Night of Masks and Knives (The Broken Kingdoms Book 4)

“You needed to know, so you could prepare,” Fiske said, his hands clasped behind his back.

My shoulders tensed and I nodded. “We’ll watch our backs.”

His brows pulled together. “Do more than that, Kase. Do a great deal more than that. I will not go if I do not have your assurance you will do everything to return with us.”

″Fiske,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “I have no plans to sleep at the Black Palace tomorrow evening.”

He didn’t look appeased, but Fiske rarely did when it came to these things. He didn’t argue more and left me with a tight smile.

The worst part about Fiske’s premonitions came when they involved you. What was I to do with his twisted, ugly feeling that something would take an unexpected turn for me? There was no time to readjust.

We were to leave in the morning.

More than worry for me, how was I to do this for Malin?

How would I deliver her to the place where cruel men would tear her apart if they discovered her mesmer?

I stood at a precipice of a battle I never wanted. Deep, unforgiving dread climbed my shoulders.

If I refused to take this step, Malin would go without me. She would not leave Hagen. There was no other choice but to remain at her side as we either succeeded in a heist, common for Kryv, or began a war.

My eyes fell to the wrapped gown hanging near the window of my upper room.

Inge had delivered on her promise. This morning Tova and Lynx had gone to pick up the gown, but also oversee the application of the crystal powder to Lord Niall’s fine coat.

If ever Niklas’s elixirs needed to work, it would be that powder.

Our dealings with the seamstress were officially closed, and now the rest would be in our hands. If we could hit our marks, maybe we would leave victorious and unscathed.

Unless I continued the dangerous game I’d started within our own walls.

I’d lost my head, given into desire, and touched Malin. Kissed her. Tasted her. Gods, I would die to taste more of her.

When I was taken at the masquerade, I’d barely hit thirteen turns. Hardly a little boy, and by then I’d noticed my hayloft companion was a girl who did strange things to my body when I looked at her too long.

She’d caused a stir in my feckless boyish heart then, and now had dug into what blackened, shriveled thing I had left. It was not a kind heart, not giving, not warm. But it was hers. No mistake, it would cloud my mind, and put us all at risk. Better to return to the protective distance between us. I’d done well for the last day and night.

Some might call hiding in one’s room cowardly, I preferred the word wise.

I should’ve realized it would be a matter of time before my luck ran out.

A soft knock at my doorframe interrupted my solitude. My body flinched at her voice.

″Tova said you would have a sheath for the leg.” Malin stood in my doorway, holding up a pair of silver-tipped knives.

I clenched one fist at my side, afraid I might grab her and pin her to the wall again if I did not. With a dismissive hand, I pointed at a set of drawers near my narrow bed. “Should be something there.”

I turned away before I could meet her eye.

″I look forward to seeing Hagen again,” she said. “It will be good to have him home. For Gunnar too.”

Bitter laughter spilled out. “Klockglas is no place to call home.”

″What’s wrong?”

″Nothing is wrong.”

She snorted. “I know enough about you, Kase Eriksson, to know you build walls with anger, indifference, and shadows.”

She was angry with me. Good. It would be better if she were, then we could continue as if nothing had happened between us.

But Malin did not retreat. The woman took it upon herself to touch me, wrecking the fragile pieces of any shield I put between us.

Her slender fingers rested over mine, forcing me to lift my gaze. She smiled—bleeding smiled—when I was biting back.

″You are trying to goad me into leaving,” she said.

My teeth ground together. “You think you know so much about me because we were children together?”

″I wish I knew why you do this sometimes,” she admitted. “Why you try to push me away after you’ve drawn me in. Don’t you know by now, I am here for you as much as I am for Hagen?”

″This is who I am,” I said briskly. “Accept it or let me be.”

″No, you hide being Kase, and I don’t know why being him is so terrifying to you.”

I cursed under my breath. “You can’t understand.”

″I can’t?” Her voice was strained. Raw. “You think I don’t understand what losing everyone you love feels like?” With my ire turned against the window, Malin stepped to my side. “What keeps you behind your mask, Kase?”

The last shield broke.

I seized her face in my palms. “You want to know why I create illusions? Where to begin? Perhaps when Ivar used his Alvers to rift my skin, and I wished to hide my shame, the tears in my eyes.” I lifted my top, took her hand, and forced her palm over the ridges of the scars on my back.

Malin closed her eyes. I thought she might pull away in disgust, fear perhaps, but fear wasn’t there. Whatever she felt was something my mesmer could not sense.

″I became a monster to survive,” I told her. “You want me as some stupid boy from your past, and the worst part is, for you, I wish I could be. I told you I hate everything about my past except you, and it’s true. At nights, when I was finally left alone for a few moments of peace, I thought of you. Thought of how it always was together. Thoughts of you kept me alive many times, Mallie.”

A sob came from her throat. She dug her fingers into my back, pulling me closer. “You are still him.”

″No, he’s dead.” I slid one hand to her waist. “Do you want to hear what I did to Ash and Hanna’s father when we escaped, Malin? How I stuffed his throat with his own blade.”

″Kase . . .”

″Or when we broke free, would you want to know how I hunted the skydguard who guarded our cages? I tortured them with fear until they pissed themselves and begged for death. I wear the Nightrender’s darkness because I am not Kase Eriksson, no matter how much you wish me to be.”

My voice trembled in rage, but my hands traveled over her face and body gently. When a tear fell to her cheek, I wiped it away with my thumb.

″I wish what happened to you hadn’t,” she said, her hand traveled to the wing of my shoulder. The touch caused a shudder to run through me. Malin rested one palm to my cheek, waiting for me to look at her. “But I am not sorry to know the man you are now.”

