“But I could never be queen,” she said. “The bloodline. The people would never—”
“I know.” His expression was sympathetic. “But it doesn’t matter.”
She drew back, hearing his words again. Spoken with such certainty. She wants to kill you, Princess.
“She told you this?”
A sharp, single nod.
Bright spots flickered in her vision. She stepped backward, grasping the rail of Ryu’s enclosure. Behind her, she heard a growl, followed by Ryu’s nose against her fingers. She hadn’t realized he was there.
“She asked you to do it.”
His jaw clenched. Guiltily, he glanced at the wolf. “I’m so sorry, Princess.”
When the world stopped spinning, she dared to look up at the camera over his shoulder. She rarely paid the cameras much attention, but now she wondered if her stepmother was watching, waiting to see her stepdaughter murdered so she could protect her throne from an imaginary threat.
“Why would she do that to you?”
He laughed, like someone had stabbed him in the chest and he had no other choice but to find it amusing. “To me? Really?”
She forced herself to stand tall. Recalling her breathless anticipation of this meeting, she thought of what a naïve, silly girl she’d been.
“Yes,” she said, firmly. “How could she be so cruel, to ask you, of all people?”
His face softened. “You’re right. It’s torture.”
Tears started to mist her eyes. “She threatened someone, didn’t she? She’s going to have someone killed if you don’t do this.”
He didn’t respond.
She sniffed, blinking the tears away. He didn’t have to tell her. It didn’t really matter who it was. “It’s selfish of me, but I’m glad it’s you, Jacin.” Her voice shook. “I know you’ll make it quick.”
She tried to imagine it. Would he use his knife? A gun? She had no idea what was the fastest way to die. She didn’t want to know.
Jacin would have had to ask these same questions. All the night before. All that day. He must have been planning how to do it, dreading this meeting as much as she’d been yearning for it.
Her heart broke for him.
Behind her, Ryu started to growl.
“Winter…”
It had been so long since he’d called her by her name. Always Princess. Always Highness.
Her lip quivered, but she refused to cry. She wouldn’t do that to him.
Jacin’s fingers curled around his knife.
It was torture. Jacin looked more afraid than when he’d stood on trial. More pained now than when his torso had been stripped raw from the lashings.
This was the last time she would ever see him.
This was her last moment. Her last breath.
Suddenly, all of the politics and all of the games stopped mattering. Suddenly, she felt daring.
“Jacin,” she said, with a shaky smile. “You must know. I cannot remember a time when I didn’t love you. I don’t think such a time ever existed.”
His eyes filled with a thousand emotions. But before he could say whatever he would say, before he could kill her, Winter grabbed the front of his shirt with both hands and kissed him.
He thawed much quicker than she’d expected. Almost instantly, like he’d been waiting for this moment, he grabbed her hips and pulled her against him with a possessiveness that overwhelmed her. His lips were desperate and starved as he leaned into the kiss, pressing her against the rail. She gasped, and he deepened the kiss, threading one hand into the hair at the nape of her neck.
Her head swam, muddled with heat and a lifetime of desire.
Jacin’s other hand abandoned her hip. She heard the ring of steel as the knife was pulled from its scabbard. Winter shuddered and kissed him harder, filling it with every fantasy she’d ever had.
Jacin’s hand slipped out of her hair. His arm encircled her. He held her against him like they couldn’t get close enough. Like he meant to absorb her body into his.
Releasing his shirt, Winter found his neck, his jaw. She felt the tips of his hair on her thumbs. He made a noise and she couldn’t tell if it was desire or pain or regret or a mix of everything. His arm tensed against her back. His weight shifted as he raised the knife.
Winter squeezed her eyes tight.
Having seen so many deaths in her life, she had the distant thought that this was not such a horrible way to go.
His arm jerked downward and Winter gasped, the rush of air separating them. Her eyes flew open. Behind her, Ryu yelped, but the sound turned to a betrayed whimper.
Jacin’s eyes were open too, blue and regretful.
Winter tried to back away but he held her firm. She had nowhere to go anyway, pinned between him and the railing as she was. Over his shoulder, a camera’s light glowed against the ceiling. Her breaths were ragged. Her head spun. She couldn’t tell her heartbeat from Jacin’s.
Jacin. Whose cheeks were flushed and whose hair was a mess. Jacin, who she had finally dared to kiss. Jacin, who had kissed her back.
But if she’d expected to see desire in his face, she was disappointed. He had frozen again.
“Do me a favor, Princess,” he whispered, his breath warm against her mouth. “The next time someone says they’re going to kill you, don’t just let them.”
She stared at him, dazed. What had he done?
Winter’s knees gave out. Jacin caught her, sliding her down the enclosure’s bars. Her hand landed in something warm and wet seeping out from underneath the short wall.
“You’re all right, Princess,” Jacin murmured. “You’re all right.”
“Ryu?” Her voice broke.
“They’ll think the blood is yours.” He was explaining something, but she didn’t understand. “Wait here. Don’t move until I turn out the lights. Got it? Princess?”
“Don’t move,” she whispered.
Jacin pulled away and she heard the knife being ripped from the wolf’s flesh. The body sagged against the bars. Jacin cupped her scarred cheek, studying her to be sure she wasn’t mid-breakdown, to be sure she’d understood, but all she could comprehend was the warm stickiness soaking through her skirt. Blood was flooding the pathway. Gallons and gallons of blood were suddenly dripping from the glass ceiling, splattering on her arms, filling up the pond.
“Winter.”
She gaped at Jacin, incapable of speaking. The memory of the kiss clouded over with something awful and unfair. Ryu. Sweet, innocent Ryu.
“Until the lights go out,” he repeated. “Then I want you to get your redhead friend and get off this damned game board.” Jacin’s thumbs rubbed against her skin, stirring her from her shock. “Now play dead, Princess.”
She sagged, finding relief in the command. They were playing a game. A game. Like when they were kids. It’s a game and the blood isn’t real and Ryu—!
She scrunched her face against the tears. A sob stayed locked in her throat. Jacin propped her against the cage wall and then his warmth was gone. The heaviness of his boots thudded away, leaving a path of sticky footprints in his wake.
Twenty-Nine
Scarlet’s frown felt etched into her face as she stared down the empty pathway of the menagerie. Winter had gone that way what felt like hours ago, and Scarlet knew no guests were supposed to be in the menagerie this late. Probably those rules didn’t apply to princesses, though. Maybe Winter was getting that romantic tryst she’d wanted, after all.