Nectar of the Wicked (Deadly Divine, #1) (103)

He had the entire room’s attention as he said, “Some of you might think you know who this creature is, but let me make one thing abundantly clear.” There was an intentional pause before he declared, “She is no daughter of mine. She is a traitor.”

Murmurs and soft laughter arose.

I flicked damp strands of hair from my face. Rising, I looked across the room to the male who’d sired me.

“She is enemy-bound.” Molkan’s eyes met mine, empty and dark. “The secret wife of Florian Hellebore.”

Everyone gasped and shouted their outrage.

I flinched as wine was thrown at me. Spit followed, as well as fruit and goblets that clanged against the bars and punched into my skin. I cried out, but quickly muffled it behind clenched teeth when I realized reacting only encouraged more of them to torture me.

None of the pinching fingers, insults, and bruising blows hurt nearly as much as Molkan’s next booming declaration.

“This traitor was sent to our beloved kingdom to spy for her husband under the guise of wanting to escape him and to know her people, wanting to know me”—he laughed—“and under the guise of wedding one of our own loyal warriors, but we caught her.”

None of that was true. Not a single fucking word.

“No,” I croaked—would have screamed if only someone would have believed me. No one would, I knew, when they did not wish to.

“Quiet, traitorous filth,” a female spat from beside the lust-gazed male she clung to.

I ignored her and looked at Avrin, only to find him finally staring at me.

His jaw was fixed. Gold eyes unreadable.

This was insane. Avrin had come for me. He and many others had been sent to retrieve me, and we all knew I wasn’t yet married...

My stomach curdled, my hand clapping over my mouth. I closed my eyes as the realization threatened to make me sick again.

The contract.

Florian’s inability to tell me when we would be wed.

“The winter king has requested the return of his wife,” Molkan went on. “This spawn of mine that he stole with the intention of humiliating me.”

I glared through wet lashes.

Florian was not the type to make requests.

“So tell me...” Molkan’s voice echoed, utter silence trembling within the cavernous room. His eyes met mine again, a gleam within, before he said with smug amusement, “Who’s humiliated now?”

Laughter crashed against the walls of the room in unending waves.

My heart splintered, cracked wide open and filled with the sound and the stares and the vulgar gestures and my own endless stupidity.

The king of Baneberry said nothing more. He stepped back with stone features and lowered onto his golden throne.

Avrin stood beside him, clean-shaven chin high and staring beyond me.

Behind my enclosure, a small group of violinists stood in gold and brown formal wear. The whine of their instruments returned, and conversation rose with it. Now that the explanation for my presence had been delivered, no matter how false, many had seemingly lost interest in me, dancing and drifting throughout the room.

But some only moved closer.

Groping hands snatched my arms and even attempted to slip beneath me to pinch my rear. I gave up on trying to move when there was nowhere to go. I kept my arms over my breasts, my legs tucked and crossed. The bars of the cage slowly closed in. My ears rang with the howl of my heartbeat.

I closed my eyes tight and folded over with my head upon my knees.

How could this have happened?

All this time, I’d been married while assuming I was not. All this time, I’d thought I’d known who the enemy was, and I was wrong.

There wasn’t just one. I was trapped between two evils.

I could scream like the hawk that soared low past the row of arched windows flanking the side of the throne room. I could plead with the goddess and those around me to stop, and to believe me as I explained that I hadn’t known.

None of it would matter.

Florian had wanted me thoroughly ruined and humiliated before he killed me.

And this father I’d stupidly thought would shelter me from him...

His conversation with Avrin in the springs spun through my violent thoughts. If Molkan couldn’t wed me to his precious adviser because I was already married, then I was of no use to him. I was only as he’d claimed—just a weapon for Florian to use against him.

Both kingdoms were intent on being my doom.

And I had no one to blame but myself for ever daring to believe that a home might be found for someone like me within these treacherous lands of Faerie. Gane had warned me. Even Hal, with his stolen jewels and missing digits, had warned me.

Yet I knew the entire population of Crustle could have warned me, and still, I would have ignored them all.

I still would have wanted to know.

Now I knew, and regret spiked like thorns around my pulsing heart. Each shallow breath grew tighter, and my knees soaked in tears, as the touching ceased but the insults and probing gazes assaulted in never-ending torrents.

I recited my letters faster than ever before, the volume rising to a scream trapped within my mind each time I finished and started again. But I could only get away with pretending to ignore what was happening for so long.

My hair was pulled, and I lurched to the side. A hand wrapped around my throat.

I snarled, attempting to tug it free.