by May Dawson
Faer was still laughing at the other end of the room, surrounded by chittering females.
“Nothing to forgive,” I said, then read on their faces that perhaps the old Alisa was not quite that quick to let a slight go. “Tell me more about this situation.”
My voice came out sounding imperious. I hadn’t quite meant that tone, but whatever.
Lanin scoffed. “I doubt Faer would tolerate that.”
Azrael looked at me with unexpected deference softening his features—a show for these two, and somehow it warmed my heart.
“As you wish, Princess,” Azrael said. “This might be the wrong time for a discussion, but we will have it. Soon.”
The look he flashed Lanin might have been a threat.
I wanted to talk to him about all this desperately.
Once they had gone, I touched Azrael’s arm. “Can you get me out of here? This is miserable…”
He gave me a sympathetic look. “Take a break. Dance with me.”
“I don’t know this dance either, Azrael.”
“Try following for once,” he said, taking my hand and pulling me out on the dance floor with him. “Perhaps your body knows the dance by heart.”
Just like my body seemed to know Azrael by heart, and tried to respond to him, no matter how unwise that was?
“What’s going on?” I asked him softly.
“The rift keeps getting worse, more and more monsters coming through. So Faer keeps sending officers from the academy. They’re not done with their training, they’re…young.” Azrael’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He couldn’t hide his worry.
“He sends autumn Fae,” I clarified.
He jerked his head in a nod, although his head was still high, a smile fixed on his face, as if he were focused on the dancing. “If I beg him not to, he might listen. The game wouldn’t be any fun if I lost all hope.”
Anger clutched my chest. I hated the thought of Faer manipulating Azrael. Hurting him. Azrael might not be my friend, but he clearly loved the autumn court.
Azrael took me around the ball room. He was all lean, muscular grace, moving with ease around the room. The music seemed to sing through my blood, the room beginning to spin around me, the dance carrying me along. Magic. It felt as if magic was in the air.
“See?” he murmured into my ear. “You do still know the steps.”
“I’d like to cut in.” A tall Fae loomed at my shoulder, glaring at Azrael as if Azrael’d personally offended the male somehow.
Suddenly, the spinning room came to a halt; the magic died, even though the music played on.
I’d just begun to relax, and now I stiffened again. “No, thank you.”
The man turned the glare on me. He was tall and handsome, his bones slender and sharp, his eyes a deep, magnetic silver.
“You can’t deny me,” he grumbled.
“Excuse me?” My hands slipped apart from Azrael’s.
“Raile,” Azrael started. “Good gods. She just came home. Give her time.”
“Give her time? More time? I waited five years for her,” Raile said. “And for that damned hobgoblin to die.”
“Hobgoblin?” I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
Faer was making his way through the crowd behind Raile. Everyone melted out of his way. He had an easy smile on his face, and his jeweled tunic shone under the lights.
“You’re a princess,” Raile said bluntly. “You dance with everyone who asks.”
Azrael ran his hand over his face in exasperation. “You didn’t learn how to court a woman any better in the past five years, apparently.”
“Perhaps I should be queen instead of a princess then,” I shot back. “Because I don’t intend to dance with anyone who doesn’t please me.”
I didn’t know where that came from, the barbed words that slipped out, but Faer’s eyes widened.
Azrael’s hand slid across my back, and he leaned in close to me as if he’d whisper in my ear like he had so many other times tonight.
“Oh, no,” I said softly, my voice meant to carry only to his ears. “Whoever this is… You knew about him, didn’t you? You could have warned me I’d have some determined suitors.”
The guilt that flickered through his expression left no doubt.
“I hate you, Azrael,” I said, my voice very low. “Just as much as Duncan hates me, I hate you.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand anything.”
“You’re right, I don’t,” I admitted. “But I know that this is a miserable place full of miserable people.”
Azrael leaned in close to me, his lips almost brushing my ear. When I started to pull away, he caught my arm, his grip tight and commanding. “If you run out of here like a child, Faer will use that as one more example that you aren’t fit to rule.”
One more example. Apparently, there had been many conversations about me. I was beginning to understand the big pieces, at least, of this puzzle. Faer and I were twins, so either of us could rule, perhaps. But Faer wasn’t my friend. He’d brought me back for a reason.
He’d sent Azrael to do his bidding, and Azrael always would. After what I’d just heard about the autumn court, I could almost understand why.
But that didn’t mean I could ever trust Azrael.
“I’m not going to dance with you,” I told Raile, pulling my arm out of Azrael’s grip. “Or any other man. Not tonight.”
Raile’s cold, cruel eyes never left my face. He bowed. “I’m at your service.”
If only anyone was.
Azrael had said I’d be left alone on the dais, so I headed for the dais. I could at least pretend to be alone in this crowd full of people, as the music played and the party went on.
I took my seat on the cold throne, high above the party and all the dancing and laughter.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nikia was in my room when I came back. I stopped in the doorway, horrified, as she melted off the couch and toward me, her eyes bright.
