Savage Whispers 2 — Ani [ENG]

The silk sheet clings to my skin, heavy with the heat of the past hour and the scent of power.

Magnus breathes steadily. Magnus Rathmore — King Tiger, heir apparent, acting Regent for a dying King. He lacks the title, but the world already belongs to him. His arm lies heavy across my waist, possessive, a steel clamp that refuses to yield even in sleep.

I lie perfectly still on my side, staring at the massive, rain-heavy windows of the royal bedchamber. In the glass’s reflection, my own eyes glow ice-blue and vacant. The only heritage of the Snow Leopard in a shell otherwise bred for the Royals.

For Tigers like him.

He stirs, nuzzling his face into the crook of my neck. Goosebumps track across my skin as his nose brushes my pulse. No arousal, but no revulsion either. I reach for the magic in my chest instantly. I feel the flare of his possessiveness — sharp, demanding — and gently wrap my empathic threads around it. I dampen his latent paranoia, that constant, nervous hum that never truly leaves him. Instead, I flood him with the sensation of deep, burning devotion.

I stroke his emotions until I feel him unwind. It is a theft of his free will, a necessary poison I administer drop by drop. He believes this intoxicating love is the answer to my heartbeat.

He’s wrong. It’s an illusion I weave for him. One that, on some days, I want to believe myself, just to drown out the silence in my own chest.

I cannot give him my heart. I no longer possess one alive enough for the task. But Magnus has my loyalty. To the death, if it comes to it. Before he took the throne, I was nothing but a rare glitch in the system — a hybrid born in a nest of Tigers. A flaw they repurposed into their most valuable weapon. To the Royals, my existence was a rare opportunity passed from hand to hand in hopes of siring the perfect heir. They saw a pedigree.

Magnus saw me.

He gave me dignity where there was only calculation. He treats me like an individual, like a Shadow Queen. And I ensure he never regrets the choice. Sometimes, loyalty is just another word for a debt you can never fully repay.

“You’re awake,” Magnus murmurs, his voice dark and gravelly from sleep.

“I am guarding your rest, my King,” I whisper truthfully.

I turn in his arms, softly brushing a stray lock of fair hair from his forehead. He catches my hand, pressing a kiss into my palm. In his glowing light-green eyes lies a hunger that hollows me out a little more every time, because it’s so damn real. It would be easier if he hated me. Hate is honest. His love, however, is a vine I cultivate in a desert of lies, and I’m the one who has to watch it slowly suffocate me, draining me dry.

“I need you awake,” he says quietly, pulling me closer. “The appointment is final. Cooper Harcourt has the East, but he’s surrendered his claim to the throne. The board has been reset.”

“A brilliant masterstroke,” I say, and the admiration in my voice isn’t faked. “But you sound as if there are still loose threads.”

A cold shadow flickers across his face. The Regent takes control again. ”Harcourt and his little rebels think they have me cornered. But I’ve secured the sisters. The middle one...” He clicks his tongue softly, as if speaking of a nuisance insect. ”Nyx. The White Jaguar. I’m sending her West. Alpha Corso needs a bride, and I need the Snow Leopard mines. An alliance to remind Harcourt who forges the pacts.”

“The frozen West,” I murmur. “The Mountain Lord will devour her. She’s practically a child.”

And she has the emotional resilience of wet parchment. Magnus is sending a lily into permafrost.

“That is the plan,” Magnus replies, unmoved. His fingertips trace down my spine, a trail of ice on heated skin. “But I need someone to ensure the Alpha doesn’t forget his duties to me. And someone to keep an eye on the girl, should she get any foolish ideas.”

His gaze bores into mine. He’s searching for hesitation, for the slightest crack in my facade. I meet him with nothing but soft, loyal openness, burying the tiny needle of fear deep within.

“You want me to go with her,” I state.

“Only for a few weeks.” Magnus strokes my cheek — a gesture that simulates tenderness yet only marks ownership. “No one knows the nature of the Snow Leopards better than you, Ani. You will see through his negotiations. You’ll serve his true intentions to me on a silver platter.”

He trusts me. A little. That is the highest measure of trust this man is capable of.

“I will be your eyes and ears,” I promise, leaning forward to brush his lips.

Magnus’s hand closes around my nape. He returns the kiss, short and hard. “You will. But because you are my most precious companion and I cannot risk anything happening to you in the enemy ice... Vesper will accompany you.”

