Damien
I stood with her in my arms, rising slowly, careful not to jostle her head. Her hair trailed limp across my arm, her lips parted slightly, and her lashes didn’t even flicker.
I leant down catching the faint whisps of her breath, it was wrong. Not blood. Not wine. Not fear.
Something else.
Bitter. Acrid. Lingering on her skin like smoke that didn’t belong. It clung to the folds of her gown, to the curve of her neck something chemical, masked beneath perfume.
Poison.
My grip tightened around her. My heart was already pounding, but now it raced with something sharper than fear.
“She’s been poisoned,” I said, my voice low but deadly clear. “Seal the hall.”
A guard near the doors hesitated.
“I said now!"
The command snapped through the air like a blade. The guards moved instan
