“Don’t trust a woman to recognize a threat in time.” He jerks his head. “Go on. Crawl in with your one true love.”
Between us, Alistair snores in his bier.
I’m stung by both insults, but I’m accustomed to picking my battles. “He isn’t my love.”
Kill snorts. “If he weren’t, you wouldn’t be awake.”
I have no argument for that. The story is carved into the wall above our heads. All but the final blank panel. Does that mean my future is unwritten, or that I’m not yet “awakened,” whatever that implies?
“Well, I’m not tired. Sleep or don’t sleep, Kill. I won’t be nodding off either way.”
I glimpse his profile, sharp and angular, from the periphery of my vision. He’s listening. To me, for threats, or both, I don’t know. But the man sees more than he lets on, and he hears everything.
“I hate monsters,” I supply when he doesn’t respond.
“Even more reason for me to keep watch. Protect you,” he says gruffly.
“Protect the prince, you mean.”
“I said exactly what I meant, Princess. I always do.” He shrugs into a fresh shirt, black like the other one, but clean. Against my better judgment I sneak a glance. Candlelight flickers over his muscular back. “If you’re expecting flowery praise, look elsewhere.”
I ease the wool blanket off my shoulders, suddenly too warm to need it.
“I’m not really a princess.”
He huffs.
“I mean, I was born one. But the Isanthians sent a rider to drop me on a farmer’s doorstep in an enemy country when I was still an infant.”
Now that he’s not blood-streaked and armored, the prince’s rough companion has an arresting masculine beauty. This man’s features are as hard as granite.
He halts next to me. Transfixed, I can only peer up at him and blink. Disgust flashes over his expression. I’m suddenly mortified.
“Are you certain that story isn’t one more lie?” He flicks a lock of my long hair dismissively. “Who’s so afraid of a pretty girl that they send their own child away?”
I recoil. No one has ever spoken to me that way.
“Are you so belligerently overconfident that you think my curse is nothing?”
He blinks once in surprise. The smallest of reactions. His tight control makes me strangely angry. I want to snap it over my knee like a twig.
“Didn’t he tell you? Your friend. The prince.” I jerk my head at the man asleep in my coffin-bed. “My parents were terrified I would destroy the kingdom. You should have left me alone.”
If my sad history moves him in any way, he doesn’t show it. I’m suddenly ashamed of telling him about my curse. The Isanthians forbade me to ever return to my birth country, on pain of death. All I really know about my curse is that it was bad enough to cost me my family. Twice.
My foster parents kept me in the dark for as long as they could. They raised me with the earthy pragmatism of a commoner. But there came a day when I grew too old to befooled by well-intended half-truths and my ignorance brought blight upon the land of Belterre, for all things warped and wicked were drawn to me.
The knight saunters away, staring out into the darkness. Hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Does he sense something that I can’t?
“It’s Killian.”
His words are so soft that I can scarcely make them out.
“My name is Killian,” he repeats when I don’t respond.
The tight squeeze around my ribs eases. I don’t know what prompted this overture of peace, but I’m grateful for it. Of the two men who were here when I awoke, I’ll throw in my lot with the one who can protect me. I can’t afford for him to despise me.
“Get some rest, Killian.”
