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The False Vow: Book 2 - Hardcover

Buch 2 von 2: The Weaver Bride

Gregovic, Lydia

 
9798217120680: The False Vow: Book 2
Hardcover
ISBN 13: 9798217120680
Verlag: Random House LLC US, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

Love will be tested in this high-stakes, spellbinding sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller The Weaver Bride, hailed as “your next romantic fantasy obsession” (I. V. Marie, #1 bestselling author of Immortal Consequences).

The gorgeous first edition of The False Vow will feature stunning, stenciled edges and printed endpapers!

Lovett Tamerlane is engaged.

A silkwitch whose magic can only be harnessed through marriage to a Weaver, Lovett was facing life in the cloisters when Eliot Lear offered the deal of a lifetime: an invitation to the Vainglory to compete for wealthy Weaver heir Noé Alaire’s hand in marriage, in exchange for her solving his sister’s murder.

While they both got what they wanted, the competition was full of surprises. Lovett never expected to fall in love . . . and Eliot never anticipated that she’d betray him.

Now Lovett has one goal: to take down her fiancé's father—Bastian Alaire—and end his corrupt Weaver reign at any cost. But though the Vainglory may be over, danger still lurks at Fortblanche. And when Bastian presents Lovett with one last challenge—solve a murder that occurred within his walls, before the day of her wedding—she realizes the tests aren’t over. To pass this one, she’ll have to partner with the only person she hates more than her future father-in-law: his son, Noé.

But as Lovett will learn . . . sometimes love and hate are two sides of the same coin.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Lydia Gregovic

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One

I set my booklet in my lap and leaned forward in my seat. There was no doubt about it: The cat-­faced man had returned.

Around me, the lights of the opera house were dimming, the crowd settling like a group of eager children told to hush. There was a collective shift of attention as, onstage, the curtains parted, drawing back to expose a hidden world within—­yet rather than explore it, I kept my gaze fixed straight ahead, on the stranger seated in the box opposite me.

I’d first noticed him in the lobby, about a half hour prior. Like most of the theater’s attendees, myself included, he’d been wearing a mask when I’d spotted him—­a dark satin shell, molded to resemble a cat’s head. Protruding from the top of the accessory, a pair of ears extended above his hairline like stiff fabric tongues. They’d turned this way and that as I observed him, his movements careful, as though he were not simply seeking a path through the entering crowd but deliberately searching out a target out—­and then, while I watched, they’d shifted toward me.

He had not approached me—­had not given any indication, in fact, that he recognized me at all. It had not mattered.

I’d known him as soon as I’d sighted him. More importantly, I’d known why he’d come.

“Face forward, darling. You’ll miss the play.”

I startled at the sound of a voice from beside me. My fiancé was sprawled in his chair, his shoulders slouched forward and his legs spread wide so that he could have almost been sleeping, were it not for the intelligent glint of his eyes behind the narrow slits of the tufted fox mask he wore. His suit was a deep burgundy, chosen to complement his disguise; set against it, his skin—­always pale and cold-­looking—­appeared almost milky, his hair curling and dark above his mask as if he were some night creature, wrapped in another’s hide.

Easily, as though it were a dance which we’d practiced, he slid nearer, draping an arm around my shoulders. “I know my mask can be frightening, but really, there is no need to turn away.”

The scent of him washed over me then: sour and fragrant, an uncorked jug of wine. Without shifting my attention from the stranger in the opposite box—­I’d lost him during the journey from the lobby to my seat, and refused to do so a second time—­I shrugged him off. “I find your breath vastly more disturbing than any disguise. Drunk already, dear?”

He chuckled. Where his left hand gripped my shoulder, something cold bit into the exposed patch of skin below my dress sleeve: the silvered band of his engagement ring, a cousin to the more ostentatious one which graced my finger. As was customary in Balmoore, he’d adopted it shortly after the announcement of our betrothal, following the conclusion of the Vainglory—­the bridal competition his father, the so-­called Weaver King, Bastian Alaire, had devised—­almost three months ago now. Of the nine silkwitches who had been chosen to compete alongside me for the honor of my fiancé’s hand, only eight remained alive. I’d seen none since I’d clinched the prize all of us had sought, but still, I thought of them often. Felt them: the jerk of Clio Lavoie’s knife as it slid over my throat in the tunnels of Fortblanche; the itch of Marie-­Louise’s eyes on my back, watching me through her mirrors when I thought myself alone.

