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

by L.J. Andrews

Those were the nights when a poor boy and a forgotten girl dreamed aloud of the new lives they’d live far across the sea. Of good kings and gods’ magic. Tales where they were not hunted, where they were not afraid. The sort of tales where heroes never died, and pain did not exist. 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.

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

″Crack your sharp tongue all you want. To me you’ll always be nothing but a skinny boy, crying for his girl.” My chest squeezed hard enough I thought it might snap a rib. His girl. The way Kase spared the briefest glance over his shoulder, told me what I needed to know. He’d cried out for me, and I never came.

″I read enough to know it was believed the two royal lines never died off. Their descendants live in hiding, waiting for their queen to arise again,” Eero said. “Why the hells do you think the Lord Magnate has his little game at his masquerade? Fate’s ring was said to belong to the first queen. Only an heir will fit it. But should one come close to winning . . .” Eero dragged his thumb across his throat, not needing to explain more.

″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 hummed her satisfaction. “The Nightrender on his knees, I never knew such a thing of beauty existed.” I rolled my eyes to her, grinning a little wickedly as I finally succeeded in the clasp. I pressed a kiss to her stomach, the bones of her hips. “I only bow to you.”

hands.

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.

On the roof, Gunnar raised his bow for a new round. He fired, loaded, repeated, Tova at his side acting as a mirror. ″Kase.” Hagen noticed. His face turned to steel. “Kase Eriksson is that my bleeding son?”

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

With two fingers, Ivar drew the runes he’d use to cast Malin’s face from my mind on my forehead. My grip tightened on the rose. I closed my eyes. He could warp her face, my thoughts, but I prayed to the fates—if they existed at all—that he would not touch where she lived in my heart. Even if it was hidden from my mind, let my heart hold tight to her. I loved Malin Strom. I’d lived my life loving her. If asked, I’d die loving her.