“What is this?” I asked, all out of juice for asking questions nicely.
She stopped, looking at me in confusion, and I asked more gently, “Why are you in my room?”
“To help you with anything you need,” she said.
“I don’t need anything between the hours of nine pm and nine am, I promise,” I said, holding the door open for her. “Thank you for everything, Nikia. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Royalty doesn’t sleep alone,” she said.
I’ll tell Azrael that popped into my mind, completely inappropriately.
“Royalty gets to make the rules.” I waved my arm, ushering her out into the hallway.
“Actually, they don’t,” a deep masculine voice said from the hall.
I jumped, automatically reaching for a sword that wasn’t there.
Raile leaned against the wall opposite my door, his hands in his pockets pushing up the hem of his suit jacket. He went on, “It’s a surprisingly bad deal, being king, and I hear it’s an even worse one being a princess. Or even a queen.”
“Why are you here?” I demanded.
“I wanted to see you.”
I was on the verge of telling him I never wanted to see him—ever—but he added, “I felt we had an awkward start earlier.”
“Do you think?”
He frowned. “I do. That’s why I thought we could start over.”
I stared at him. Nikia was finally out in the hall, but she took a step forward, raising her hand. “Princess, it’s not considered appropriate to have male guests in your room without a chaperone—”
“I’ll make him stand on the balcony then,” I said, my decision made—just because I was stubborn and at the moment, exasperated with all the rules I neither knew nor wanted to follow—and I reached out and grabbed Raile’s sleeve. I towed him into my room before I swung the door shut on Nikia’s protests.
“You are not a very good princess,” he observed.
I shrugged. “Maybe. But I think I’d make a ki
ckass queen.”
His lips parted in a sudden smile—a dazzling one. “Perhaps you would.”
I headed for the balcony. “Now that I have you in my room, I don’t really know what to do with you.”
“Go for a swim with me.”
“What?” I shook my head, glancing at the pool. “It’s too small.”
The thought of being in such close quarters with Raile, who radiated confidence and power as if he were larger than life, overwhelmed me.
“Not there.” Raile headed past me to the balcony, where he rested his elbows on the railing. I studied his back, his wide shoulders and the narrow taper of his waist. He looked like a swimmer based off his build. “Out there.”
I followed his gaze to the ocean, which looked deep and dark and terrifying under the cloudy night sky.
“I don’t think so,” I said with a laugh.
He turned to me, leaning against the railing. His eyes looked as deep and dark as the ocean beyond.
“Why not?”
“It’s dangerous,” I said. “The ocean is dangerous in my world. It’s got to be even worse here, where everything wants to eat us—”
“It’s not dangerous when you’re with me,” he promised.
“Are you some kind of monster-whisperer?” I asked.
“Something like that.” He gave me a smile that was sharp and sly. “Maybe I’m the king of monsters. Sea monsters, at least.”
“I hunted monsters when I was in the mortal world.” I didn’t fear them—at least, I didn’t fear them on land, if I could reach a sword.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he said, reminding me that he, too, had known me before.
“How do we know each other?” I asked curiously. “What did I do to you?”
He shrugged one big shoulder, his hand in his pocket, a lazy, non-committal answer. “I thought we were starting over.”
“All right, let’s start over.” I held out my hand. “My name is Alisa, and I have no interest in dancing with domineering men.”
Although if that’s true, I’ll definitely have to cross Azrael off my dance card forever and ever.
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “That’s a strange way to say hello, but all right. My name is Raile, and I have no interest in parties.”
“Doesn’t your court have parties? What court are you from?”
“I don’t like to have fun,” he said. “That’s what anyone would tell you.”
I joined him at the rail. “I can just imagine what people would tell you about me.”
“Do you want to know?” he asked bluntly.
I sighed, putting my thumb nail into my mouth as I tried to chew off the last flecks of my black nail polish.
“Yes,” I said. “I guess so.”
Maybe I needed to know, even if I dreaded what I would hear.
“Diplomatic affairs have not gone well lately in the Fae courts, not on land or sea. There have been questions about how well Faer manages all the courts, and rumblings that perhaps the time of the summer court to rule the Fae kingdom has passed.” He glanced sidelong at me. “Your memory has faded enough that people thought perhaps you would make a wise queen in his stead, though.”
Well, there was a dig. He and Duncan must have gone to the same school of taunts. “Wait, the summer court rules the Fae? But it hasn’t always been that way?”
“No, not at all,” he said. “The Fae courts used to all be independent, although the council of royals came together to deal with attacks outside our borders—like at the front.”
“I’d like to discuss the front more later,” I said, because I had no idea what was going on within my own kingdom. “But first, let’s talk about me.”
“I assumed that would be your desire,” he deadpanned, and I pulled a face. He went on, “Tonight and last, you blundered, Alisa. You insulted people and didn’t respond—perhaps didn’t even understand—when others insulted you. Without Azrael whispering in your ear, you would have fallen completely flat, and his presence did not go unnoticed.”
