The Rebel Prince (The Season Series #3)

Chapter 46

Dulciana's eyes never left Beatriz. She stalked towards her like a cat hunting a mouse. Behind her, King Louis and Genevieve's father exchanged a look.

"You will leave my kingdom untouched in exchange for your sister?" the Vareinnian king asked.

"Yes," Dulciana replied.

My heart lodged itself in my throat. Beatriz shouted something through her gag and Armando crossed the room to slap her. She reeled back, almost toppling over from where she knelt.

"Oy!" I shouted, my hands curling into fists.

"Shall we shake on this agreement, Dulciana?" King Louis rose and straightened his jacket.

"Please, Your Majesty, you cannot!" Genevieve cried, as the king extended his hand to Dulciana.

"Control your daughter," the king barked over his shoulder at the duke.

"I must protest this—" I began, lurching towards the king's hand. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do, whether I would bat it away or simply put myself between them. But before I could so much as get within an arm's reach of Dulciana, Armando's sword was drawn and pointed at my throat.

King Louis huffed a startled exclamation and backed away from the blade, while steel rang behind us, from his guards in the hallway.

"Enough, Armando," Dulciana said quietly in Ardal. Her face was still lit with that frenzied glow when she turned to King Louis and extended her hand. "You have my word."

"No!" Genevieve and I shouted in unison as their hands met. The point of Armando's sword pricked the skin of my throat.

"I have no interest in such distasteful violence," the king huffed, then swept from the room. Genevieve's father followed him out, seizing his daughter's arm with a muffled curse and dragging her ou despite her protests.

"Get him out of here," Dulciana said to Armando. "And bind the children."

"I'm not leaving," I said firmly, staring down the length of the blade at Armando.

Dulciana's wild eyes turned to me and narrowed. "Do not tempt me, principito. Run now while you still can, like the pathetic coward you are."

"I will not."

"Fine," she said evenly, then turned to the guards still holding the Carvalho children. "One of you, restrain him."

With the sword still pointed at my throat, I had no choice but to allow my arms to be wrestled behind me. As he drew his sword back, Armando offered me a sly smile that I longed to punch off his face.

"Take out her gag," Dulciana instructed Armando. "I want to hear what she has to say for herself."

"Gladly, my queen." His feral smile ignited every ounce of hatred in my entire soul. He jerked Beatriz' head back and brushed her scars with his fingers before he ripped the wad of cloth from her mouth. To her credit, she tried to bite him before he snatched his hand away. Somehow, though, Beatriz did not snarl insults at her sister, and instead remained silent, despite the strain etched into every line of her body.

As Dulciana approached her, Armando shoved Beatriz' head towards the floor. "Bow before your queen, traitor," he snarled.

I struggled against my captor when Dulciana's slipper peeked out from her dark skirts to lift Beatriz' chin. But the moment her head lifted, Beatriz jerked upright and spat. The glob landed square in the middle of Dulciana's brocade bodice.