Magda was desperate.

Her desperation had been a distant spectre that was now close enough to recognize. She could feel its cold breath on her neck at night, waking her with its reaching hands. For so long, Magda had been able to pretend. Been able to have both Nevermere and Coheed at once without major consequences.

Those days were over. Her number had been called. Cassian had made his expectations clear, and if she couldn’t fulfill them…

The people of Coheed too were a danger. Rian and Kaalim were hers, but Coheed? Magda saw the way they looked at her. Could feel the disgust that radiated off them as she walked their streets. She was a foreign whore that had made herself a chieftess. That had stolen a son of Coheed—one of its most prized.

The wolves and coyotes both were at her door. It was only a matter of time. She either had to fight, flee, or find a way to feed them both.

It was late. Magda had undressed and donned her dressing gown. As she let her hair down, her brow furrowed as the fingers on her left hand refused to cooperate. Magda thought nothing of it, mind elsewhere, trying to form plans that just would not take shape. Had she really lost her touch? Gone soft and grown complacent in the comfort of Coheed? In Nevermere, she'd always been clawing and scraping, but here? Had she lost sight of herself? Become someone else entirely?

She had just stripped her ring from her finger when she heard the crash.

Immediately she put the ring back on and flew toward the source of the noise. Magda came to a stop in the kitchen, panting, eyes searching for an intruder before falling on Rian.

“What is it?”

Rian wasn’t sure if he was relieved or more on edge when he heard her voice. His shoulders sagged but his stomach tightened as he took a few more deep breaths. She sounded worried, or was he just imagining that. While his focus had been internal and towards Cambria… Nevermere went for the south. Away from his eyes.

“Are you with me, Magda?” He asked, though his face remained hanging over the sink. His eyes closed as he tried to quiet the anger within him. What would he do if he found out she wasn’t? That her intentions were still to remain loyal to Nevermere after all this time… after them? Had he fallen for the oldest trick in the book? Letting a woman turn his attention to her so he could be blindsided because he was too worried about her and that sweet spot between her thighs.

“Like truly… with me… and Coheed.”

Magda’s eyes narrowed, a serpentine hiss whispering through her teeth. Rian’s anger was like a match to an already glistening pool of kerosene. If the situation called for a calming influence, Magda was not the presence needed.

“You doubt me?” The hurt was buried so far beneath suspicion and offense that it was almost (almost) undetectable. She walked forward, and if she got close enough would put her hand Rian’s shoulder to turn him to face her.

His body shifted so he could look at her from over his shoulder as she approached. Watching her move closer as if he had never seen her before. But she asked a question instead of answering him. Her hand went to his shoulder and he reached out, grabbing her by the chin and holding her firmly without hurting. Turning her head slightly to one side and then the other. "What is happening in Nevermere?" He asked her, she couldn't be that far out of touch with them could she?

"Why are they moving into our lands, Magda?" His hold loosened completely because Rian had never been one to strike his wives because of his frustration. Stern, yes. But he wasn't his father. Not usually. "I want them out."

Magda was confident Rian would never hit her, but even still, she didn’t dare fight when he held her face. It was only when he released her that the fire returned. The venom that spewed from her in all its toxicity.

“I knew, I would tell you,” Magda hissed back, “The king is a conqueror, and so he conquers. He won’t stop until he’s taken everything.” That’s what Magda had been sent here for, after all. To be the spoon full of sugar to help the medicine go down. And instead, she’d been turned bitter herself.

The muscle feathered in his jaw as his hand left her face and he took hold of the small of her waist. Holding her steady as if she was going to bolt from him and he was no where near done with her. "I feel like I am in some cursed trap that is labeled 'Chieftain of Coheed'. One small win for us and then the king sends his bitch to burn down half of our land and command us back into our homes. We are still recovering from the fire and yet have we seen any aide in the mess they made?" None, they hadn't seen an inkling of it.

"But instead we find what? Nevermere using its time and resources in taking over sacred grounds, making themselves a new home. Apparently they are too good to be beside our people."

Magda inhaled sharply as Rian seized her. Lust and indignation twisted into a bitterness that curled her lip and lit her eyes with fire. If Rian only knew how easy it would have been. To poison his mind and make him nothing more than a husk puppet for Nevermere. She hadn’t, for reasons that she hadn’t let admitted to Rian and had only started to admit to herself.

“All curses can be broken,” Magda retorted, face moving closer to Rian’s in a challenge, “But unless they’re challenged they’ll make another and another until Nevermere’s smothered what’s left of Coheed. Coheed needs a protector, but—” Magda said with narrowed eyes, “That’s what I suppose you're for."

This. This was why he kept coming back and hating every moment but craving the next. The defiance she gave him without an ounce of thought, her chin steady as she looked up at him as if she’d make him get to his knees before her in the next breath if she willed him to. His eyes flared and he took a deep breath through his nose as if challenging her to do it. Keep pushing back… keep him on his toes.