My blood turns to slush, but I don’t let a muscle twitch. Vesper. A Lynx-shifter. One of Magnus’s most loyal bloodhounds, capable of hearing the loudest fringes of a thought. He isn’t sending her for my protection. He’s sending her to watch me.

A cold spike of loneliness stabs my chest.

For a year, I’ve given him everything I am. I protect his mind from his own darkness. And yet, it isn’t enough. The Regent’s paranoia brooks no blind spots, not even in his own bed.

“Vesper is an excellent choice,” I answer seamlessly, shoving the pain beneath the ice of my soul.

He doesn’t nod. He doesn’t ask for confirmation. He takes it.

“When do we leave?”

“In two hours,” he replies, sliding an arm under his head. “I’ve already had your things packed.”

His blonde, slightly curled hair rustles against the silk as he turns his head. I wait until his breath becomes heavy and rhythmic. Only when I am certain the future King is deep in his false, woven peace do I carefully slide out of his grasp.

The cool air of the bedchamber hits me as I slip naked from the sheets. I reach for the heavy silk robe draped over a chair and wrap myself in it.

Silent as the snow of my heritage, I cross the room and open the heavy double doors to the antechamber. Once they click shut behind me, I lean my back against the smooth ebony. It’s so cold and unyielding it might as well be steel. I close my eyes, allowing my shoulders to sag for a fraction of a second. My fingers tremble, my legs feel like lead. Maintaining the magic — damping his demons and simulating a love I do not feel — costs a strength that peels me from the inside out.

Get it together, Ani.

I wipe the exhaustion from my face, shoving the shards of my soul back into the darkest corner of my mind, locking them so tight I can barely find myself within them.

I pull away from the door and cross the foyer, and step out into the hallway. Leaning against a marble column in the gloom is a figure. Vesper. The Lynx-shifter peels herself from the shadows as if she were part of them. Lean, wiry, with sharp amber eyes and hair the color of dry desert sand. She smiles, but it’s the smile of a predator that’s caught a scent.

“The King is asleep?” Vesper asks. Her voice is a low purr that bounces off the stone walls.

“Naturally,” I reply coolly. I pull the silk robe tighter, instantly erecting a mental wall. No loud thoughts. No stirred emotions. Vesper’s ears catch everything scratching at the surface of a soul. I can’t give her anything to work with.

“He told you about our little trip,” she purrs, stepping closer. Her gaze slides calculatingly down my body, lingering where Magnus’s heat still clings to me. “The West. Alpha Corso. And a little White Jaguar in the luggage. I look forward to our collaboration, Ani.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” I return monotonically. A lie so polished it almost slides off me.

Vesper tilts her head, as if listening to a distant melody. She’s searching for the echoes of my thoughts. For the pain of Magnus’s mistrust. For hidden rage.

She finds nothing.

My Snow Leopard blood freezes my aura until I am as emotionally smooth and dead as a frozen lake. ”Magnus has high expectations for this alliance. We will ensure the girl does her duty.”

“Oh, we will.” Vesper fixes me, her nostrils flaring slightly. She hates it when she can’t find a lever, an emotional imbalance to sink her claws into. Being as emotionally vacant as a burnt-out candle is my only victory in this room.

“In two hours,” Vesper says, detaching from the column. She gestures condescendingly toward the golden cage we call the Guest Wing. “The girl is already waiting. Nyx de Layes hasn’t slept a wink all night. You can hear her heart through the hallway. A fast, fluttering beat. Like a bird that knows the cat is sitting outside the nest.”

She steps back into the shadows, her amber eyes flashing one last time. “A White Jaguar, Ani. They say she’s beautiful. But beautiful things break so easily when the pressure gets too high. Don’t you think?”

“Some things don’t break,” I reply unmoved, already walking past her. “They shatter. And splinters can be damn sharp. See you later, Vesper.”

I don’t wait for the mocking purr that’s guaranteed to follow. I turn and walk down the long, cold-white lit corridor. My heartbeat is steady, my mind clear and frigid, even if my legs still feel like I’m dragging them through deep mud.

Nyx de Layes.

The Crown’s next sacrificial lamb. Magnus is leaving it to me to lead her to the slaughter — or at least far enough West until the cold finishes the job. I’ll have to look her in the eye and explain that her life is no longer her own. That she is nothing more than a signature on a contract sealed in blood.

I will play the loyal servant. The Shadow Queen who knows no mercy. But as my hand reaches for the heavy handle of the Guest Wing door, I wonder if Magnus is making the mistake of his life.

Because he is sending us West. And the West doesn’t swallow sacrifices.

It forges monsters.