by Ella Fields
His green eyes washed over my face. “You wish to know of how Casilla and I met?”
“Casilla,” I said, tasting the name on my tongue, imagining how it would feel to corner her with a dagger and thrust it inside her body for daring to let a king inside it.
He had no idea—none—that she was now here, rotting away in a cellar beneath a tavern outside the castle. “I suppose that is what I asked.”
His lips pursed. “You are indeed a peculiar creature.”
I tilted my head, flashing my teeth. “My, my. A compliment.”
His brows furrowed. “But is it?”
I waved a hand, then tugged at my black gown, ensuring half my breasts were in sight—creamy globes that begged to be snatched from their restraints.
His gaze didn’t waver from my face, though his throat did dip.
I pouted. “Fine. Go on then,” I said with another wave of my hand. “Tell me of this fantastical romance story, and then I might just humor you with one of my own.”
Silence descended for a heavy minute as we stared at one another. Me with a million memories flashing behind my blue eyes, and he with a veil of confusion and distrust burdening his.
“We are to exchange love stories?” He scoffed. “Shall I braid your hair afterward?”
I flicked my hair over my shoulder. “I prefer braids for fighting. If you must tug it, though, I encourage my lovers to grab my hair however they please.”
Something shadowed his eyes, but then he shook his head and sank to the disgusting orange and brown flecked floor. “Will I be released after this little game? Or are there more to come?”
He would never be free.
Ever.
I chose to keep that to myself, though, and instead, I tipped a shoulder. “There’s only one way to find out.”
His knees rose, and he clasped his hands between them, dusting his thumbs over each other. They were putrid, covered in days of filth and patches of blood. The guards had given him the opportunity to bathe yesterday, but he’d refused once it’d become apparent they’d all monitor him closely.
Pride was a fickle beast.
“In all honesty, there’s nothing fantastical about it. I met Casilla some months ago while I was walking home from work. I’d dropped my canteen, and she chased after me to hand it back. I wanted her instantly, and so she began warming my bed. I asked her to marry me when I found out she was carrying my babe.” I sucked in a quiet breath at that. “She miscarried a couple of months ago, but I promised her we’d still wed. She…” He paused, smiling at his hands like a lunatic. “She has this warmth, you know?” He looked up at me then. “No,” he laughed out. “No, I don’t suppose you would know. You’re one of the coldest bitches I’ve ever encountered.”
“Mind your tongue, or I’ll remove it.”
Arrogance rolled off him. He might have been seated upon the floor of a soiled cage, but the way his eyes gleamed and his words rolled free of his mouth showed he was still very much the high royal. A prince. A king. And whether he had access or knowledge of his powers, he always would be. “Is it not the truth?”
Ice unfurled into heavy stones inside my stomach, yet I said nothing.
Releasing a breath, Raiden looked ahead at the opposite wall. “Casilla has this way of making you feel like you’re the entire world. As though she was created to do nothing but orbit around you.”
“You want a female to serve you?” That was not the prince I knew. Then again, I didn’t really know this male all too well. Not as I thought I once had.
“No,” he said, thinking about it. “Though there is something to be said for being loved in that way. Complete devotion. Utter surrender. Refusal to quit.”
I licked my teeth, piercing my tongue with my canines. Blood infiltrated my mouth, and I smeared it over my teeth, then swallowed. “It sounds to me like you love the way she loves you.” I clucked my tongue. “So selfish.”
“I love her for her giving, pure heart. I love her for many reasons, but those are the most important.”
It took considerable effort to keep from gagging. I wanted to grab the pail next to the table and hurl into it.
Staring at me, he grinned, displaying a row of white teeth. Like mine, the tips of his canines were sharper and slightly longer than most humans. “Your turn.”
I knew he merely wanted to see what would become of him after this. There was no way this creature who was into selfless love would give a damn about a cold bitch queen’s story.
But he would.
I would make him care if it was the last thing I did.
19 summers old
“Honestly.” We rolled into a patch of wildflowers, our breaths coming heavy. “I don’t know why it took me so long to work out that sex and training go together better than cheese and wine.”
Berron huffed, laughing as I tucked a hand behind my head. “That’ll teach you for not listening to me.” After some moments, he sat up and plucked a hidden mushroom, offering it to me.
“No, I’ll be a stick of jelly for hours if we rut anymore.” Bluedot mushrooms heightened the senses and, in my case, made me want sex.
“I love it when you say rut.”
Growling, I shoved his hand away. “When are you meeting Klaud?” Klaud was his other lover, a soldier, and didn’t appreciate the trysts Berron and I so often found ourselves in. Training did make it more intense, and the release was definitely appreciated, though Klaud thought it ridiculous.