″How can you say that?”

″It’s the truth.”

I closed my eyes when she slipped her other hand beneath my tunic. First to my chest, then around again to my back; her fingers caressed my scars.

I was weak.

I could not resist the spell she had cast over me long ago.

Desire clenched in my chest. Being so near, it was a small thing for me to pull her mouth to mine.

I kissed her. Fiercely.

My hand held the back of her neck; her fingers tangled in my hair. We fumbled against the wall. Even more than the last kiss, this was feral. Unguarded. I did not waste time and pulled at the bottom of her top, slipping it over her head.

Hells, she was a sight. One I’d wanted and denied myself for too long.

I wanted to devour her.

Malin was as greedy, and in the next breath my chest was bare, her mouth on my skin.

She paused only long enough to remove the raven charm from my neck. She kissed the rose against my heart, smiling as she slid her twine necklace on. “I want it back.”

″It’s yours.”

″Don’t think Asger escaped my notice on your bed.” She flicked her eyes to that ugly stuffed horse I’d secretly loved so much as a boy.

I laughed and buried my face in the soft, sweet warmth of her neck. Our playfulness faded again into heated kisses and wandering hands. I cupped her breasts, her hips, the pressure of my touch drew out soft gasps from her throat.

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

Frenzied desire caused my hands to shake. I could not unfasten the damn pants. Pulling back, I lowered to my knees in front of her.

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.”

My kisses heated. Malin’s voice cut off, replaced by heavy breaths. She tangled her fingers in my hair as I granted myself permission to claim every inch of her with my kisses, my hands, my tongue.

Malin shuddered when my fingers and lips brushed along the heat of her center. She dug her fingernails into my scalp with one hand and braced against the wall with the other as I draped her leg over my shoulder.

“Gods, Kase.”

My name said in such a way unlocked a rush of need within me. I left her trembling and rose to my feet. In one swift motion, I scooped beneath her thighs, carrying her to my bed.

Each kiss blended with the next. Malin arched her back, scraped at my shoulders, like she was trying to crawl into my skin.

The room spun in a haze. I trapped her wrists in my grip and held her hands over her head, caging her beneath me. It wasn’t long before Malin broke one hand free to unbuckle my belt.

With more finesse than me, she pulled away the last barrier between us.

I forgot to breathe.

Skin to skin knocked my mind into a blazing flame for a few heartbeats. I kissed her, sweet and raw, aching to keep her hands on my body.

Malin hooked a leg around my waist, pulling me closer as I rocked between her legs. A gasp tore from her throat when we slid together.

I went still. “Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head, feverish and breathless, and yanked my mouth back to hers.

Time didn’t matter as we gave ourselves to each other.

Pleasure blurred out conscious thought. All I could focus on was her body, the soft way she whispered my name, the burn of her touch on my skin.

Malin was patient; I was frantic.

She met my quickened pace, adding friction and longing, and let her head fall back as she cried out. With a shudder she fell apart in my hands.

“You’re mine, Mallie,” I said through a deep growl. My eyes held hers in the dark. “You’ve always been mine.”

With another frenzied thrust, I burrowed my face in the sweet glisten of sweat on her neck, and lost myself in her.

Words choked in my throat. My body collapsed over hers. Only the sound of our ragged breaths filled the darkness.

I pressed a needy kiss to her lips, one hand on her face. For too many heartbeats, I simply studied her, memorized her. 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.

In the moonlight, with the patter of rain on the battered wooden roof, we laid on the quilts, her head cradled to my chest. She traced a scar running from my middle around to my ribs.

″I could take some, you know,” she whispered.

I tilted my head. “Take what?”

″A memory. Many. If they hurt you, I could take them.”

″As your burden?”

″If it eases yours.”

I pressed a kiss to her head. “I don’t want to forget. Those memories remind me why I fight.”

″But they chain you to this place.”

I cupped her face. “After this is over, I would leave with you.”

She closed her eyes and overtook my hand. “How can we walk away when we know what happens here?”

What I would do to get her free of this place. There were no lengths I would not go. No man I would not kill. I would burn the world to the ground to keep her breathing and in my arms.

But she was too good, too bold to fade into the shadows when so many suffered in the east.

″I wish you would say something different but knew you wouldn’t.” I lifted my hand to my hair. “My fear, what pulls the darkest mesmer from me now, is believing you will die trying to stop what cannot be stopped. The Lord Magnate will not give up his seat without a great deal of death.”

She drew small circles over my chest. “We share a similar fear, then. But for me it is sending you back to the place you were lost before. I won’t survive should it happen a second time.”

″I would hope I had more brains than I did ten turns ago.” I kissed the tops of her knuckles as my smile faded. “I am not the boy from the past, Malin. Do you want him, or—”

She silenced me with her fingers to my lips and propped onto her elbow. “I don’t want him. I want you. The scars, the anger, the pain, all of it. But you can’t ask me to stop trying to break the chains locking you behind the mask you wear.”

I scoffed. “Then you will be fighting another impossible war. There is a hate inside me that holds me here, like a cruel master.”

″Maybe so, but it’s my choice to fight for you.” A grin spread over her lips. “And you can’t stop me, Nightrender.”

My laugh was low and deep. “Being demanding will get your tongue cut out of your head, dännisk Strom.”

She rolled her eyes, then touched my jaw. “Be a brute as you please, be wicked if you like, but be Kase in these moments with me.”

Then, she kissed me.

I pulled her into a straddle over my hips. Dawn was fast approaching, so I kissed her deeper, memorizing every sensation of her body beneath my hands. When the sun came, this night would be the sweetest memory.

I planned to keep it always.

For there was no way to know what became of us at sunrise.