Chapter 23 A Court of Smiles and Sharpened Knives
If I’d thought the hard part was walking into the throne hall on Malachi’s arm, I was wrong.
The hard part was staying.
The formal pronouncement ended, but the night did not. Courts didn’t simply disperse because the king had finished his speech. They lingered, circling, gossiping, adjusting. Power ...
Chapters
1. Chapter 1 The Night the King Walked In
2. Chapter 2 Teeth in the Dark
3. Chapter 3 Taken by the King
4. Chapter 4 The Carriage and the King
5. Chapter 5 The King Claims His Witness
6. Chapter 6 Tests and Temptations
7. Chapter 7 Lessons in Hunger
8. Chapter 8 The King’s Hunger, the Court’s Eyes
9. Chapter 9 Predators at the Table
10. Chapter 10 Choosing My Monster
11. Chapter 11 Handler with Teeth
12. Chapter 12 How Not to Die in Vampire Court
13. Chapter 13 The King in the Doorway
14. Chapter 14 Leashes and Lines
15. Chapter 15 Training with a Monster
16. Chapter 16 Teeth Behind Smiles
17. Chapter 17 Smuggled Under Moonlight
18. Chapter 18 Hunted by My Own King
19. Chapter 19 Chains Made of Choices
20. Chapter 20 Lessons in Loyalty and Lies
21. Chapter 21 The King’s Leash Tightens
22. Chapter 22 Dressed in Threats and Velvet
23. Chapter 23 A Court of Smiles and Sharpened Knives
24. Chapter 24 Rehearsal for Kidnapping
25. Chapter 25 Lines I Pretend Not to Cross
26. Chapter 26 The Wolf Who Steals Me
27. Chapter 27 The Bond Knows First
28. Chapter 28 What We Set on Fire
29. Chapter 29 The First Crack in the Glass
30. Chapter 30 How Kings Break
31. Chapter 31 Terms of an Unholy Alliance
32. Chapter 32 Into the Serpent’s Mouth
33. Chapter 33 The Place Where Wards Go to Die
34. Chapter 34 The Taste of Glass
35. Chapter 35 What the Wolf Smells
36. Chapter 36 The Whisper in the Walls
37. Chapter 37 Where the Castle Bleeds
38. Chapter 38 The King Hunts Quietly
39. Chapter 39 What I Owe the Dead
40. Chapter 40 Ashes That Remember
41. Chapter 41 Teaching the Wards My Name
42. Chapter 42 The Gallery of Echoes
43. Chapter 43 The King Names His Fire
44. Chapter 44 Invitations Written in Bloodglass
45. Chapter 45 How a King Comes Undone
46. Chapter 46 Teeth in the Dark
47. Chapter 47 Lessons in How to Ruin a Monster
48. Chapter 48 The Shape of the Trap
49. Chapter 49 The Day Before War
50. Chapter 50 Threshold of the Hive
51. Chapter 51 The Hive Breathes Back
52. Chapter 52 A Room Built in My Shape
53. Chapter 53 The Glassmaker’s Heart
54. Chapter 54 What I Refuse to Become
55. Chapter 55 The Bond He Wants to Break
56. Chapter 56 How Not to Shatter
57. Chapter 57 The Fall, and What Waits Beneath
58. Chapter 58 The Girl in the Glass
59. Chapter 59 The Hive Begins to Die
60. Chapter 60 What We Drag Out of the Ruins
61. Chapter 61 What a King Does With a Miracle
62. Chapter 62 The Night My King Knelt
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