When Asra awoke the next morning, it took her a moment to remember where she was. Her initial panicked thought was that she’d been captured, but prison wouldn’t have such a luxurious bedspread—certainly not any prison she’d be sent to.
She groaned as she finally remembered. Life in prison would be a far lighter sentence than being stuck with the prince in his apartment.
Despite this being the most comfortable bed she’d ever laid on, she’d gotten almost no sleep the night before. Memories of last night’s storm raced through her mind as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, her silver bracelet swinging from her wrist. The damn thing hadn’t done much to block out the sounds of thunder the night before.
She took her bracelet off and tossed it onto the bed. The delicate smells of incense and scented candles hung in the air. But most noticeable was the stench of her own sweat, still pungent with adrenals and fear.
Asra grabbed her bag and headed into the bathroom. Her fight with the numerous knobs and buttons in the enormous shower space went slightly better this morning than it had last night, when she had resigned herself to ice cold water. She at least managed to get the water lukewarm this time.
As she washed herself, her thoughts lingered on last night’s events. Her final words to Ciaran ran through her mind, and her cheeks burned. Why had she bothered humoring the prince’s questions in the first place? She’d barely even set foot in this place and she was already telling him things she’d never told anyone else. He was just like his brother.
When she’d finished and dressed, she stepped out of the guest suite to head downstairs. The morning light illuminated a small alcove in the loft hallway that she had not seen the night before. The wall was crowded with framed photographs above a small table, which held more framed photos, trophies, and a dog collar that caught Asra’s attention. She headed over to examine it.
It was dark brown leather, a thick collar about Bane’s size, inlaid with precious gemstones. She was impressed not only with the craftsmanship but also with its high level of maintenance. The leather was supple and nicely oiled with no signs of drying or cracking. The jewels—rubies, emeralds, and sapphires—were arranged in a beautifully flowing, swirling pattern around the collar. Hanging from the D-ring was a hand-stamped metal tag that read:
Jewel of the Crown’s
Bullet to the Heart
“TRIGGER”
She put it back on the table and scanned the pictures on the wall—photo after colorless photo of ridgeback dogs posed with ribbons and trophies, Ciaran proudly holding the leash. He was very young in some of these, around the age Asra had first met him.
Asra’s eyes trailed down the hall to a group of family photographs and paintings. Most of these were old pictures of Ciaran with a woman who could only be his mother. She had the same eyes and the same smile, and obviously the same affinity for dogs, which featured prominently in the photos of the two of them. Several pictures contained Nolan, though Asra noted none of them included their father.
Asra didn’t know much about Ciaran and Nolan’s parents, other than their father had killed their mother and then himself about twenty years ago. Nolan had been crowned not long after that, at the age of eighteen. That was just a couple of years before Asra met him.
Asra’s eyes were drawn to the only full-color photograph here: a picture of Ciaran, a plump toddler in a chair tall enough for him to eat at the table in front of him, with a teenaged Nolan seated next to him. Their mother stood between them, her blonde hair pinned back. She bent over to wrap her arms around each of them, pulling them in for a tight hug. They all flashed the same exuberant smile at the camera.
It would have been a happy picture if it had been of anyone else. Nolan looked too much like the young man who had Asra dragged into the palace as a young girl, dazed by the human city and ignorant of their laws and customs.
Asra’s family had photographs like this once, long ago. They were nothing but ash now, and Asra’s only option to keep Nolan from repeating that night was to work with his pampered little brother. She didn’t care that Ciaran hadn’t had a direct hand in the attack on her town. He profited from the blood of her people regardless, and worse, he didn’t seem to know or care. He could rot with his brother.
The muffled sound of the prince’s voice broke Asra from her ruminations, and she crept to the top of the stairs. Ciaran sat on the couch below, but there was no one around him except Bane. The dog sat on the floor facing Ciaran, who had Bane’s head cupped in his hands, whispering to him. Asra could just make out the words now that she was focused on the prince.
“...touching up on your training as soon as this mess is over. You’re a protection dog. You’re supposed to protect me, not stand there and watch while I get assaulted by a murderer.”
Asra’s nose wrinkled. She couldn’t stand the perfectly practiced, posh accent he used. It was not a natural dialect—the nobles were all taught to speak that way in their fancy boarding schools.
