She met his gaze through the blur of ice, about to smile. Then a new sense of foreboding stormed through her, stronger than ever. “I don’t know why I’m feeling the things I’m feeling, or what’s real and what isn’t,” she whispered, “but I have a sinking suspicion something terrible is about to happen to us both.”

CHAPTER THREE

What to do when your dishy dreamboat is also an assassin

AT LAST! THIRTEEN HUNDRED years of confinement. Thirteen hundred years of listening to the beast throw a temper tantrum. If the fiend wasn’t sighing, he growled; if he wasn’t growling, he roared. Always he enjoyed kicking and clawing at Bane’s skull, leaving him half-mad, his patience forever eroded.

Nothing but a broken shell, the cracks filled with grief and fury.

Worth it. The Terran royal had arrived. The woman Bane planned to use mercilessly to avenge Meredith’s death and destroy Aveline.

Something terrible is about to happen to us both.

Something terrible had already happened. One look at her, and Bane had wanted to bed her.

Me? Bed a queen? He’d rather die. And he would tell her so, just as soon as he found the strength to look away. Such exquisite beauty. She stole his breath, sucking the air out of his lungs.

I can admire an object without “wanting” it sexually, damn it. And yes, he considered her an object. A means to an end. Besides that, she was too delicate for his tastes. Too fragile. The slightest gust of wind might cause her to shatter. Had she ever wielded a sword? Probably not. As useless as the other royals.

During his endless imprisonment, Bane had trained his gaze to see past the ice. Now, he slowly perused Nolalee’s slight frame, absorbing every detail.

She had lovely skin as pale and flawless as porcelain, a rarity among Adwaewethians, even the hybrids. Other rarities included dark eyes with pinpricks of light, reminiscent of a starry night sky, and hair so black and shimmery the strands appeared cobalt. But the crowning glory of her physical beauty—bloodred, rosebud lips. The kind of lips a man yearned to have all over his body.

The hybrids would be utterly enraptured by their queen, willingly—foolishly—risking their lives to fulfill her every ridiculous whim. Not Bane. He knew what the hybrids did not. One day, one day soon, she would become a monster, the same change Aveline underwent. The same change every queen underwent.

“How many statues are here?” the future queen asked. The cadence of her voice...so soft, so soothing.

Bane’s beast went quiet, his head his own for the first time in centuries. A tidal wave of relief flooded him, drowning out the other female’s reply—the one named Vale.

As he basked, he rolled her name through his mind. Nolalee. Princess Nolalee. Queen Nolalee...soon.