by Jasmine Walt
Also, the implied criticism of his desire for her annoyed him. Why shouldn’t he want her? She was a girl. He was a man. Not just any man—the crown prince. That title came with rights—and benefits. He’d never had to woo a woman to his bed like this before. They usually lined up to sleep with him.
“Lynx, is it a crime to look at you and want you? Especially when you present yourself so differently than every other woman in this room? In Cian? In the whole of the Chenayan Heartland?”
Lynx’s hand grew clammy, and it took her a long time to answer. “I realize I’m different. Norin usually are. But you’re different, too. I never thought I would have to embrace a Chenayan. I won’t deceive you into believing that I’m not struggling to . . . adapt to the challenge. No matter how much it is expected of me.”
The way her eyes had charted Axel’s movements told him she would have no problem embracing that particular Chenayan. It seemed her repugnance was limited to him.
Humiliation spiked Lukan’s voice. “Do you imagine this is easy for me? That I wanted an arranged marriage?”
“I suppose I haven’t looked at things from your angle,” Lynx conceded.
“Then you should try.”
They continued dancing in silence. Anger, disappointment, and a huge dollop of despair sat heavy in Lukan’s breast. Thus far, he’d failed to turn the wild cat into a purring kitten.
To add to his woes, Axel and Malika now loomed large in their view. They had ditched their masks and leaned against the wall together. His arm was slung about her shoulder, and she was recounting something with much hand waving.
Lynx’s nails dug into Lukan’s arm; she’d seen them, too.
Lukan considered mentioning Malika was Axel’s sister but rejected the idea. The longer Lynx believed Axel had a girlfriend, the better.
Still, even through his waistcoat and shirt, her nails were about to draw blood. “My arm’s gone numb. Perhaps we should eat before it drops off altogether.”
Gasping, Lynx pulled her hand away as if scalded. Frustrated, Lukan dumped his mask on a table in the lobby outside the ballroom. With obvious relief, Lynx followed suit.
He turned his attention to the waiting buffet, handed Lynx a plate, and picked up one for himself. She nodded her thanks, and they walked down row upon row of trestle tables decked with dishes of food from all over the empire. Lynx dished up a ladle of chickpea and ostrich stew and grabbed a pudding spoon. He cleared his throat and pointed to the knives and forks lined up on the table. She blushed, dropped the spoon, and grabbed a fork instead.
He suppressed a snort—a fork was better than nothing—and asked, “Is that all you’re eating?”
Lynx shrugged. “I’m not hungry.”
“Suit yourself.” He grabbed a handful of crusty bread and added it to his already heaped plate.
Lynx raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged, suddenly feeling awkward.
“I haven’t eaten since dinner last night.” Lukan could see she wanted details on where he had been, but he had no intention of sharing that information. Let her think that some other woman might have wanted to bed him. Instead, he said, “I guess that’s my own fault, isn’t it?”
Lynx graced him with her beautiful smile, making his heart sing despite his anger. It filled him with longing for her.
“As you say, Lukan.” She looked around. “So where do we sit?”
“Follow me.” A deep breath later, he pushed his frustration aside. He still had a chance to put this right. Smiling, he took her to a door across from the great hall and pulled a key from his pocket. He opened it to reveal a table set for two in the center of the room.
“In here.” He always used this room when he was charming a girl.
As usual, his valet had set the table elegantly—with all the correct implements—for this private dinner with Lynx. The centerpiece, however, was unusual, even by Lukan’s standards, but it was as he’d requested. Instead of flowers, a battered wooden tabor, its stick, and a metal flute lay on the crisp white tablecloth.
“That’s mine,” Lynx cried, her voice accusatory. “I’ve played it since I was a child. Look, there’s the mark on the side of the drum where Kestrel spilled her chai.”
Lukan smiled at her. “And there’s your fiddle, too.” He pointed to an instrument case propped up against the wall. “I didn’t tell you about the tabor and pipe because I wanted it to be a surprise. It looks battered enough to have significance.”
Lynx gaped.