The image was clear in his mind, Nevermere slowly melting over Coheed. It was a strange feeling, but he needed the two places separate. Nevermere was a strangely nostalgic place for him, a place that made no sense and yet when he was there… in the castle… something was so familiar. On those sunny days, he felt the warmth unlike the sun in Coheed. The salt air tasted different there. But Coheed was his home, it was where he grew up from a boy to a man, where he fought and strategized his way somehow all the way up to Chieftain. He never would have imagined it. Not ever. But now…

“You’re right.” His voice low, his hand bunching her sleeping gown at her side. “I am that protector. But I’m not the only one.” His blue eyes were burning down to her. “Tell me about Nevermere and its court. More than they let me know. Tell me their weaknesses.” He implored her, his other hand hitting the counter top opposite where he held her. Caging her in front of him. “The sea or the mountains? The king or someone else, anyone close to him? Who is weakest… who is against the Rainecourt name.”

Magda knew what it was to be a trapped creature. She’d been a kept pet in her father’s house since the time he’d noticed the curve of her hips. That wasn’t what Rian was doing. It was an animalistic dance, one challenge for another, one where dominance was the winner’s prize. And Magda intended to play along.

“Cassian rules by authority, not consensus. All decisions are made with limited counsel, and so the blame for misfortune would be his alone to bear. Nevermereans…” Magda suddenly gripped his arm that bunched her gown, as if to stop him, “Have not yet had to die to maintain the king’s empire. For them, it has been all prosperity with little to no loss. They don’t know sacrifice—not yet. As for traitors—beyond the obvious…” A nasty grin pulled across Magda’s face as she tilted her head, taunting him.

“The Morrigans have tried and failed to find their heir and reclaim their throne. They are the most fervent opposition the Rainecourts have, but what they have in passion they lack in skill. Trust me—I know that much intimately...” Magda didn’t know why she was trying to pick a fight. Rian was angry, and she wanted to see how far she could push him.

She was playing a dangerous game with him, her hand that snapped to his arm almost earned a noise from him. A small grunt as his fingers reached for more, just to hike the material up just another half inch. Daring her to make him stop as he stepped into her closer to her. Effectively pinning her to the counter if she didn’t move.

But what truly lit the fire in him was the way she said intimately and she’d get a front row seat to the way his jaw feathered and his grip on her gown yanked her closer. “Do they have the means… if given the right direction and skills… could these Morrigan’s be useful?” He asked through gritted teeth.

Magda did dare. She jerked his arm toward her, bringing him closer but seeking to make his arm still. She watched his jaw tighten with a sick, satisfied smile. Couldn’t he see this was the Chieftan that Coheed needed? One not plagued by uncertainty, but one willing to take what was rightfully his. Thiers.

“Perhaps…” Magda hummed, tilting her head to the other side, “Their favored son almost killed me, but I suppose one must learn to forgive and forget.” She snatched Rian’s other hand by the wrist and brought it to the back of her neck, so his fingers might drag along the cool metal.

“I’d start with their princess…” Magda said further, “She’s Nevermerean by nature but Cambrian by nurture, which should suit you just fine.” Another provocation. An attempt to stir the hornet's nest.

Danger was flashing in his head. This was dangerous and walking a very thin line. Both of them were clearly not backing down either. His arm went still, but the grip tightened and his eyes were shining with something dark and a deep temptation. It was shifting rapidly between want and desire to anger and rage.

The moment his fingers grazed over the metal where she placed his hand and her words fully sank in, his lips curled back over his lips. If he had been a wild animal a snarling growl would’ve left him as his eyes darkened. He pulled his hands back from her only to grab hold of her waist and push her up onto the counter. Stepping into her, he already knew who his first mark was now when he got back to Nevermere. And their name wasn’t Cassian.

Their princess. “Who is it?” He bit out, his hands pressing into her thighs as he stepped into her, his nose brushing hers but his voice dripping with venom. “Whose the male I am going to make regret touching you… and the female I am going to wreck Nevermere with?”

Magda slid up onto the counter with a slight, frustrated huff. She was looking for something, but just what that thing was wasn’t yet clear. Magda was still smiling at Rian—a taunting grin that made the blackness of her eyes glitter malevolently.

“Wreck Nevermere?” She asked, in a way that was almost mocking, “Tara Ellis can’t do that for you anymore than I can. If you want victory, Rian, you’re going to have to take it yourself.” Magda’s hand flew to his throat. Unless stopped, she’d grip hard, fingers digging into the sides of his neck.

“Conall Morrigan tried to kill me but he hesitated at the last moment. He hesitated—and I came back stronger. Nevermere will be the same…” Magda looked more wild than she’d ever been, the spark of insanity bursting into flame. “Will you hesitate, Rian Cyrilson? Or will you take what’s yours?”

Her voice was nothing but a venomous whisper.