He wore only a pair of short cotton trousers, a sweat-drenched towel slung around his neck. The muscles of Asra’s people and the human commoners came through hard, honest work. Nobles could only achieve them through dedicated training and weightlifting. A leisure activity, and a sad mimicry of real work.
The sound of Asra’s footsteps on the metal stairs brought Ciaran’s attention to her.
“Finally awake, are you?” he asked as Asra wound down the stairs. “You were nagging me about leaving all last night, but then you slept in all day today.”
Asra glanced at the ornate clock on the wall adjacent to the fireplace. “It’s barely eight o’clock. Why are you up so early?”
“I’m always up this early,” he grumbled as he stood and walked into the kitchen. “Ever since I was old enough to walk. Dogs need to be fed and worked, and kennels need to be mucked out and cleaned.” His face grew dark as he pulled an assortment of raw meat out of the cold box. “There are no kennels to clean anymore, but Bane still needs to be cared for.”
Asra watched him pull a silver dog bowl and a few containers of grains from a kitchen cabinet and slam them onto the counter. The sound of the metal hitting the marble set Asra’s teeth on edge, and she was sure it wasn’t just her sensitive hearing that made it sound far louder than it needed to be.
Her stomach grumbled and her mouth watered as Ciaran cut up and portioned out the variety of meat on a food scale—chicken gizzards and feet, beef liver and tongue, a rabbit head, fish tails, and other delicious odds and ends the human nobles were too squeamish to eat. Likely scraps from the palace’s kitchen.
“What?” Ciaran asked.
Asra wiped the saliva from the corners of her mouth. She hadn’t realized how intently she’d been staring. The last thing she needed was for him to launch into an onslaught of questions about her diet.
“Surprised you don’t have a servant to do that for you,” she said as Ciaran measured out a cup of oats and dumped it into the bowl.
“I have a housekeeper who cooks and tidies up. But she doesn’t do anything with Bane, other than spoil him with treats when I’m not looking. I’m the only one who touches him. Well, besides his veterinarian.”
Asra looked at Bane, who sat expectantly on a raised cot just outside of the kitchen. A long line of drool dangled from his jowls. The sight might have made her feel a sense of kinship with him if he’d been anyone else’s dog. She’d spent too much time running from the prince’s hounds to have any amicable feelings towards them.
Ciaran placed the metal bowl on the floor, then looked at Bane. The dog stared at him stock-still, not breaking eye contact even to blink.
“Take it,” Ciaran said, and Bane dove off the cot to devour the food in the bowl.
“Slow down, idiot,” Ciaran admonished as he washed his hands. “You’re going to make yourself sick. Or choke.”
Bane hacked, then gagged up a large piece of chicken. Unperturbed, he continued his feast.
“What did I just tell you?” Ciaran said as he dried his hands on the towel hanging beneath the sink. He scratched the back of his head in frustration, then swore, and Asra smelled the bitter stench of his blood seeping through the reopened wound on the back of his head. He lifted the white towel from his neck and held it to his skull.
“Thanks for this, by the way,” he said, turning to look at her.
“That hasn’t healed yet?”
“Overnight?” His voice was pitched high with disbelief. He scoffed and said, “No, Asra. The gash on my head did not magically heal overnight.”
Asra took his point. She always forgot just how squishy humans were. She sighed and slipped her bracelet into her back pocket, then headed over to him.
“Let me take a look at it.”
Ciaran eyed her suspiciously. “Is healing magic just another ‘werewolf’ myth?”
“No, we can actually do that. If you would hold still and let me look at it.”
He hesitated for a second, but acquiesced. He pulled the towel down, and at the sight of the blood stained on the white cloth clamped his lips together and turned away, his face even paler than usual.
“It’s not even that bad,” Asra said.
“I don’t like blood,” Ciaran said. Catching the unamused look on Asra’s face out of the corner of his eye, he continued, “Call me squeamish if you want.”
Asra could think of a hundred other things she’d rather call him. She tossed the towel on the counter and reached for his head, but he took a step back.
“Do you want me to fix it or not?” she snapped.
“You said you were going to look at it, not touch it.”
“I can see the whole injury better with my magic than my eyes.”
Ciaran frowned, then took a step towards her. Asra slid her glasses to the top of her head, then she cupped his cheek in her left hand to steady him. She reached around the back of his head with her right hand and closed her eyes to concentrate.
