“You’re very forgiving, for a woman who was about to be gutted,” I murmured against her ear.

She looked up at me, and cupped my cheek briefly. I feel as if I’ve known you my whole life, she said. I feel fortunate every day that I wake up, knowing I will see you. 

“I feel the same.”

Cirri glanced at Wroth, who was muttering to himself.

He doesn’t. I would watch his wife, she said wisely. She might never have overcome her fear of him.

“Wroth.”

The fiend stopped pacing, throwing me a black look. “What.”

“Is… is your wife coming?” He’d sent out the news five years ago when he’d married her, and I’d forgotten her name already.

“Kajarin?” he sneered. “Of course. Ancestors forbid the Lord and Lady of the Rivers be separated. She’s in the carriage, an hour behind me.”

Cirri squeezed my arm, brief but tight, and all at once I understood a little of Wroth’s pain. It was… exactly what I’d feared for myself. A woman who thought me hideous, who hated all I was, a woman who would rather live locked away in poppy dreams.

And all at once, my anger faded, the embers becoming cold ash. “There are still wargs,” I said quietly. “Do you wish us to send reinforcements to guard her?”

Wroth stared at me defiantly, his silent answer shocking but clear.

Come inside, my wife told him. She offered a hand to the fiend, beckoning him, and he gazed at her mistrustfully. Come with us. You’re with your brother now.

That night found us in the dining hall, that great empty expanse that Cirri had hated, but it was the only place to fit us all.

The long table had been covered with dark silk, elaborate iron candelabras filling the cold room with warm light. For the humans, dinner was served in courses; Cirri sat to my right, her arm healed and bandaged by Wyn, picking at a tiny roasted hen. Shallow as the scratches were, I couldn’t shove the guilt aside. I needed to remember how fragile she was; even if her life was in danger, I was just as much of a threat in a moment of carelessness.

But her lack of appetite was not because of the wound. Wroth sat opposite me, his anger now constrained into a bitter silence as he sipped from a goblet; Yuli was old enough to volunteer her blood, and had bled into it for him. There would be no convict blood for honored guests.

Kajarin lai Orros, Lady of the Rivers, sat to his left, directly across from Cirri. I didn’t know what to make of her.

I had expected a timid mouse, shrinking away at the sight of vampires. Perhaps a woman with dull, glazed eyes and a dinner of poppy syrup. A nervous wreck, one to stretch the bounds of any fiends’ patience.

But she was aware, no scent or sign of poppy in her veins. She could have been pretty, I supposed, with those strawberry blonde curls and big blue eyes. The coloring of a pureblood Veladari, denoting half her worth to the Blood Accords.

But she was… gaudy. Her corset had been laced tight, pushing her breasts up to a comical height. The dress itself was bright pink Serissan silk, a fortune in fabric and dye—to say nothing of the chains of diamonds woven in her hair, dripping from her ears, draped over the ludicrous mountains of cleavage, and glittering on her fingers.

Cirri seemed equally nonplussed by Wroth’s wife; her eyes had nearly bugged out of her skull when she first laid eyes on the woman, fighting her way free from the carriage in a spume of silk and lace.

Kajarin had greeted her buoyantly, every movement exaggerated with cheerful, bubbly motions; she’d gripped my wife’s shoulders, kissed her on both cheeks, and exclaimed over everything she saw.

As she was exclaiming now over the roasted hens, while Cirri watched her sidelong.

So… what was the problem? An over-the-top personality was no reason to want her dead. She had been showered in bride gifts, the diamonds alone putting my small gifts for Cirri to shame.

Wroth’s gaze was fixed somewhere over my shoulder, eyes unseeing as he took another draught. Auré, sitting on his other side, had forgone a donor; she toyed with a glass of bloodwine, her mouth set in a thin line.

Altogether, it was an awkward dinner. I wished I could make my excuses and take Cirri to the library, to curl up together in our peaceful little bubble of happiness and jokes, where my wife might actually eat something.

I watched from the corner of my eye as Cirri took a small bite, pleased that she hadn’t simply pushed it to the side.

“Your courtesy is so appreciated, Lord Bane,” Kajarin said, drawing my attention to her. She leaned forward, looking at me from under her lashes. “This castle is absolutely lovely. Owlhorn is so drafty and cold, it’s impossible to feel warm there.”

Wroth lapped at his goblet and muttered, “Not for you, it isn’t.”

Kajarin continued like she didn’t hear him. “I’d love a private tour of the grounds, if you have the time?” Her lips were rouged, and she pouted them at me, eyes glittering. Somehow, between the rouge and the grease of the food, I was reminded of a mouth smeared with gore. “You could tell me of the battles here! I’ve heard you were the most vicious fiend of all—the Skinner of Wolves, and all. Is it true that becoming a fiend was your idea?”

“Wyn will take you on a tour, Lady Kajarin,” I said, discomposed by the mental image of Kajarin, dripping diamonds, with her face plunged into an open wound. “She knows far more about the history of the Rift and its grounds than I do.”

My bloodwitch, on Kajarin’s left, smiled at me politely and eyed a butter knife.

Kajarin let out a small laugh, pressing a hand to her bosom. “Why, that’s so kind of you, but as you yourself have been through so many campaigns, I’d like to hear all the gory details from the man himself. You must have been so brave. There’s something so manly, so virile, about being up close to a warg yourself and taking its head off with your bare hands.” She sighed, almost a parody of a sexual sound. “I’m available any time, day or night. Just let me know and I’m all yours.”

I caught Wroth, catching his eye for a fraction of a second, just enough time to silently ask: what the hell?

My brother remained stone-faced, but I heard the distinct sound of claws digging into the arm of a chair.

I shifted uncomfortably as Auré’s eyes glittered, a dangerous tilt to her head. The vampire, who had served as an ambassador and messenger both on the battlefield, and after we’d taken our thrones, looked angry enough to bite.

“Lady Olwyn can manage it, Kajarin,” she said, and while Auré never snapped, she was close to it now. “Their time is important—entertaining you is the least of their concerns.”

Kajarin fingered an earring, a diamond the size of a robin’s egg, and that grotesque pout returned. “I merely thought the Lord of the Rift might be willing to extend his hospitality to a sister-in-law. I’ve been yearning to meet him for years.”

Cirri suddenly smiled, and signed to Kajarin, her movements more boisterous than I’d ever seen them. She looked friendly, from her smile to her broad motions, but her words…

His hospitality doesn’t include ending up in your bed. Perhaps you should kindly fuck off back to the Rivers, and give your husband a moment of peace from your mind games. 

I was astonished to silence for a moment. My wife had said fuck, in polite conversation, at dinner. Ancestors, I wanted to kiss her.

And secondly, she made the problem entirely clear. I was so revolted by Kajarin that I hadn’t realized… that she was flirting. Trying to take another man to bed… in front of her husband.

Wroth said nothing, his jaw tight.

Cirri ended her thoughts with a wide, sweeping movement, not just knocking over, but sending a glass of wine flying—straight into Kajarin’s face. The woman cried out as the wine stung her eyes, dripping over her cleavage and staining the expensive pink silk, beading on her diamonds.