son.
It was abhorrent, to be sure, but it kept him docile and eager.
She’d have to keep a much firmer hold on him in future.
She didn’t mention that because she never would, but also, regrettably, he wasn’t done speaking.
“And you went after the citadel for reasons I don’t get.”
That had just been for fun.
Destroying something (or attempting too, sadly, that had failed too) that Darynda had loved.
That Tanyn loved.
Desecrating her resting place.
She didn’t really mind that particular mission wasn’t accomplished.
Or she’d lost the beings she’d sent to accomplish it.
But she lamented the loss of the fighters that had been sent in.
It wasn’t easy getting your hands on battlecraft.
Arnaud wasn’t finished.
“Catla Truelock is a cossetted heiress, and somehow, she managed to survive a contingent of twelve of your assassins. Of course, we knew Tanyn,” he said his half-brother’s name like it tasted bad, “would survive. It was his mate we were after. And we didn’t get her.”
Considering he wasn’t letting this go (usually, her son had a very short attention span), also with practice, Tatra knew she just had to wait this out.
As she knew he would, Arnaud kept at her.
“And now the tapes and feeds are all clogged with news we’re murderers. I mean, I can’t believe you murdered my father.”
At this, he was pouting.
She probably should have brought him in on that.
They’d had no real relationship. Whatever affection Riland showed Arnaud was under Tatra’s control.
It was incredibly inconvenient that he kept developing a resistance to the drug.
Further, it had cost a fortune.
But Arnaud had genuinely liked the male.
“Son, we are murderers,” Tatra affirmed calmly.
His eyes blazed red. “I am a king. I am of the ancients. My blood is pure demon. My blood is royal. My blood is the blood of a king. I rule as I see fit. What I do is not murder. What I do is at the whim of a king.”
“And taking your father out of play made you king,” she pointed out. “You’ll get your crown again, my boy,” she assured. “And you will rule over much more than Sky’s Edge.”
“We need to escape to the Three Realms,” Arnaud demanded. “We’re not safe here. And we do not belong here.”
He sniffed his last.