Chapter 37 · Checkmate at the Peak

"Get your hands off me before I snap your fingers off."

Kael didn't even blink. He yanked me harder, chest to chest. Heat poured off him right through that guard coat.

"That gold?" he said, his mouth too close to my temple. "That's not a fluke. You didn't just break Vane. You rewrote him."

"Yeah? And you liked watching?" I shoved at his forearm. Stone bit into my back. Cold straight through my shirt. "Let go. Or are you auditioning to be Augustus's leash?"

He pinned me. One hand on my upper arm, the other flat against the stone by my head. Caging me in.

"You reek of ozone," he murmured. "Vane's still hemorrhaging in his head and you're glowing like a live wire. What'd you do to him?"

"What I had to do so my brain didn't leak out my ears," I spat. "Now you gonna play bodyguard or keep feeling me up in the interrogation pit?"

His eyes dropped to my mouth. Then back up. That pause was too long.

"The Regent's waiting," he said, voice dropping. "Augustus doesn't like to wait. Especially not for princesses who grow new tricks overnight.