Even though he’d done it to impress her, her reaction jarred. If only we could get to know each other before the wedding. Maybe she’d want me the way I want her.
He pulled out her chair. “Let’s eat, and then you can play.”
Lynx took a couple of mouthfuls of her stew and then fiddled with the leather hand strap dangling from her drum.
“The stew is not to your liking?”
“Nothing beats my mother’s cooking.”
With no experience of a mother’s food to draw on, Lukan said, “You could play for me.”
Lynx shot him a smile and pulled her chair away from the table. He’d never seen anyone play a tabor and flute before, so he watched with interest as she slid her hand into a loop in the drum strap, leaving the drum suspended before her. In the same hand, she held the long, slender flute, the note holes positioned at the end of the instrument, where her fingers reached.
With the drumstick clasped in the other hand, she said, “Are you sure you’re ready for this, Lukan? Because, I promise, Norin music is designed to wake the dead—not put them to sleep, like the dirge we were dancing to tonight.”
Chin tilted, he said, “You should know by now, the dead in Chenaya never sleep.”
“Good. Then they won’t mind this.” With a rat-a-tat-tat, her drumstick rolled across the vellum, and her pipe burst to life.
Riotous: that was the only way to describe Lynx’s music. Food forgotten, toe tapping along, Lukan leaned back in his chair to admire. It seemed she had a vast repertoire, with one rousing, call-to-action piece flowing into the next. The longer she played, the more absorbed she became, until she seemed oblivious of him—and the crowd, drawn by the foreign sound, who’d gathered at the door to watch and listen.
It included Axel.
Lukan’s skin prickled. Then, he saw Axel’s expression, and a whoosh of ice surged through his veins. He had never seen Axel look at a woman the way he was staring at Lynx. Gone was the sardonic, I-don’t-give-a-damn expression that usually marred his cousin’s face. A small, almost gentle smile played around his mouth, and his eyes were—Lukan sucked in a horrified breath—soft. There was no other word to describe them.
Unbelievably, Axel had had the temerity to fall in love with Lynx.
My betrothed!
An Axel-in-love would never accept that Lynx belonged to Lukan. With his massive sense of entitlement, Axel would stalk her until she relented. Given what he’d seen of Lynx’s feelings for his cousin, it wouldn’t be long before he was cuckolded. Trouble was, Axel was too important to his future to be eliminated, a challenge Lukan would face for his entire life. Rage, so potent it was palpable, exploded through him.
Thurban chose that moment to taunt. “I warned you, but you chose not to listen.”
Lukan’s entire body trembled as he fought with all his inner strength to maintain his cool façade.
“Admit it, Lukan, you aren’t man enough to handle her,” Thurban’s voice drove through him like nails hammering into his brain.
He had to leave. Now. Before he did something he regretted, something that undid all his years of work on his regal persona. The whole palace knew about his father’s abuse—they’d have to have been blind not to see the cuts and bruises Lukan, Tao, and Axel sported as children, and even into their teens. Lukan had always countered the whispered comments with his perfect control. He could not fail himself now.
Feigning calm, he stood, rocking the table. Lynx’s crystal glass, balanced precariously on the edge, tu
mbled to the floor. It shattered on the marble tiles, shooting shards of glass across the room. Lynx looked up, first at the crowd at the door. It included Axel. A flush of scarlet swept across her skin, and her eyes dropped to her drum.
Humiliation burst like a storm through Lukan. He strode over and grabbed Lynx’s arm. “I think you’ve played enough. Let’s go.”
Lynx’s flute gave an abrupt whistle as her tune came to an end. A buzz of comment rippled through the watchers. Her face hardened, and she folded her arms around her drum, pressed against her chest. “What? But . . . why?”
“Are you a prince or a low-born?” Thurban demanded. “Drag the Norin out of here. Make her obey.”
Fighting for control, Lukan bent down and hissed in her ear, “Don’t make me drag you out of here.”
Lynx blinked and then demanded loudly so everyone could hear, “Drag me out? Why? What have I done?”
Lukan glanced over at the crowd. Everyone’s eyes—including Axel’s—were on him, watching him being gainsaid by a woman.
