Ashes (The Divided Kingdom) Read online

  “Actually, that’s a common mistake,” Alana interrupted. “That’s my signature, as her ‘hand’. People just associate it with her.”

  His heart settled at the hope peeking from behind the bravado. It was true that when he’d finally figured out the truth, it had caused him a bad moment. Or two. He might have sought out a wall and gone to town on it with his claws.

  Then he’d thought on it. As she’d proven, Liberty saved people, children, from horrific experimentation. She whipped up hope in a neighborhood where you were more likely to find despair. She fought an evil the Treaty—as well as himself—had been too blind to see. Yes, she was no angel, but who was? To use a cliché that suited Alana: sometimes you had to fight fire with fire. The Treaty had had their chance. He believed Alana when she swore Liberty had never killed an innocent. He believed in her.

  She was waiting. He cocked his head. “I suspected you might be Liberty over the first couple of days, but then I heard about a fire strike on a building. I thought, when we came here, Sapphy might be Liberty, but then Vander told me her affinity is with air.”

  Alana swallowed, nodded, causing a lock of hair to drift. “We have a person who fills in from time to time as a Liberty double. Trick wanted to throw you off the scent.” Her lips quirked before settling into a serious line. “When?”

  Cade touched her face with a steady hand. She exhaled, eyelids fluttering shut. “After the training with Trick. He said I’d have to go on faith.”

  Afterward, he’d told her he had faith in her. He hadn’t meant Alana. If she could accept his alter ego as a Blade, he could accept hers. Allegiances should be equal.

  Relief danced in her eyes when her eyelids slid up, her smile big and beautiful. She closed her hand over his. “You knew.”

  “I knew.”

  “And you’re…calm.”

  “Alana.” He framed her face with his hands, reeling her in. “Would you have stopped being Liberty if I raged about, throwing a fit?”

  Her nose wrinkled. “Well, no.”

  “Would you stop saving innocents and protecting the Maze if I threatened never to speak to you again? Act meek and feeble if I was disgusted and ordered you to stop?”

  “No.” Her chin lifted.

  He had to laugh. “So why’re you asking when it’s obvious you’ve never needed my approval?”

  A beat before she arched one eyebrow. “Obviously I don’t need your approval.” She sniffed. “I just didn’t want you to kill an innocent woman, thinking she was Liberty.”

  “Brat.” He growled, teasing. “I’m going to have to teach you manners.”

  Over her laughing protestations, he hauled her over his shoulder. Now all the secrets were laid bare, he felt freer, lighter than he had in years, as though the blood had been washed clean. He’d needed her to tell him, to come to him with no barriers.

  Cade knew he’d have to let her go; he would never be accepted as her consort, and he didn’t want to cause her failure or embarrassment when she returned to the High Lands. But for this slice of time, she was his. He was hers.

  They passed nobody in the passages as he stalked toward Alana’s old rooms, his hand tapping her backside as she dared to demand he put her down.

  “No way, Princess.” He nudged the door to her rooms open. It was dark, but light from the hall spilled into the space that had known some of his happiest moments. When he dumped her on the bed, she let out a huff. He leaned down, nose to nose. “Rebel. I have you where I want you—and you will talk.”

  Delight played over her face at his teasing, lightening her features, turning back the years. She feathered a hand through his hair at his neck. “Will you shift for me?”

  Cade didn’t even have to think, though he’d never before shown people what he could do. He was Alana’s completely.

  He leaped into the firestorm of power that was the change, bones reshaping to form the smaller jackal side of his soul.

  Alana’s face took on a fascinated, if cautious, sheen as she crawled to the edge of the bed to blink down at him. “Cade?” Unsure.

  He yapped at her, padding forward and jumping up to lick her nose. She laughed and vaulted off the bed. Eyes glinted in fascination as she knelt next to him on the threadbare gray carpet.

  It was strange. He’d always assumed if he showed the shift to somebody they’d shrink in horror, or that he’d be out of control. All he felt was his jackal’s joy at finally being near Alana, and his own delight when her hand descended to the ruff of his neck.

