Night of Masks and Knives (The Broken Kingdoms, #4)

by L.J. Andrews

Those were nights when the girl told the boy he was valiant and steady like a raven, and he said she looked as pretty as a rose. The boy whittled them, a raven and rose, then tied the raven to her neck, the rose to his, and told her he’d always keep her secrets. Always.

No one ever said the kind brother would be lost to them. No one mentioned how brave little boys would grow to become killers. Or how sweet little girls would someday be the trickiest of thieves.

Your hair looks like the sunset, Mallie. Yours looks like dirt. But the good kind of dirt. What the hells is the good kind of dirt? You’d know it if you saw it, Kase. But there is. There just is.

″You would be better off listening to me.” The way he touched me, slow, sensual, needy, I had little control in the way my body arched into him. ″If you said better things, I might listen.”

“Malin.” I tugged at her trousers, my fingers sliding beneath the waistline. “Everything I want is all that you are.”

Malin Strom was my beautiful downfall. And I would take any pain if it meant more of her. Ruin me. Brutalize me. Just give me her.

Come one, come all. Welcome to the dark ball.

“This feels like a fantasy. Like a night we’ve talked about for so long but was never going to happen.”

The kiss had meaning and spoke words I could not—I loved her. I had always loved her.

Come one, come all. Here, the weak run for cover, but the fools stand tall.

Oh, the villainous lengths we all took. Truth be told, we all were a little monstrous in our own ways.

″I don’t ever want to stop being friends,” Kase said. “I don’t want her dead. Makes me sick in my stomach to think it. Does that mean I love her?”

“Will you tell her I didn’t leave her because she was a bad friend? She isn’t. She’ll cry. I don’t . . .” He hiccupped. “I don’t want her to cry.”

“But remember, I have marked you now. I never lose sight of my marks.”