Face like granite, Axel’s fists clenched and unclenched.
Lukan didn’t think his cousin would dare interfere, but he had to rescue this situation. And fast.
Then it struck him. Maybe he’d been wrong all these years and regal didn’t only equate to being calm and serene. Crown princes were entitled to get angry, too. It was time Lynx and Axel—and the rest of his watchers—learned that crown princes put rebellious subjects in their place.
His voice rose an octave. “Because I told you to. Now, move.” He fully expected her to obey.
Lynx’s eyes turned icy, and rage mounted on her face. “No one other than my king can give me orders and expect me to obey.”
Her king? How dare she?
She stood and faced him, and he noticed for the first time that they were the same height.
Voice like a whip, he shot back, “There is but one supreme ruler in this empire, and he is not the Norin king. I think it’s time you, and all your kind, learned some respect for the Chenayan throne. My throne.” He grabbed her arm and started dragging her to the door.
Lynx dug her feet into the floor. Still, he pulled her along, making her heels screech across the marble tiles. In a blur of movement, Lynx lifted her drumstick and cracked him across the cheek.
Lukan froze. But it wasn’t just the sting of maple that enraged him.
Lynx had hit him. In public. With Axel watching.
This was worse than anything his father had ever done to him. The ultimate humiliation. And it was unforgivable.
Lukan tore the drumstick from her hand, snapped it in half across his knee, and flung the pieces onto the floor. While she gasped with shock, he lunged behind her and gripped her upper arms. “You’re coming with me. Now.”
She lashed her foot back, clearly intending to impale him with her heel. Her shoe snagged in the hem of her dress. While she wrestled with the fabric—and then with him—Lukan dragged her from the room.
Face blazing with anger, Axel bolted forward.
Lukan preempted any intervention by shoving his cousin’s chest. Before Axel recovered, Lukan propelled Lynx out the door, over to the ballroom, and out onto the veranda.
It was then he noticed her face. It was feral in its fury. Never before had he seen a woman so angry—or so seductive.
It rendered him speechless. He couldn’t fight the compulsion to kiss her.
She punched him on the chin, snapping his head back.
Stunned, it took him a moment to grasp what had happened. It was his childhood all over again, except instead of his father hitting him for missing breakfast, it was a girl!
“You bitch! You’ll pay for that,” he half-slurred, half-stammered. With a last look at her toxic beauty, he fled into the night.
The antlers would have been the far better trophy.
24
Axel stumbled from Lukan’s unexpected shove. He found his feet, brushed past the crowds jamming the door, and stormed into the ballroom. It took him seconds to locate Lynx and Lukan on the veranda.
A savage grin slashed his face when Lynx’s fist smashed into Lukan’s jaw. The punch was hard enough to snap Lukan’s head back. Although Lynx could take care of herself, Lukan had gotten off way too lightly for daring to harm her. Without even stopping to analyze his emotions, Axel stalked across the ballroom, cracking his knuckles.
Someone locked onto his arm.
He shook the hand off, but the person skittered behind him and gripped both his biceps.
Then, a voice spoke in his ear. “No, Axel. Beating up the crown prince is not politic, even for you.”
“Stefan. You saw what he did. I won’t tolerate it. Especially not with Lynx.”
His words did nothing to loosen Stefan’s hold. He could have broken free, but that would mean flinging Stefan aside, not something he wanted to do to his best friend. He noticed his coward of a cousin heading away from Lynx toward the stairs leading to the gardens.
Running away, as he always does.
That left Lynx alone on the veranda.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Stef, so I suggest you let me go,” Axel hissed.
Stefan tightened his hold. “I’m aware of what she means to you.” His smooth, calming voice came from behind a snow leopard mask. “I saw it on the train, long before you did. But the risk is too great—for her and for you. Princess Lynx of Norin is Lukan’s betrothed. Not yours. Until that changes, you had better get a lock on that charming Avanov temper.”
Axel sucked in a deep breath. Stefan was right about his temper. The last thing he wanted was to be like his brutal uncle. “What are you saying?”
