A dozen rangers stepped out of the dark forest, swords gleaming in the moonlight, to stand in a formation behind Demetri. All of them bore the Laurent crest on their tunics.
This time, I wasn’t quite able to hide my disgust, so I just leaned into it and sneered at Demetri. “Killing your own mother might be a new low, even for you, Demetri.”
Because there was no way Marvina Laurent had willingly handed over power to her son. That woman had ruled her House with an iron fist. It was all she’d cared about.
Demetri let out a cold laugh. “Come now, Samara. Are you really so upset about it? If you think she treated you badly to your face while we were married, I promise that what she said about you when you weren’t in the room was far worse.”
Not surprising. In many ways, Marvina represented everything that was wrong with the Moroi. She was arrogant and cruel and believed that the Moroi were inherently better than the Velesians and Furies. If I’d had to place a bet on which Moroi had been most likely to seize control of the Houses while wielding a mind-controlling crown, it would have been her.
I supposed the joke was on me that it was my own aunt who had proven to be the true villain.
I didn’t mourn Marvina’s death, but the fact that Demetri had murdered his own mother was still all kinds of fucked up.
A branch in the tree—the one I was fairly certain Roth’s parents had climbed up—trembled slightly. It was behind Demetri and his rangers, so they didn’t see it, and the rain swallowed up the sound of any movement. There were likely more Laurent rangers than just the ones I could see. I needed to buy the others time to take them out—hopefully quietly—sowe could deal with these ones. As much as I wanted my revenge against Demetri, I wouldn’t claim it at the risk of my friends.
“Your mother was no prize.” I shrugged and tapped the flat blade of a dagger against my chin before pointing it at Demetri. “Still surprised you had the backbone to do it yourself. Or did you get one of your dogs to do it?” I glanced at the howlers that still hadn’t moved. “And to be clear, I mean the rangers who swore an oath to their House and betrayed it.”
“Fucking cunt,” one of the rangers swore and took a step forward, his sword hand raising, but halted when Demetri held his arms out to the side.
“Hey, Fletch.” I winked at the ranger, who was still glaring at me. “Look at you using naughty words. Did your balls finally drop?” I twirled my daggers in an obnoxiously showy move before pointing one at him. “I can fix that for you.”
“Careful, Samara,” Demetri warned. “One way or another, you will be my wife again. You can live out the rest of your life in luxury . . . or in a dungeon.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught more movement in the trees—someone timed their jump down right as thunder roared across the sky. Demetri’s rangers shifted uncomfortably as they glanced around the forest. They were used to the forests along the coasts that, while still dangerous, were far less so than the ones farther inland like this one.
I was actually surprised Demetri had convinced them to come at all instead of waiting to track me down during the day. So much about this didn’t make sense . . .
“Give me an honest answer, and I’ll consider coming with you,” I lied. “Why do you want to marry me again? Why go to all this trouble?”
He tilted his head, and his hood slipped a little, letting me see more of his aristocratic face that I’d once found very handsome. When we’d been together, he almost always wore a lazy butcharming expression. He’d spent all his time lazing about or entertaining courtiers—or fucking them, as I later learned—but there was a cunning glint to his eyes now that had been absent all those years.
Demetri had fooled everyone—myself included. It annoyed me that I’d missed it.
“My original deal with Carmilla was quite simple. She supports me as the new leader of House Laurent, and my House backs her as the new Sovereign.” His mouth twisted like he’d just bitten something sour. “Then she changed it. Said that in addition to supporting her, I needed to father a child with you . . . for her to raise. She never did explain but made it quite clear it was nonnegotiable.”
A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with the cold rain. She knew. At some point, Carmilla had figured out I was part Fae . . . and wanted a child of my bloodline.
“Why you?” I asked numbly.
My ex-husband watched me closely, likely looking for a hint about what made me so special.
Just wait a few minutes, and I’ll show you.
“Like I said, she wasn’t keen on going into the details.” He gave me a sly grin. “If I had to guess, it seemed like she wanted to compensate for something in your bloodline. Wanted to make sure that a strong Moroi House bloodline was mixed in. Not all the Houses have male children—only Tepes and Devereux. Neither of those Houses were likely to agree to such a thing, but me?” His smile sharpened. “I’ve already had you before; I don’t mind having you again.”
“Pass,” I said flatly.
“You don’t have a choice, Samara.” He snorted. “Technically, Carmilla only wants the child. The marriage was my condition.”
“Funny. You didn’t seem to care about the first one.” My grip tightened around the daggers. The others better have taken outany other enemy rangers lurking around us because my patience was waning.
“Do you have any idea how much shit I had to listen to after you left?” he sneered. “At first, you were the butt of the jokes, considering how many courtiers I fucked right under your nose while you were too busy trying to be the perfect Heir, but then you had to go and start arelationshipwith Kieran. That got people’s attention, and I had to listen to the rumors swirl about what was so wrong with me that you ran straight into the arms of a lesser Moroi. Let him stand beside you as if he were an equal.”
I used to think, for all his flaws, that Demetri was different from his mother. That he hadn’t inherited her bullshit beliefs about some Moroi being lesser than others simply because of the families they were born into, but the look of disgust and scorn on his face was an exact match to the one I’d seen on hers countless times.
Rage simmered inside me, knowing that Kieran had likely heard every word. I knew he worried that his station as a courtier made him not worthy of me. It was something I was more than happy to spend the rest of my life proving false to him.
In the meantime, I’d fucking kill anyone who made him doubt his self-worth.
