Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 156907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 785(@200wpm)___ 628(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 785(@200wpm)___ 628(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
“I think I’ve made it damned clear I don’t understand,” Serena retorted.
“I will be their queen,” Elena repeated what she’d said earlier.
“You are Princess of the Nadirii,” Serena returned.
Elena tossed out both hands, the exasperation in her gesture also suffusing her features.
“Do you think this decision was easy?” she demanded.
“Yes, though you’ve made the wrong one.”
“Melisse would not agree,” Elena shot back.
Serena went in for the kill. “You’ve no idea what Melisse would think, and won’t, as you intend to abandon her.”
Her words struck true, she saw, for her sister’s pale face turned ashen and her body jolted with the invisible blow.
“This is getting us nowhere,” Cassius cut in. “It’s clear you understand naught but selfishness, and—” His words stopped when his eyes jumped over Serena’s shoulder and his lips spread thin.
Serena turned and she felt her stomach tip.
Shite.
Nero, Cassius’s man, was approaching.
She needed to exit this conversation and this location.
Immediately.
She turned back and caught only the fact that Cassius’s eyes had narrowed on her.
Thus, her alarm grew, and she needed to do something about it.
“As usual, we’ll never agree so there’s no point wasting further energy on it. Thus, I’ll bid you farewell and to enjoy your time in Sky Bay,” she said to her sister.
“They’re under siege, Serena,” Elena retorted. “Another reason why their prince regent and his future princess must not delay in returning.”
“Cass,” Nero came up to their sides and broke into the conversation, as men, Serena had no doubt, felt it was entirely their right to do, “I received word from Mac I go with you, not Aelia.”
Shite, shite, shite.
“What the fuck?” Nero finished on this terse demand.
“This is my decision,” Cassius confirmed, but his gaze was on Serena.
She shifted her features at the same time shifting to leave.
“She’s going to a fucking island across a fucking sea. When circumstances warrant, and I’d say these circumstances warrant, Otho and I are her personal guard. We’ve always been her personal guard,” Nero stated. “And we’ve lost our brother. Which means now I’m her personal guard. Therefore, I’d like to bloody well know why I’m clearly no longer my princess’s personal fucking guard.”
“Because you killed Theodora’s mother,” Cassius declared baldly. “And Theodora travels with her.”
“I’ll leave you to it,” Serena muttered swiftly.
“I’m sorry?” Nero rumbled disbelievingly.
“Serena shared with us in Fire City that you killed Tiana, Dora’s mother,” Cassius stated before she could make her exit.
“Cass, maybe now is not the time to—” Elena began.
“Fucking hell, you cunt,” Nero gritted.
To her.
Serena’s body turned to stone.
“Nero!” Cassius bit.
“By the goddess,” Elena whispered.
“Why would you say something like that?” Nero demanded, again to her.
“I think our conversation begins and ends with the word you called me,” she returned, her heart beginning to race for some inexplicable reason.
“I don’t think it does, seeing as Theodora will be princess of my realm and I’m her for-all-intents-and-purposes new father’s lieutenant, tasked with keeping all royals safe, a task I promised my sword and my life to, and your lie makes that impossible,” Nero returned.
“Lie?” Elena was still whispering.
Serena tried to save her deceit, wondering for the first of any that she’d concocted why she’d committed it.
“With Trajan, you warred against my sisters repeatedly. You can’t possibly know who you killed or did not.”
“I disagree, since I’ve never killed a single Nadirii,” Nero retorted.
The atmosphere all around them grew weighty.
Shite.
“Though I took issue with a prince I did not support warring against them for reasons I also did not support, and when forced into his service, the only thing I could do to share that was be a very poor soldier with absurdly bad aim with arrow, sword, dagger and fists,” Nero shared. And he was not done. “Added boon, he was so disgusted with my service, he released me from it. That said, I’m rethinking my position about refusing to kill a Nadirii right about now.”
“What you said was a lie?” Elena asked.
Serena turned to her sister to see Elena staring at her, stunned.
“Not to my knowledge.” Another lie. “It was reported to me Nero brought Tiana low.” And yet another one.
Yes, Serena was wondering why she’d instigated this deception.
Elena stared at her.
And then she breathed, the words dripping with hurt, “It was a lie.”
“Elena—” Serena began.
Her sister’s eyes suddenly glowed amethyst, something Serena had always hated, but in that unfortunate moment, she understood it was not hate.
It was envy.
And in that moment, regrettably, she saw that glow was rather arresting, although she bizarrely wished she was not the cause of it.
“You’re despicable,” Elena spat. “I can’t even stand to look at you.”
Her heart squeezed.
She actually felt it squeeze.
What on earth?
“Go about your business,” Elena snapped. “I no longer care what you do, what you think, where you go. And you never gave me much reason to enjoy your company, but I shall refuse it until I can find some way to stomach the sight of you. Further, not that you care, I shall still inform you, even if I should manage to best that gargantuan feat, you’ve lost me. Whatever little part of my heart I held safe for you regardless you did naught to deserve it, it’s lost. Gone. Never to be recovered. Mark this, not ever, Serena. Not…fucking…ever.”