The horrific vision played out for Rae: her cold and pale corpse. Garr’s rage, directed entirely at Vaya thanks to Yahlalla’s lies. Then Yahlalla slipping closer to him.
Since Garr was no fool, he’d probably find out—but if Yahlalla sensed he was onto her, how long until she tried to dispose of Garr too? That filled Rae with the most profound terror.
The snake coiled to strike, starlight glinting off the dewy beads of venom gathered at the tips of its fangs.
A door banged open one or two floors below them and Garr’s indistinct voice called out, probably for Rae.
Realization flashed in Yahlalla’s eyes and she gently swung the snake forward, urging it to strike.
Summoning every drop of strength left in her drugged limbs, a surge of adrenaline gave Rae just enough oomph to heave herself from the chair. She collapsed to the floor, the serpent’s fangs cracking into the hard wood of her chair back.
Rae tried to crawl. “Garr!”
The prime shattered the floor hatch to the observatory, tossing the mangled wood to the side. Vaya surged up the stairs behind him.
Yahlalla sank her fingers into Rae’s hair and yanked her up to her knees. Through reflections in the dark windows wrapping around the room, Rae saw how Yahlalla crouched and used her as a human shield while holding that snake by its head. Its mouth open, she brandished its fangs like a weapon near Rae’s throat.
“Sylla,” Garr growled, the threat in his tone deadly serious and his body bunched with the readiness of an unsprung pounce. “Get your hands off my mate.”
“She’s not right for you, Prime Garr,” Yahlalla pleaded. “She’ll despoil your lineage! Vaya, explain it to him. You know this is folly. You’ve seen the human world. He must choose a Ythirian female.”
Vaya fanned out from Garr and positioned herself closer to Yahlalla’s opposite flank, nodding and holding two hands up in a placating gesture.
“Of course, it’s folly. But killing her won’t solve anything. Put the serpent down and let’s talk about it together.”
Sylla crept back a pace from her crouch, dragging Rae with her and angling her more toward Garr and Vaya both. Her attention flitted between the two. “Back slowly from the room,” the mad woman insisted.
“Or I’ll give her just enough venom to leave her brain ruined and her body still alive.”
The threat chilled Rae, and Garr seemed ready to rip someone in half.
Vaya kept her two hands in the air. “Easy, easy.”
Two hands. The other two were behind her back. Everyone in the room knew, of course, that Vaya had four. But in the heat of the moment, they had simply lost count.
The reflections in the dark windows proved that one of the hands behind Vaya’s back was wrapping around the hilt of a long knife.
I need to draw Yahlalla’s attention. Working her mouth to be sure it would function, Rae ignored the thundering of her heart in her chest, and said, “We can work it all out, Yahlalla.”
The name shocked Garr and Vaya at once, but it was Garr who reacted first: “You? I should have guessed. You disappeared to mourn my refusal to challenge for you—just when ‘Sylla’ came to our doorstep.”
He stalked forward, enraged. “If you killed that poor Tanu girl, I’ll see you delivered to them on a platter.”
“Uh uh, darling.” Yahlalla’s voice was singsong now, and she squeezed the adder’s head to widen its mouth, beaded fangs so close to Rae’s neck that she wormed, afraid they’d prick her by accident. “Is that any way to treat your future mate?”
“We will never be mated,” Garr barked.
“Perhaps! But come now, do you really think the human was going to become your mate?” Yahlalla tilted her head to the side, attention on him. “I suppose we’re both fools in that way, Garr. The truth is, your only hope of finding a mate is if I kill the harlot now.”
Vaya’s hand flew from behind her back. The knife streaked through the air.
Garr moved in the same breath, on exactly the same page as Vaya. Between the two—the knife and Garr—it wasn’t clear to Rae which was the faster.
She heard the meaty thump of the knife hit Yahlalla’s flesh, and for a terrifying moment expected the snake’s fangs would prick her exposed throat. But Garr was there, dragging Rae from Yahlalla’s grip.
The snake struck for Garr’s eyes. His free hand snatched it from the air, holding it wriggling in his fist.
Yahlalla stumbled away, but Vaya was there in a blink. It was more than a one-two punch combination—more like a three-four combination, followed by a knee. In less than a blink, she’d hit Yahlalla at least five times and dropped her to the floor like a sack of flour.