  Playfully, he reached around and nipped her wrist. Then butted her hand.

  Her laugh surprised him. “You’re gorgeous.” A sarcastic quirk twisted her lips. “Should’ve known, huh?”

  She continued to stroke, until he shifted again in a blaze of bright sparks. Her hands flattened on his naked chest.

  “Why wouldn’t you want to do that all the time?” Her hand stilled. Her tone was smooth with awe.

  “Why don’t you play with fire all the time?” he retorted, knowing that it drained her. His jackal didn’t drain him, but if he shifted too much, the wild animal would forever take over, lost to reason. He threaded a hand through her hair, sifting through the multihued red.

  “According to you, I already do.” Her breathing was unsteady as her hand stirred on his chest. “Cade?” she whispered when he made no move to kiss her.

  He didn’t know what would happen when they put the plan into motion, didn’t know if they’d both make it out.

  She was royalty. He was in no way consort material.

  It didn’t matter as he leaned forward to slant his lips over hers. Hers fell open with a sigh, holding him to her with claws that sank into his skin.

  His fingers tunneled into her hair, dragging her head back so he could feed her kiss after kiss. He wanted to sear it into his memory, the new trust intensifying their lovemaking.

  “Touch me,” Alana whispered against his lips, her claws scraping gently down his chest. Soft breaths were loud in the quiet room.

  Cade picked her up in his arms, carrying her to her bed. Who cared that the mattress was hard, the pillows thin? This was his Ana.

  He spun out his further education of her body, the time passing in hot glides of his tongue over damp flesh, the quiver of her belly button as he nibbled the ruby navel jewel, the moans of a woman in a shadowed room.

  Her breasts were his, he decided. He nipped the puckered rosy nipples, enjoying the way her body shuddered. When his tongue laved across the peak, she groaned. And when he sucked it into his mouth, the cry that poured out of her was as silken as melted chocolate.

  He couldn’t get enough, plumping the sweet, sweet globe with his free hand while he drew hard on the nipple he held hostage in his mouth. He switched.

  When she came, fire sparked like lightning to shock his skin in teasing love bites. His growl echoed around the room as he tasted honey and smoke on his tongue. Her pants had long been clawed off, leaving her as naked as he. “So good,” he muttered. “Mine.”

  He used his tongue like a weapon designed to make her crazy, in and out and swirling around, learning that that honey taste was not limited to her mouth.

  Her claws pricked into his scalp where she held him. His claws dug into her hips as he lapped at her hot, sweet flesh.

  “Cade!” Her cry flooded him with satisfaction, his body aching for release as her hips crested the wave. Smoke drifted from her skin, a teasing glimpse of fire.

  “Ana.” His growl coiled like smoke as he crawled back up her body. He kissed her insistently, pleased when her legs wrapped around his waist with a grip that would have shamed a python.

  He spun them so she was on top, delighting in her surprised shriek of laughter. “You do the work.”

  Her eyebrows rose, color blooming in her cheeks. He could see the pulse of fire underneath pale skin. “As you
wish,” she murmured, setting to her work with diligence.

  He was breathing like a furnace as she worked her way down. His lungs froze as her teeth grazed his belly. If she put her mouth anywhere near his cock, it would be over faster than you could say cheetah.

  “Cade,” came her complaint when his arms hauled her up.

  “I’m about to go off like a rocket,” he explained, heat scorching him as he felt the dampness of her core against his stomach. His cock could hammer a nail. Yet he felt tenderness toward this woman. His woman. His animal rumbled in agreement.

  She wiggled her eyebrows, hands squeezing around his cock. His breath shot from his chest. “Let’s see if we can finish you, then.” Her saucy words filtered in, but couldn’t penetrate the absolute bliss of her dainty hands.

  “What a big boy you are.” She nipped his jaw. Her hands pumped him slowly as he rocked and begged underneath her.