All of them, hurtling pointlessly onward, like puppets on strings, in a race whose victor had already been decided. Vying for a prize—­a husband—­I hadn’t intended to win, but did.

“Jealous, darling?” Noé Alaire answered. His tone was light; it took me a moment to recall the subject of which we were speaking. Reluctantly, I glanced over at him, leaving my quarry behind. “You are more than welcome to join me if you like.”

In emphasis, he lifted his glass of wine, which he’d procured at the opera-­house bar earlier and had since hoarded with the protective wariness of a man gripping his pistol. Sipping from it, he leaned closer. “What were you looking at just now?”

My skin froze. Like his father, Bastian, Noé cut a severe figure with his thin, smirking mouth and prominent aquiline nose—­but where the Weaver King carried himself with an assurance befitting of his nickname, his only son exuded a perpetual, almost biting sarcasm, as if his appearance had been crafted in deliberate mockery of the man whom he resembled.

That mirthfulness had all but vanished now. Noé’s eyes were intent, sober despite the alcoholic stench leaching from him. Without my consciously willing it to, I felt my stare drift in the direction of the cat-­faced man—­observing us, I was sure, through the darkness.

A moment passed in stillness. Then I remembered myself and snapped into our game.

“Was I looking at something?” I returned. “I wasn’t aware.”

Noé’s attention never ­wavered. “Indeed?” he asked. He sounded doubtful.

“Indeed,” I confirmed in a steady tone. “I’m so sorry to disappoint.” I gave him an innocent smile as I said it.

Noé scoffed. “My dear Tamerlane,” he replied around a generous draw from his wineglass. “Don’t fret. You could never disappoint me.”

His grin flicked out again, wine-­stained and wry, as he lowered his cup. Seated in the chair beside him, I flinched. Tamerlane. It had been a long while since I’d been called by that name. Not Cecilia Lovett, the country debutante, whisked out of obscurity to enter—­and win—­the Vainglory, but Tamerlane. As in Lovett Tamerlane.

Liar, witch, and thief.

I’d taken great pains to bury my past self since Eliot Lear had given me my new moniker—Cecilia—­months ago at the start of the Alaires’ competition. Technically, my participating in the Vainglory under a false name wasn’t illegal, except for the fact that my real one was connected to dozens of petty crimes. If anyone pieced together that Noé Alaire’s dainty orphan fiancée with the Wit which allowed her to open any door was the same street witch responsible for a number of unsolved break-­ins in our capital . . .

Well, it wouldn’t matter whether the city guard or my fellow Vainglory competitors—­the society silkwitches—­reached me first. I’d still be carted to the same place all witches went, if they failed to marry prior to reaching twenty-­one.

The cloisters.

My jaw clenched. Outside of Eliot and me, my fiancé and his father were the only people who knew my true identity. The bargain I’d struck with Noé at the end of his Vainglory meant his breaking my cover would be as unbeneficial to him as it would to me, but he could let the truth slip if he wished. Employing my surname was a reminder of that reality.

I cleared my throat. “I’ve warned you not to call me that.”

“Ah, warned.” Noé chuckled. “I should be wary, then.”

Before I could prepare for it, he leaned closer. I tensed as his shoulder knocked against mine, his flesh chilly even through the protective layer of my dress, like the sharp bite of winter iron.

“Have some wine, Tamerlane,” he muttered. His voice had shed all of its sly cynicism; I had the sudden feeling that the barbs he’d hurled at me earlier had been nothing but a...

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Verlag
Random House LLC US
Erscheinungsdatum
2026
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 13 
9798217120680
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
528
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@libri.de
gpsr@libri.de

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