Asra had to admit the damage was worse than she thought. It was swollen and bruised, and the injury extended down to the subcutaneous tissue. Both dried blood and a sticky mixture of fresh blood and serous fluid mingled in his hair and on his skin. She took a deep breath and directed the warmth of her magic to flow from her hand into his wound. Capillaries reconnected, blood flowed away from the site, and skin and soft tissue mended. A relatively clean heal, aside from some missing hair.
Asra stepped away, and Ciaran rubbed up and down the back of his scalp. He headed into the living room to examine Asra’s handiwork in an elegantly framed mirror on the wall.
“Gods,” he breathed. “That’s incredible.”
Asra couldn’t help the little thrill of triumph in her chest. It had been a long time since she’d healed anyone else, and even longer since she’d had a healing lesson, and she didn’t do half bad. She even remembered what serous fluid was called.
Ciaran pressed where the wound once was and said, “It’s still a little sore.”
Asra pursed her lips. “I didn’t check your skull for fractures.”
She stepped closer to him and placed her hands on his head as she had before, then closed her eyes and concentrated again.
Not long after, Asra felt his gaze on her. When she opened her eyes, she found Ciaran studying every detail of her face.
“Eyes to yourself, prince.”
“Relax, it’s not what you think.” His voice was a little too innocent. “I was just admiring your sigils. I’ve never had a chance to look at them up close.”
Asra closed her eyes and tried to focus once more.
“Do all your people have them? Do they function the same way they do in magic animals? Do they spread quickly, or—”
The lock on the front door clicked open, then an icy voice said, “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
A man stood at the entrance, eyes narrowed at both of them. Asra whipped her glasses back down to her nose and Ciaran jumped out of his skin. These must have come across as guilty gestures to the stranger, like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
The man wore a slim-fitting riding duster and leather boots with intricate stitching. His glossy blond hair was expertly coiffed, his pale skin smooth and clear. He had an air of superiority around him typical of a noble, and although he looked to be in his late twenties, he carried himself with the authority of someone much older.
Asra hoped the man hadn’t noticed the sigils on her body. She sniffed in his direction as subtly as she could manage, and her eyes widened. She’d never spoken to Vincent Baudelaire any of the times he’d come to the food kitchen, but she’d know his scent anywhere.
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“It’s polite to knock, you know,” Ciaran said, his hands flexing into fists at his side.
“And it’s polite to remember when you make appointments,” Vincent said. “I told you several times I’d be here today at half past eight.”
His voice was even and cool, each word precisely enunciated. He had the same trained noble accent Ciaran did, but it suited Vincent much better.
Asra slipped her silver bracelet from her back pocket onto her wrist. Changing into her fur in front of Vincent would be a very bad idea.
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you’ve forgotten something yet again,” Vincent said.
“I didn’t forget,” Ciaran said. “I just didn’t care.”
Asra frowned. Bringing her into this apartment knowing Vincent would be here the next morning would be an astonishingly stupid thing to do, even for Ciaran. Why would he even bother lying when it was clear he had forgotten?
Vincent sighed. “I don’t have all day to wait around for you, Ciaran. I have a carriage waiting on me. Someone has had me reassigned to New Port.”
“Well, my brother never did like you,” Ciaran said.
Vincent smiled all too pleasantly. “Of course. Shall I go get my things, then?”
“No,” Ciaran barked. “Stay here and try to be civil for two minutes.”
He stormed into his bedroom, Bane at his side. Vincent closed the distance between himself and Asra and held his hand out to her. Everything about his movements was calculated and deliberate.
“He tells me to be civil, yet he doesn’t even have the decency to introduce us,” he said. “Vincent Baudelaire, currently Lord of Windemere City, soon to be Lord of New Port.” The bitterness in his voice was palpable.
Asra tried to grab his hand in her usual firm handshake, unsure of what else to do, but Vincent deftly rotated it palm down. He held her fingers and brought the back of her hand to his lips for a chaste kiss. He continued to hold her hand for a moment, waiting for something, then raised an eyebrow at her.
“And may I have your name?” he said.
“Oh. Sara.”
Vincent didn’t move. “Just Sara?”