  “Alana,” he warned through clenched teeth. An animal snarl tore from him. “Mercy.”

  With a grin, she shimmied down until she was poised over him. As she lowered, her wetness easing her down his cock in a perfect gloved fit, she lost the teasing smile. Instead, an expression of absorption, of fierce desire as she sank down. They both hissed.

  “Ride me,” he told her, and she did, moving hesitantly at first, then growing bolder. Rocking back and forth, up and down, swiveling in a figure-eight pattern that rolled his eyes back in his head.

  His hands were clenched on her hips tight enough to leave bruises, her soft cries, his guttural moans and the wet, carnal noises of two bodies joining filling the room.

  “Give me your fire,” he pleaded, needing the burn, needing everything that made Alana.

  Seconds after the request, bright licks of blue-tipped flame danced across their bodies. A searing intimacy that shoved him higher as he gripped Alana’s head and pulled her down for a kiss.

  Everything imprinted on Cade’s brain as he lost his senses, as he lost his fucking mind and instinct took over, as Alana rode them both past the edge of sanity and straight off the cliff in a bright, big fireball that tore them both apart before rejoining the pieces.

  The training had been as intensive as the weapons and hand-to-hand Trick had once taught her. Still Ana didn’t feel ready as Trick outlined the plan one last time in his rooms three days later.

  His hand spanned the map of the crystal palace Vander had drawn, artistic ability being one of the human’s talents. The map was splayed across a table Faer had dragged in for this purpose, all five Hoods and Cade ranged around so they could see.

  “Right.” Trick’s voice was as flat as the Heartlands as he gestured toward Ana and Cade. “Ana and Cade will go in tomorrow, midmorning. As far as our intel”—meaning Mikhel—“goes, Edward is due to finish in the throne room around eleven.” He flicked his eyes in Ana’s direction. Reserve hid traces of concern. “You know the story?”

  Ana’s palms were sweating, but she kept her grip on the fire that circled in her belly. “I’ve been on the run from my parents’ murderers,” she recited in a dutiful tone. “My bodyguard thought it best to stay hidden. Only now, when the whispers have died down, have I dared to emerge. Where else would I go but to my loving fiancé?” She batted her eyelashes.

  “No ad-libbing,” Trick snapped. “Once you’re in Edward’s palace, this all needs to be as seamless as satin—he’ll have a phoenix in his possession, and one society has no clue still lives. Carte blanche to experiment on. One error and we all die and you end up a lab rat.” He glared. “This. Is. Serious.”

  “I know, Trick,” she said through clenched teeth. “I’m the one who could have needles stuck in her butt. Lighten up a little, huh?”

  Ignoring her suggestion, Trick continued. “You’ll go to the front entrance”—his fingers stabbed the site in question—“where you’ll demand admittance. Once he hears your tale, a fancy host like Edward will assign you your own rooms. He’ll probably leave you there until the main evening meal, trying to discover if your story is the truth. All we need to do is lie low through dinner, until you retire to bed.”

  His hand moved to a different section. “Vander and Sapphy will be waiting by the East Gate. Cade, you got that?”

  Cade nodded, shrewd as he considered his task. He bent over the table. “I’m hoping I can prowl around in the afternoon on the basis of checking security. I should be able to note the new guard rotations, enough to know when to strike.”

  Trick inclined his head. “Ana, you’ve got the West Gate. Faer and I will enter through there.”

  “See you at the stroke of twelve.” Ana sighed when Trick’s fangs flashed. She was only making jokes because of the huge flies flapping around in her belly. They were being toasted, flames darting from her embers in agitated bursts. She put a hand to her stomach, shaking her head at Cade’s silent question.

  She smiled at him, though she was afraid for his safety. It was all well detailing a plan; as experience showed, plans were not always kept. She couldn’t stand the idea of anything happening to any one of them. She’d die herself first.