“I don’t remember anything here.” I pressed my lips together, afraid I’d revealed something I shouldn’t. Raile was not my friend, even if he spoke as bluntly as one in this particular moment.
Raile nodded. “Nonetheless. Some Fae hope for a ruler to guide the courts through this turbulent time, and you… you butchered that idea tonight. You are not qualified to rule, not right now.”
“That’s why Faer wanted to have the parties right away and not once I had the chance to catch up,” I said, filling in the details.
“Would a day or two have been enough time to catch up anyway?” Raile asked. “Faer may have pressed your disadvantage, but you were already lost.”
“Thanks,” I said drily. “You really know how to give a girl a pep talk. I don’t know that I would want to be queen, anyway.”
“You don’t have a choice, really.” Raile flashed me a slow smile. “Maybe you’ll be my queen.”
Once I realized he was implying marriage, I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help it. Marry this sexy but ridiculous man that I’d just met?
“I was almost starting to like you,” I warned him. “But I don’t like when you say stuff like that.”
“Alisa, you forget I already know you,” he said. “I know you don’t like anyone.”
He headed for the door, his hand still in his pocket.
“That’s not true,” I called after him. “And you don’t know me that well. You don’t know who I became when I was on the other side.”
“People don’t change,” he said, glancing over his shoulder.
“That’s a lie.”
He stopped in the doorway, added, “Fae don’t change.”
Then he was gone before I could argue with him anymore.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Azrael
Seven years earlier
I woke up in a dark and quiet room, and even before I turned my head, I knew she was missing. The room felt empty without her; even in her sleep, Alisa had a certain presence.
An annoying presence. That damned, incorrigible princess, off doing something she shouldn’t yet again. I wasn’t even surprised.
I got up, taking a moment to pull on my socks and boots. As I was grumbling to myself and getting dressed, she slipped in through the door, stealthy as a shadow.
“You even yell at me when I’m not here,” she said, her lips quirking in amusement. “That’s dedication.”
“You drive me crazy whether you’re here or not,” I shot back, beginning to pull off my boots again.
“Don’t bother getting comfortable,” she said. “The campus is shut down because there were reports of a Ravager attacking a nearby village. You and I have a mission!”
“What part of the campus is shut down makes you think that you and I should go out? Why do you think students should save the world?” I asked.
Alisa just smiled. I was already lacing my boots back up.
The two of us slipped over the wall. When we dropped onto the other side, I told her, “Well, my academy education lacked in sneaking until I got to know you.”
“And here you’re hardly even grateful.” She grinned and bumped her shoulder against mine. Her warmth radiated against mine, soaking through my coat and into my skin. I had to work harder for the magic that kept me comfortable despite the stiff winter breeze; for the summer princess, it came easy.
The two of us skirted the village, looking for signs of the Ravager. We passed an empty farmhouse, the roof beginning to cave in with snow.
“The village seems so empty,” she noted, looking past the farmhouse to the village below, where smoke curled from just a few rooftops. “Did they all decide to relocate to warmer courts?”
I glanced at her, not sure if Alisa genuinely didn’t know or if she were being glib. Deciding to give her the benefit of the doubt, I said, “The war’s decimated the Winter court.”
She gave me a wide-eyed look. “There’s no nobility there.”
“War doesn’t just touch the people who started it, Alisa.” My voice came out bitter. “In fact, it usually barely touches them.”
There was something wild in her eyes, and that was when I realized that—despite the reputation she and Faer had—she cared for everyone, not just her own court. Seeking out this Ravager wasn’t just for her own glory.
I saw one of the houses ahead also had a caved-in roof, but there was no snow on this one. “Come on.”
She’d seen the same thing I had, though. She was already darting ahead.
Alisa pulled her sword as she ran. I matched her pace, the two of us sprinting furiously for the house. A last curl of smoke rose from the chimney, as if the fire were just beginning to die.
The front door was splintered open. The monster that forced its way in had taken out part of the wall.
And the dry, dusty scent of the Ravagers lingered in the air. They were still here.
She and I stopped at the door, looking at each other. I saw the same understanding reflected in her eyes.
Then we moved in sync through the doorway.
Inside the house, the oak table at the center of the room was turned over, and chairs and plates and candles were scattered around the room. Alisa moved to the door on the left as I headed for the stairs.
She pushed open the door and took in the dark room. “Workshop. Untouched.”
A scream came from upstairs.
“That’s why,” I said. I went up the stairs fast. She cursed—probably because I’d gotten ahead of her, I doubted she’d actually be upset about the danger we found ourselves in—and followed me.
As I reached the top of the stairs, the Ravager stepped in front of me. It was so big that it filled the entire passageway. It stared at me with its lizard eyes, but it was the mouthful of sharp, twisted teeth that caught my attention.
“You don’t belong here, friend,” I told him. “Time to go back to your own world.”
Instead, it whirled, its powerful thick tail slamming into the wall, pluming dust over me as the wall disintegrated. I ducked, barely keeping my balance on the stairs, so that the tail passed harmlessly over me.