She realized she’d never invented a human last name for herself, and she wasn’t sure if her lineage name would be a dead giveaway of her species.
“Yep.”
Vincent gave her the smile of an adult dealing with a child who simply didn’t know any better. He bowed his head and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Sara.”
She nodded. Asra had many run-ins with nobles over the years, but she’d never learned how to hold a polite conversation with one.
“You’re not from the nobility, are you?” Vincent asked, straightening.
“How would you know?”
Vincent smiled. “There’s no polite way for me to answer that.”
He strode to the kitchen and pulled a jug of water out of the cold box, then poured it into a glass from the cabinet. When he turned, his eyes landed on the kitchen island cluttered with raw meat and animal parts, dirty dishes, and open containers of cereal and grains, then to the metal bowl on the floor, glistening with Bane’s drool. His lip curled.
“I was born a commoner, too, actually,” he said, then took a sip from the glass. “I suppose Ciaran has a type.”
Asra said nothing, despite her skin crawling at the insinuation. It was safer for him to think she and Ciaran were together than for him to wonder why she was here.
Vincent’s eyes landed on the band on Asra’s wrist. “I’m surprised to see you wearing silver. Ciaran hasn’t told you silver’s out of style? He hasn’t reminded you eight hundred times that he single-handedly replaced silver with gold last year? He’s so proud of that. He never shuts up about it.”
Asra could already tell Ciaran never shut up about anything. She wished the prince would hurry up. Every moment she spent being interrogated by Vincent was a moment that he could realize who and what she was.
Vincent took another sip of his water, then studied Asra for a moment. His gaze sent a chill crawling up her spine, and she stifled a growl.
“Have we met before?” he asked. “You look familiar.”
“No.”
She and Vincent had never interacted when he visited the food kitchen, but she was sure he’d seen her there. She didn’t want to drag Lala into any of this mess.
“You’re probably right,” Vincent said. “I’m sure I would have remembered your glasses.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re one of my inventions, and I would have loved to brag about that. Ciaran isn’t the only one who has an overinflated ego.”
He took another sip of water, and Asra gripped her silver bracelet.
“Useful, isn’t it?” Vincent continued. “The disguising spell, I mean. It was part of my thesis project for my doctoral degree. Must be a relief to not have to slather yourself in makeup every time you want to blend in, yes? Certainly better than having nobles gawk at you all the time.”
“I don’t spend much time around nobles.”
“Oh, I can tell that,” he said with a laugh.
He knew. Asra twisted the bracelet around her wrist.
“Where are you from, if you don’t mind me asking?” Vincent said.
Should she kill him now? Or would that just make things worse? She couldn’t risk him blabbing to Nolan. Where the hell was Ciaran?
“A little town in one of the independent states,” Asra said. “You wouldn’t have heard of it.”
“I travel a lot. You’d be surprised.”
“I thought I told you to be civil?”
Asra didn’t think she’d ever be relieved to hear the prince’s voice, but she let out a soft sigh at the sight of him standing in the hallway, a worn wooden box in his arms.
“Just because you struggle with civility doesn’t mean the rest of us do,” Vincent said. “We were having a perfectly cordial conversation, weren’t we, Sara?”
“Here’s your shit,” Ciaran said, shoving the box into Vincent’s arms. “You can stop harassing my assistant and get out.”
“Assistant.” Vincent’s smile was saccharine. “If that’s what you want to call it. I’m sure she assists you with many things.”
“You have a carriage waiting on you,” Ciaran said, his jaw set in a hard line.
“Of course. I won’t inconvenience you with my presence any longer.” Vincent turned to Asra and bowed, the movement encumbered by the large box in his arms. “It was an honor, Ms. Sara. I hope we cross paths again.”
Ciaran already had the door to the foyer open for Vincent. The moment Vincent crossed the threshold, Ciaran slammed it shut.
Asra waited for the sound of the elevator doors opening and closing before she said, “He knows.”
“Knows what?” Ciaran’s face was flushed, and his eyes were still fixed on the door.
“What I am. Who I am.”
He shrugged and said, “Of course he knows. He’s not stupid. He won’t do anything about it, though.”
Asra’s brows drew together. “Why won’t he?”
“Because he’d love for someone to off Nolan. We’re doing him a favor.”
“He didn’t seem very grateful to me.”
