In the Veins of the Drowning(21)

I would do it quickly—slice his palm and press it to my own cut hand. A blood bond was that simple to forge, but I could not bring myself to move. He looked so soft in his sleep, all the sharp angles and harsh glares that I’d come to expect from him replaced by his open body and pouting mouth and delicate breaths.

This was wrong. It was treacherous and cruel to even consider this, but I steeled myself. I only wished to live. Mere hours sat between me and the discovery of Evander’s body. Between me and my certain, gruesome death. The water soaking my hair and chemise would dry quickly, and when it did, my wings would curl back under my skin.

Now. I had to do it now.

My body ached with tension, but I forced myself to the side of the bed. I set my knee into the mattress, then flinched when it creaked under my weight. Drips from the ends of my hair beat into the bedding. With a trapped breath, I made a shallow slice in my palm with a talon and reached for the hand that rested on Theodore’s chest, but before I could even touch him, he jerked. He seized my wrist, his grip as tight as an overdrawn manacle. A low growl, and he yanked me forward with such force that I fell over him and landed with my stomach pressed to his. Cold metal bit into my neck. This close, I blocked the dim light from the hearth and lost the details of his face. He pressed the edge of the blade further into my skin.

“It’s Imogen,” I wheezed, my throat moving against the pressure of the dagger. “It’s me. Please, don’t.”

“Imogen?” His voice was thick with sleep. He pulled the blade away. “What the fuck are you doing?”

We both moved clumsily in the dark, tangling with the sheets, scrambling to put some distance between us. He reached for the candle and striker on the bedside table, and the room filled with a burst of warm light. He gave me a terrible, wide-eyed scowl.

I froze.

Just like I had been with Evander, I was laid bare before King Theodore. He took in the whole of me. The shape of my wings, tucked tightly against my back, my fear-drenched face, and then his gaze slipped down to take in the lines and curves of my body beneath my wet chemise.

I waited for his revulsion, for him to throw me to the ground and wrap a hand around my throat, but he only looked at me with bewildered awe. The seconds seemed to stretch until finally, he pinched his eyes shut. He reached for a blanket and quietly extended it toward me. I pressed it to my chest.

Some grim awareness shot through him suddenly. He held his dagger up between us. “You’re covered in seawater.”

The implication in his deep voice was clear. He was in peril. Sirens on the sea were dangerous, drowning and eviscerating those who would harm them. I shook my head. “I’m not here to hurt you.” His distrust was palpable, scathing. I reached slowly for the hand he held the dagger in and guided the tip toward my sternum. “You have my word.”

The rigidity in his shoulders eased slightly, but he kept the dagger where I’d put it. His voice was dark as the night. “Tell me what’s happened.”

I curled my talons into the blanket. “I need to leave Fort Linum tonight.” My voice trembled. “Right now.”

“That’s not an answer.” He shook his head like he was in some warped dream and wished to wake. He glanced toward his door. “How did you get in here?”

I blinked. “I—don’t know exactly.” It wasn’t a lie. The power that had overtaken me bent the world to my will, but I’d not asked it to do so. I’d needed safe passage into this room; I’d needed Evander to not hurt me further. And that oily, awful power had seen it done. “Your guard opened the door for me.”

“I doubt that very much.” The tip of the blade pressed against my stomach, not hard, but enough to still me. “Answer me.”

“I’ve killed King Nemea’s captain.”

His mouth dropped open. “You killed… your fiancé… and then you came directly to me?”

I spoke in an overloud rush. “He took the siphon—like they do for executions—and he filled my chest with water. I shifted, and then he just climbed in with me, and I drowned—”

“Shhh. Quiet.” His free hand covered my mouth. He pulled the dagger away from me and stabbed it into the mattress beside him. “You have to keep quiet.”

I nodded, tears welling.

Like a stitch pulled too tightly through fabric, his muscles bunched, and his face creased. He dragged his hand slowly from my mouth until it rested on my chin. “What do you mean he climbed in with you?”

“Into the tub,” I whispered, eyes locked with his. “He had his men fill my tub with seawater and then he forced me in and—”

“Did you sing?” His hand fell away from me. “To drown him?”

“Sing?” I shook my head. “No. He climbed in with me, and he lay on top of me and then I… I don’t know how. I took the air from his chest.”

The look that he gave me sent cold skittering through my blood. It was a look of astonishment, like he could not fathom a more monstrous act, and it made the mattress beneath me slip away. It made the walls around me fade, until I was alone and adrift and hurtling toward my death.

“You killed your fiancé,” he said in a brutal whisper, “and then you came here moments later to beg me to leave in the middle of the night and take you with me?”