A Kingdom of Venom and Vows (Stars and Shadows #3)(4)

Because death magic could become an undefeatable power.

It was legend that death magic would take as much as it gave. It was a great power, but it came at a great cost to the one who dared claim it.

A cost that Gavril would have to pay.

He was the enemy, but once upon a time, he had been nothing other than my brother. My chest ached for that past, for those memories that were now so tainted with his mother’s and my father’s greed.

He had become it. Their perfect heir who infected everything he touched.

A poison that spread through the kingdom, and I refused to allow that venom to touch Adara.

Even if she had walked into his trap so willingly. She had shaken his hand, bonding the promise she made, and I had been a fool.

Her magic stirred inside me as if it agreed, and I looked back and forth between my friends. “Get Jorah and meet me in the library. We need to learn as much about death magic as we can find. We’re going to get her back, but we can’t do it blindly.”

Even as I said the words, emotions warred in my chest. There was a part of me that knew they were right, but a bigger part of me couldn’t fathom sitting here, formulating a plan, while she was there with him. While neither me nor her magic were there to help protect her.

But we were going to get her back.





CHAPTER 2





ADARA





M y stomach lurched as I flung out my arms, desperate to keep my balance. My vision blurred and the colors of the world spun around me. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing everything to settle. When I opened them again, I swallowed down the nausea and tried to make out where we were.

“Calm down, Starblessed, before you get sick.” Gavril’s hands were like iron vises around my arms, and I could feel his strength beneath his fingertips. My body trembled, struggling against his grip as a fire of agony burned within me. My entire body shuddered in protest, every part of me desperate for relief.

I was cold and empty without my magic, without my mate. I had given Evren all of my magic, and my body rebelled against me.

The smell of smoke was thick in the air, and I tried to breathe through my mouth to block it out as I looked around us. Gavril had taken us back to the fae kingdom, just outside the city, and I was shocked by the number of guards who stood around us fully dressed in their uniforms.

They hadn’t just been preparing to take me. They were preparing for war.

“Let go of me.” I wanted to scream, but my throat was thick and my voice barely a whisper. My vision blurred and my breathing quickened as his hands dug into my skin.

“I’m taking her to the palace.” Gavril’s fingers dug into my shoulder as he spoke to one of the guards, and I glanced up into his bloodshot eyes. There was an unnatural power that thrummed through him, and his pupils dilated as he watched me.

“I said, let me go, Gavril.” My voice was hoarse and weak, and the urge to summon my magic was overwhelming, but the ache inside my chest burned when nothing came. But that pain felt inconsequential.

My pain became unbearable as I thought of him.

I wanted Evren. I wanted my mate.

But more than anything, I wanted him safe.

I couldn’t even allow myself to think of my father, to think of the role Evren had played in taking him away from me.

He had been a puppet then, a pawn in Queen Kaida’s game, and even as my chest ached at the truth of what he had done, I couldn’t hate him for something that happened before I knew him.

I couldn’t hate him for what he did to help protect his people.

Because everything he did was for someone else.

And there was nothing I could do to stop myself from loving him. Despite everything I knew, despite the roles he played.

Gavril’s hand tightened on my arm, pain lacing through my skin, and I ground my teeth as I looked up at him.

“Let’s go, Starblessed.”

Starblessed. The coward couldn’t even say my name.

He jerked me forward until I had no choice but to follow behind him. I stumbled over my feet as he pulled me along. I was tired, the feeling sinking deep into my bones, but I didn’t dare say that to him. Instead, I stared ahead as we approached the palace that I hated—the palace where I had found solace in Evren—and I tried not to let a single one of them see my weakness.

The guards parted as we reached the castle, careful to stay out of my path. I heard their whispered words of traitors and betrayal, and I felt their contempt. It was pouring out of them as visible as Evren’s power fell from him.

I was the Starblessed that they all wanted, that they needed, but hated just the same.

They thought I was their savior, but I would be no such thing.

I would be their destruction.

I raised my chin, unwilling to drop my gaze in their presence. Gavril’s knuckles whitened as his grip on my arm tightened and he pulled me closer to him. I recoiled as his nostrils flared. His hands were brutal against me, and his jaw clenched as we walked.

His anger was a powerful tool, and as much as I wanted him to let me go, his temper would make him reckless.

He truly thought that I belonged to him, and the thought of Evren touching me, of me choosing his brother over him, fueled his fury.

We pushed through the door, and he jerked me forward until I was forced to breathe in the suffocating heat of the palace. We had entered through the back entrance, the one I had tried to escape through what seemed like a lifetime ago, and I glanced forward at the doors ahead of us.