Page 32 of Heart’s Rescue

“Answer my question, Rowan.”

“Take your fucking knife off of my fucking neck. Lady.”

Silence draws out between us, as cold and heavy as the snow. The firelight paints Arryn’s face in crimson and gold. She must have added more wood to the fire as I pretended to sleep. That’s more thoughtful than I would have expected out of a high-born lady from the Worlds Above.

Arryn huffs a sigh, and I know defeat when I hear it. She rocks back, taking the knife away from my throat but keeping her knees planted on either side of my ribs. Voids damn it, I thought her chest would be less distracting now that she’s layered in the spare clothes we gave her, but it’s almost worse to see the way my old blue sweater hugs her curves.

“Is he still alive?” she asks. “The man who wore that crown?”

I glance to the side and finally see her weapon. It’s one of our knives, of course. One of Phaedron’s kitchen knives. Sneaky little—

Her fingers tighten around the hilt of our kitchen knife, and I turn my full attention back to the woman straddling my chest. Dozens of answers skirt my consciousness in varying degrees of sarcastic snark. Never heard of him. Killed him myself. Crown, what crown?

In the end, I settle on the truth. It seems easiest.

“I don’t know,” I say.

Her expression tightens, and she leans back, moving dangerously close to my pelvis. And my cock, whose interest in this whole situation I am most decidedly ignoring.

“Where is he?” she asks.

The fire casts long shadows across her face. Her expression has gone from murderous to something else, something harder to read. And I’m good at reading people.

“Why?” I reply, returning her question with a question. “Who is he to you?”

Her head bobs, a motion so slight I might not have noticed if it didn’t make her hair flutter. “He’s my— prince.”

I’d have to be an idiot not to notice that moment of hesitation. I stare at her, wondering what she was going to say, and something else clicks in my brain. It’s like bringing a flame to a wick; suddenly, everything is illuminated.

“Phaedron thinks you fell down here,” I say. “By accident.”

She turns away. Firelight licks the side of her neck.

“It wasn’t an accident, was it?” I press. “You came down here looking for him.”

Anger burns through me, hot and sudden, like an eruption. Phaedron’s arm in the snow; Kara’s eyes, still and empty, staring up into the darkness below the ceiling of the world. I kick my legs and roll my hips. There’s a gasp; I caught her by surprise. And then she’s pinned beneath me, her dark hair spread across the dirty snow between our bedrolls, her mouth open, her eyes shooting daggers at me. The hand holding the knife flexes as if she’s actually going to try to stab me. Murderous little monster.

“What did you do to him?” she cries.

“To him?” I laugh, hot and sudden and angry. “What, I should have let him kill a few more of my neighbors?”

She goes still so quickly I glance down to make sure I haven’t somehow smothered her.

“Maybe I should have let him cut off Phaedron’s other arm,” I growl, and spite makes my words as sharp as daggers. “Let him give my brother a matched set, thanks to the Worlds Above. I mean, by all the screaming voids, that monster wore such a nice crown. Maybe we should have let him kill us all.”

Her eyes narrow. “You’re lying,” she hisses.

That’s so freaking stupid it sets my teeth on edge. I grab her hand, the one holding my brother’s kitchen knife, and drive it into the snow.

“Why?” I spit. “Why would I lie about this?”

“To, to—” Her breath hitches. “To kill me.”

I laugh. It’s not exactly funny, but I laugh. Then I let go of her knife hand and rock back. She shoves herself away from me and scoots back onto the crumpled furs of her sleeping roll. My sleeping roll. She’d grabbed mine, and I hadn’t wanted to make a big deal out of it.

Stupid. Tomorrow night I’d make the little monster sleep on the bare snow.

“Lady,” I said, “if I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead by now.”