Kings and Assassins by Lane Robins Read Free Book Online

Laudable bottle, shaking it firmly. He grabbed her chin, ignoring the teeth that tried to bite a finger too close to her mouth, and ruthlessly tipped multiple thick mouthfuls of Laudable into her. She gasped and swallowed; for a moment, he thought she would choke, but then her breath steadied.
    “You didn't simply kill Aris,” she said, her voice a rasp. “You destroyed a kingdom. Who will keep the Itarusines at bay?”
    He hushed her with another mouthful of the bitter liquid, and though she spat some back at him, most of it disappeared into the pink recesses of her mouth.
    “I didn't kill Aris,” Janus said.
    She turned her face from his, but her sobs didn't recur. “Better,” he said. “I never guessed I had such a watering pot for a wife.” Her skirts crackled against the carpets, left rusty smudges on his breeches, on his hands.
    Aris's blood on my hands
, he thought,
and all unearned
. There was something repulsive about it, about the smell of it, heavy in the room, warmed by their struggle.
    She pushed him away as he reached for the buttons of her dress, ripping them free rather than unhooking them one by one; the damage the dress had gone through made it unlikely to be salvaged, even by the ragmen. “No,” she muttered.
    “Would you prefer Dahlia back, dripping tears all over you and clumsier than usual in her distress?” Yanking her to her swaying feet, he worked at the fabric until it gave.
    “No,” she said again. It surprised him, but perhaps the Laudable had taken effect, made her pliable. He didn't much care.
    “There's the first sensible thing I've heard you say all evening,” he said. Her dress hung open from neck to hem, but still clung to her undershift, the bloody stain soaked through and fading brownagainst the pale linen. He pulled the gown free, wadded it into a foul knot, and hurled it into the maid's chamber for disposal.
    “Off,” she said, squirming in distaste. Her hands skated over her undershift, recoiling from the blood-soaked linen. “Take it off.”
    “Do it yourself,” he said. He pushed her back onto the bed, tossed her dressing gown after her.
    “You killed the king, and you balk at stripping your wife,” Psyke said, the Laudable loosening her tongue. “How—”
    He yanked the laces down, and the draft on her pale skin shocked her quiet. “You sound like Mirabile, inciting men to mayhem.”
    Blood had seeped through the shift, touching her skin, small dark discolorations barely recognizable as such, but they corresponded to the sodden clothes above.
    As Maledicte's name on her lips had wounded him, so Mirabile's on his wounded her, leaving her flushed, silent, and miserable. Janus paused, his hands hovering over the curves of her shoulders. He had seen the one bruise earlier, thought it blood smeared through her clothes. But it wasn't blood, not this high on her pale skin.
    Her shoulders bore dark and ragged marks, bruised nearly to the bone, and the bare touch of his fingers made her flinch and sigh.
    They weren't his marks; his bruises were still incipient, places pink and puffed. These were older. “Hmm. Whoever would have thought Aris to be so rough?”
    Her gaze, avoiding his, fell on her own skin and the black bruising rising on her flesh, the distinct marks of large hands on either shoulder, swelling.
    “You think Aris's grip was so strong? He couldn't even hold on to life … and this is everything of death.” She laughed, high and wild, until he pushed her back into the mattress, and sealed her mouth again. She nipped his hand. He released her mouth, and she said “Murderer” on an outborne whisper. “Murderer.” Her lips and breath were warm against his palm.
    Her eyelashes fluttered as the Laudable took hold; her body fell into a languor he knew well, having seen his harlot mother succumb to it nightly. He raised himself away from her, and she hooked ahand on his shoulder and followed. “Will you kill me?” she asked. “I've accused you of