knelt before them and lifted a hand. Lazy wisps of black drifted off and brushed over both men.
Elijah began shaking in earnest, whereas Doran went still. His dark brown eyes narrowed in hatred.
“Now,” Quinn murmured. “Tell me why you promised yourselves to Norcasta and then became an ally to our enemy.”
Doran resisted, but Elijah didn’t take much to sing like a little bird. She knew he wouldn’t. He was the king of Bangratas. A softer king for a softer country. The mountains protected on one side, the ocean on the other. A desert separated them from most of Triene, and they and Jibreal had a very long, happy alliance.
“We were never friends,” he growled. Her Bangrati was rough but passable enough to understand him.
“No?” she asked, sending more into him.
“Triene promised—”
“Don’t speak. You know what the price will be,” Doran warned.
Quinn tilted her head. “Oh?” she asked. He pressed his lips together, and she smiled.
It was a horrible, yet lovely thing.
Quinn reached for his throat, her bare skin touching his. “And what is that, Doran?”
His eyes narrowed into slits and the mere excess of her power bleeding into the air made Elijah piss himself. “Life,” Doran ground out.
“Life?” That didn’t make a great deal of sense. Death? Yes. But life . . .
“I didn’t betray you for that reason,” Doran said suddenly. Quinn knew he was trying to lead her away from this line of questioning. Of thinking. It wouldn’t work. She’d get all the answers in the end, but she was curious what he had to say. “I betrayed you because your pathetic king stole my wife.”
Quinn wasn’t sure what he would say, but that hadn’t been it.
Her face went blank. Doran grinned manically, taking her still features to mean he’d struck a nerve. Not understanding that it was when Quinn was quietest and most closed off that one should worry.
“Yes,” he said. “My pretty little wife for his own. He’d visited us some ten years ago and then left with my wife and son.” He sneered at her, and Quinn still didn’t react. “When I saw you in the colosseum, I knew who you were. What you were. I picked you, preyed on you, learned all I could so that I knew the best way for Amelia to get under your skin.” He grinned vilely. “I told Erwing of your raksasa sister for him to take an interest. I sent them to sow discord.”
Anger, true anger, touched her then. He’d revealed a great deal to her already, and it wasn’t even midnight.
“Lorraine was your wife,” Quinn said.
“Is,” he spat. “Marriage is eternal. She belonged to me then, and she belongs to me now.”
Quinn’s face hardened. “People don’t belong to other people. We are not dogs.”
He laughed then, the fear and his own madness bringing out the worst. She saw the monster beneath the skin. “That bitch might as well be. She tried to poison me, you know. I knew about it, though, and it didn’t work, but when I sent my soldiers for her, she was already gone. She took my son with her. My heir.”
“Lorraine might not always be a kind woman, but she is just. If she ran, there was a reason,” Quinn murmured. “Let’s find out the truth.”
The black wisps changed shape, taking the form of spiders. They crawled over his clothes and across his skin, biting wherever they went. Quinn tasted his fear, and it was as potent as his evil. She reached forward and grabbed his jaw, prying his mouth open.
Doran started to beg. His eyes turning panicked and pleading.
Yes, he’d heard stories. Those tales were always a far cry from the reality. There was no way for them to convey the sheer inhumane methods Quinn used when she wanted the truth.
The spiders swarmed, entering his lips. Crawling down his throat. Pure fear filled him, and Quinn saw.
“You beat her,” she snapped. “You raped him.”
A child. His child. Disgust filled Quinn. Fury so cold it burned.
She saw Lorraine, young and beautiful and bruised. Oh, he’d picked her from hundreds of girls because she’d been nice to him when he was young. The youngest prince. The one so unlikely to get the throne that no ladies ever noticed him. He killed his brothers off one by one to take the throne, and her with it. Lorraine was a lord’s daughter. She married him. She acted the beautiful wife, even when he was angry. Even when his slaps and backhands turned to fists. Bruises turned