Capture the Crown (Gargoyle Queen #1) -Jennifer Estep Page 0,99

the courtyard far, far below. Nothing would save me from a fall that high.

I reached the bottom of the roof, where a stone gutter cordoned it off from the open air. I glanced around, trying to figure out how to get off this roof and onto the one below, and I spotted a drainpipe at the corner that ran down vertically to the next level of the palace. The drainpipe was also slick with frost, but I gripped the stone with my toes and used my magic to anchor my hands around it. Then I lowered myself down the drainpipe an inch at a time.

It was difficult, but I managed to climb down one story. A balcony jutted out from this level, and I stepped over onto the railing. Perhaps I could slip back inside this way—

A door opened, and Corvina Dumond strolled out onto the balcony.

I froze, with one arm still hooked around the drainpipe and my feet on the narrow railing. Then my mind kicked into gear, and I plastered myself up against the palace wall, hiding as best I could in the shadows. My heart pounded, and sweat dripped down the back of my neck as I waited for the inevitable shouts of surprise and discovery.

But they never came.

Instead, an arm snaked around Corvina’s waist, and a man stepped forward and kissed the side of her neck, making her giggle just like her mother had. I grimaced at the eerily familiar sound. Corvina moved into a patch of light, revealing the man behind her.

Captain Wexel.

I almost fell off the balcony railing. First Milo and Emperia. Now Corvina and Wexel. Was no one here fucking whom they were supposed to be fucking? Myrkvior was an even more duplicitous place than I’d realized.

Corvina whirled around to face Wexel. She looped her arms around his neck and gave him a pretty pout. “I thought you had to work. That’s what you said earlier when I asked you to meet me here.”

Wexel pulled her closer. “I managed to get out of guarding Milo’s chambers. I’d much rather plunder yours.”

Corvina giggled again and batted her lashes at the captain. “Did you stay long enough to see my mother sneak into Milo’s workshop?”

Once again, I almost fell off the railing. Corvina knew about her mother’s affair with her fiancé?

“You were right,” Wexel said. “Emperia seems to have Milo wrapped around her little finger. He was quite eager to get her alone in his workshop.”

Corvina nodded, as if she had expected the information.

The captain frowned. “Doesn’t it bother you? Your mother and Milo? He is your fiancé.”

She shrugged. “Milo is just a means to an end. The only reason we got engaged is because Maeven wants to broker a lasting peace between the Morricones and the Dumonds. She thinks once Milo and I are married that my family will finally bow down and accept her rule. But that will never happen, not as long as one Dumond lives. She’s killed far too many of us over the years, including my grandmother.”

Corvina’s face hardened, anger sparked in her eyes, and a few small gray hailstones flew out of her fingertips. I’d thought no one could hate Maeven more than me, but I was starting to think I was wrong about that—and a great many other things.

“So I’ll go along with the engagement and smile and pretend that everything is fine. Let my mother fuck Milo all she wants in the meantime. It will save me the trouble of climbing into his bed.” Corvina’s red lips curled with disgust.

Wexel’s eyes narrowed. “What are you planning?”

“I’m not planning anything. Even better, I don’t have to actually do anything. That’s the beauty of this whole situation. Emperia thinks she’s being clever, manipulating Milo, and he thinks he’s doing the same to her. Let them plot and scheme to kill Maeven. If they succeed, then I will heartily applaud them.”

“And then?” he asked.

Corvina smiled, but it was a cold, cruel expression. “And then, when the time is right, I will get rid of Milo and my mother, and I will be the one sitting on the Mortan throne. With my loyal captain by my side, of course.”

She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. Wexel growled and yanked her even closer. Their loud, smacking kiss went on for quite some time before they broke apart.

Wexel brushed a stray lock of Corvina’s hair back over her shoulder. “What if Milo and Emperia fail? What if the queen