Ciaran ran a hand through his hair. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. He’s toothless, trust me.”
Ciaran stomped back to the kitchen, leaving Asra to stare at the foyer door in fear that it may burst open with guards at any moment. Vincent was anything but toothless, but there wasn’t much she could do about him now. It was all the more motivation to get rid of Nolan as quickly as possible.
----------------------------------------
Asra thought the prince was insufferable when he was just a vague memory and a face in the newspapers. Now that she knew the real Ciaran, he was so much worse than she had imagined.
“For the last time, I don’t want a drink,” Asra said through gritted teeth, clenching her fists on the glossy marble counter. Her eyes flicked to the clock in the living room and she stifled a groan. They’d been at this for three hours now.
Ciaran poured yet another glass of whiskey from a crystal decanter. Asra didn’t want to know how much it cost—the whiskey or the decanter.
“You could use one,” Ciaran said. “It would help you lighten up a little.”
“I would lighten up a lot if you could come up with a plan, like you promised.”
“I’ve come up with plenty of plans. You keep knocking them down.”
“Your plans all end in me dying.”
“Not if you’re good enough at your job.” He took a sip of whiskey and pondered for a moment. “What if we pretended I captured you? I could deliver you straight to him, then you could—”
“He’ll never buy that.”
“How do you know?”
Asra snorted. “First off, because there’s no way you could ever capture me in the first place. And second, because I know Nolan.”
“You don’t know him like I know him.”
Asra’s lip curled. “No. I know him for what he actually is.”
Ciaran threw his head back and rolled his eyes. “I get it. You’re the victim in your little revenge fantasy.”
“This isn’t about revenge. This is about keeping my town safe.”
“Yeah? How long did it take you to convince yourself of that?”
This wasn’t going to work, and it was stupid of Asra to have thought it would. She pushed off the counter and stormed into the living room, sending Bane scrabbling to get out of her path.
“Where are you going?” Ciaran said.
Asra grabbed her bag and threw it over her shoulders, then headed to the door. Ciaran cut her off before she could reach it, standing solid in her path.
“I asked you where you were going.”
Asra stared him in the eye. This was the tantrum of a man who’d spent his whole life getting his way, surrounded by people who catered to his every whim. Asra was not one of those people. She shouldered past him with far more force than was necessary, sending him stumbling a few steps backward.
“Don’t you walk away from me!”
Asra pushed open the front door and headed to the elevator. When Ciaran spoke again, his voice was tight with desperation.
“I thought you said you wanted to keep your town safe?”
Asra pressed the button for the elevator and tightened the chest strap of her packsack.
“If you walk out now, you won’t be able to help them. What Nolan has planned will make the last attack look like a slap on the wrist.”
Asra whipped her head around and said, “What the hell are you talking about?”
Relief washed over Ciaran’s face as Asra turned away from the elevator, but faded with every step Asra took towards him.
“What is he planning?” Asra said, her face now inches from Ciaran’s.
“I … I don’t know entirely. Something about a weapon and your kind not being a problem for much longer.”
Asra grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him into the wall beside the door, knocking over a large vase that shattered all over the floor. Bane snarled, baring his fangs near Asra’s thigh, but he didn’t bite her. Perhaps he knew better.
“You piece of shit!” Asra snarled. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
The elevator bell dinged behind them, and the doors slid open with a mechanical whir.
“I didn’t think I needed to!” Ciaran said. Even with her silver on, she could smell the alcohol on his breath. “You were so hellbent on getting to him that I didn’t think you needed more motivation.”
Bane began a steady, constant rhythm of staccato barks.
“No, you needed a bargaining chip,” Asra said, her voice quivering. “Something you could hold over me to protect your miserable life when Nolan was dead.”
“Can you blame me? You haven’t exactly given me reason to trust you!” Ciaran’s voice was barely audible over Bane’s barking.
“Shut that dog up!”
“Bane—” Ciaran’s eyes widened in horror. “Bane!”
Bane snarled, and a strange voice screamed. Asra turned just as the dog let out an ear-splitting yelp, then a whimper, then fell silent.
The foyer was crowded by masked figures descending on them. Asra barely had time to register Bane’s bloody body on the floor, barely had time to try to wriggle out of her silver band, before the intruders were on them.
Then everything went dark.