  “The key is to get to Edward’s private office where Excalibur is kept.” Trick’s voice hummed with anticipation. “If we can do that without alerting the guards, we’re well on our way to being rid of the high ruler, permanently. Once we locate the sword, it’s just a matter of—”

  “Slaying the son of a bitch.” Faer slammed a fist onto the drawing. His lips stretched wide in a satisfied grin. “’Bout bloody time!”

  Sapphy hugged her arms. “It’s like Christmas,” she joked, before sobering. She paused, glancing at Trick. “What do we do if something goes wrong?”

  “Grip your ass and hold on tight,” Vander said, grim. One hand touched the smooth hilt of his sword. “Either way, someone’s getting killed tomorrow.”

  “This is it, people.” The dread swarmed like wasps inside her stomach. Ana’s claws curled into her palms. “Edward the Bloody’s had his last night.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The dress she chose was similar to one she’d have worn in the High Lands. It consisted of a sweetheart neckline and bell sleeves, hugging her waist before blossoming out at the skirt. Ana had cut a slit in it, midthigh, for weapons convenience. Instead of the crimson that indicated a connection with the Royal House, the simple cotton was a pale shade of pink. As Trick had pointed out, what kind of threat wore pink? But for appearance’s sake, Ana had encircled her waist with a crimson ribbon.

  Three gold anklets clinked as she shifted in the high heels—satin, and the same shade of pink as the dress. She’d removed the iron studs from her ears with regret, seeing it as the final goodbye. They were nestled in tissue in the pack Cade carried, in the hidden lining where they’d stashed the dark clothing she’d need that night.

  There’d been nothing they could do with her hair, short as it was, but Faer had produced a wig—“Don’t ask,” he’d warned—close to the shade of Ana’s natural color. It wouldn’t have the Farrahs’ trademark multihued reds, but was near enough and would keep the casual eye from linking the short-haired, redhead Hood with the princess. Ana had plaited some daisies into the shoulder-length wig, figuring if a threat never wore pink, she also never wore daisies in her hair.

  Her hands were slippery with sweat, fire humming beneath her skin, as she and Cade prepared to walk through the front entrance. They’d be pulled up immediately by the guards, but that couldn’t be avoided. It was nearing eleven o’clock, sunshine glimmered through the cloud bank and it’d be a miracle if she didn’t swoon into Cade’s arms and ruin the whole plan.

  She glanced at him as they stood in the shade of a tall oak, sighing inside in a moment of pure indulgence at how handsome he was in his bodyguard guise.

  He wore black, no change there, but the pants he wore were tight, the shirt tucked into the waistband. He wore a further waistcoat over th
e shirt. His hair was secured at his nape with a crimson ribbon, as it had been every day when he’d been her bodyguard.

  He met her eyes, warm and encouraging. “Let’s do this, Princess.” He bowed his head in deference.

  Ana took in a deep breath and walked out of cover toward the central gate. The skirts swayed as she moved, the heels tapping out her approach. She winced, instincts of the street berating her. You’d never be able to sneak up on anyone in the blasted things.

  Cade fell in after her, three steps behind and to the left, as was proper for a bodyguard. His sword was openly sheathed at his hip, one hand resting on the hilt with light intent.

  “Halt.”

  Ana moistened her lips. Raising her chin, she flicked the wig’s hair over one shoulder. “Excuse me?” she demanded, the rich royal tone rolling from her mouth. She stopped short of the magnificent gateway.

  Both wings were closed, the bars straight and constructed from iron. The design at the top was elaborate, a briar patch forged from iron, with roses dotted here and there, with the biggest rose in the middle. It depicted Edward’s crest of two swords clashing. The entire design was gilded with pure silver and liquid sapphire.

  Two guards stood on the outside of the fifteen-foot, intricate gate, examining her with open interest. Both were flame demons and sprouted three horns from the sides of their copper helmets. Armor plastered their chests and legs, as though they were preparing for an invasion.

  “Who’re you?” The guard on the right swept a gaze over her. “Whaddya want?”

  “Are you addressing me?” Ana narrowed her eyes, her nose rising.

  Both shifted. “You got an appointment?”