“Exactly what Lukan saw tonight,” Stefan whispered. “You are in love with Lynx.”
“No!” Axel grimaced at the spike in his voice. Whispering, he added, “You know what this is about. Treven. And I don’t cope well with men beating up on women.” He pulled away, but Stefan tightened his hold on his arms. There was only one way out of this mess. He relaxed his back and shoulders.
“Better,” Stefan said, easing his grip but not releasing him. “Come, let’s get you a drink.”
Axel shook his head. “Alcohol won’t do me any favors.” He allowed Stefan to lead him to the far wall of the ballroom, away from the crowds. It dismayed him to catch heads turning away as he passed; he had made a scene, something he hated doing. Worse, the crowd was already tittering about Lukan and Lynx’s display. His family was in top form tonight.
As it happened, the spot Stefan chose offered him a perfect view of the veranda. Mentally bracing himself, he looked over at Lynx. She paced across the flagstones, her beautiful face crimson with distress. Axel’s fists clenched again because she looked like she wanted to cry.
That was something he never thought he would see.
A flush of heat surged through him. All he wanted was to go to her, to tell her everything would work out. But that would only make things worse for her and dig a deeper hole for himself. While his motives were pure, he was using her to get to Treven.
Am I that different from Lukan?
Why wouldn’t his father just ease up on the unwanted protection? Axel wasn’t a fool, and he didn’t have a death wish. If anyone could survive Treven long enough to sort the mess out, it was him. Everyone in battle command knew that, too—except his father. If it hadn’t been for Felix, he would never have used his relationship with Lynx as blackmail leverage.
Axel clenched his jaw and then whispered to Stefan, “Forget beating up Lukan. I’ll horse whip myself if Operation Treven backfires and Lynx gets hurt.”
Stefan pulled off his mask, dropped it onto the floor, and faced him. Not that it made much difference. His friend’s face rarely betrayed emotion for the cameras to capture.
Voice little above a whisper, Stefan said, “Axel, you can deny all you want that you are in love with Lynx, but I know the truth.”
Axel grimaced, waving his hand as if brushing away the comment.
&nb
sp; Stefan ignored him. “But, regardless of your . . . non-feelings for her, we both understand the risks you’re taking to persuade your paranoid father to do what’s right in Treven. And yes, she” —he gestured to the veranda— “may end up hating you if it all goes wrong. But it has to be done. Someone with brains needs to clean up that mess before any more unnecessary deaths occur. Both ours and theirs. If risking your . . . friendship with Lynx is the price you pay to save thousands, then you must pay it.”
Axel opened his mouth to retort that it was easy for Stefan to say that when he wasn’t the one making the sacrifice, but he stopped himself. The comment would be churlish. Stefan felt things more deeply than any other high-born Axel knew. Typical of him to consider the enemy’s losses as well as their own. Few, including himself, ever considered them. Axel’s tense muscles relaxed even more.
That didn’t stop his emotions roiling as he watched Lynx pounding her fists against the balustrade. He had to berate himself, lest he change his mind and go to her. In the end, he muttered, “It’s some sacrifice, given that I’ve never felt this way about any woman.”
Stefan snorted, an I-told-you-so kind of sound. Then, he added, “That ruby you wear comes with a price. Leadership requires sacrifice.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t know,” Axel said more sharply than he intended. He was nowhere near ready to consider the possibility that he could love her. “I hate being so damn . . . useless. It doesn’t help Lynx, me standing here like a tongue-tied adolescent.”
“Help her?” Stefan asked with a dryness that would snap toast. “Was I the only one who saw her thrash Lukan?”
Axel grinned with pride. “She’s quite something, isn’t she?” His smile faded. “But even someone that ferocious is only as effective as her intelligence. Without knowing how the palace works, how is she to survive, let alone fight back?”
“Bear was supposed to tell her all that,” Stefan said.
“Yes, and he was bloody useless.”
“He was counting on having Lynx and Kestrel stay with him in Cian. Probably no . . . devices at his house. We messed that up for him.”