I thought he was a jealous idiot and often told him so. I had no interest in Berron’s heart, much to his chagrin when we’d first began taking our training sessions to this level. My interests lay only in his sword-wielding skills. Both swords.
Apparently, when one loved another, they did not like the concept of sharing. That was Klaud’s problem, not mine. And it never would be.
“I’m not sure,” Berron said, words trailing away from him.
“Princess?” The weeds swished as Mintale’s voice reached us. “Princess!”
I rolled my eyes at the cloud-dusted sky, then sat up and twisted my tunic back into place. “Stop it, I’m right here.”
Mintale did stop, almost treading on Berron, who was munching on the mushroom with sated azure eyes. “Hello, Mintale.”
Mintale scowled down at him. “This does not look like proper training etiquette.”
“That’s because it’s most assuredly not,” I said, jumping to my feet.
Mintale removed his accusing stare from Berron and swung it to me.
I waited, and he sighed. “Your presence was required at court a half hour ago. You know what day it is.” At my raised brows, his jowls wobbled with his frustrated words. “Prince Raiden is already here.”
A deep, dry voice sounded. “There’s little need to rush, not when he is, indeed, already here.”
Shocked, I stumbled back a step and turned.
Prince Raiden stood behind us, leaning against a rotted post as he squinted in Berron’s direction. “If you continue fucking my future wife, I will have your head.”
Berron muttered a string of curses and leaped to his feet, bowing. “Your highness.”
I giggled, and the prince fixed his eyes on mine.
I think that was the first time I’d ever experienced what it was to fall while still standing.
To move when not moving at all.
To cease breathing when your lungs continued to circulate air.
Intrigue like no other gripped me by the chest, forcing my feet closer. I curtsied and held out my hand. “So we finally meet.”
The prince didn’t take it; he merely continued with that hard stare. After a moment, he blinked, then straightened and bent at the waist as his warm skin met my cold.
His lips were crushed rose petals, redder than unpainted lips had any right to be and softer than lips had any right to be as they landed upon my chilled skin.
Electric tension shifted every muscle inside me, pulling my spine taut and my eyes to his.
<
br /> The contrast of our skin, caramel over snow, was striking, and my heart thumped like a galloping beast. He was a solid wall of charming steel, and I was but a poisonous flower.
“It is a pleasure.”
“I’m sure,” I said, sliding my hand from his gentle grip.
He straightened, his smile warmer than the sun soaking the tops of our heads.
Berron tripped through the brush, then chuckled. “I will take my leave, your highness.”
Raiden cut his eyes at Berron, assessing his tall frame. “You eat mushrooms while training the princess?”
“That and more,” I said before I could help myself.
Raiden’s hands clenched at his sides, and I didn’t know what he would do with that knowledge, nor did I care. He didn’t get to boss me around or steal my fun just because he planned to vow to me.
He and Berron continued their stare down. Berron was the first to break it, backtracking through the tall grass with a wink my way. “Later, Princess.”
It was then I realized Mintale had disappeared too, and I pursed my lips, wondering how much trouble he’d be in with my father when he returned to the palace without me.
“Take a walk with me?” It was a question, but it sounded like a command.
I tilted my head, curious. “A walk.”
His grin wavered. “Well, I’m not about to ask you to frolic in the gardens with me.” His expression flattened. “Not when you’re probably full of that tainted seed.”
My eyes widened at his crassness. Tainted was one of many less than desirable names given to the half royal, half human people.
“Are you taking a tonic?”
They widened further. “I might be only nineteen summers, but that doesn’t make me stupid.”
He heaved a sigh, dragging a hand over his close-cropped dark hair, muttering something I couldn’t decipher.
“If you’re going to say things about me, do say them at a volume I can hear. I can assure you, I’ve undoubtedly heard it all before, Prince.” I hissed the title.
“If we’re to take this seriously, this merger, then you need to end this dalliance. Find yourself a new trainer.”
I began walking. “I’ll do no such thing.”
He quickly caught up, our boots crunching over dry earth. “You’re as difficult as I’ve heard.”
“And as beautiful?”
His vibrant greens filled with his smile. “More so, painfully so, but you already know that.”
I did, so I kept my mouth shut, wondering what in the darkness I was going to do with this prince I’d been handed.
“So if fucking me is out of the question, what else are you good for?”
His laughter was rain and thunder combined with that of a songbird. Deep. Rough yet whimsical. “I guess you’ll have to wait and see.”
We’d reached the outer trail of the small mountain that sloped to meet the east end of the castle walls when he grabbed my hand. “Hold on.”
I stopped, allowing him to keep hold of my hand but unsure as to why. “What?”
He turned to me and lifted a thumb to brush beneath my lower lip. “You had grass there.”
“That whole time?” I plucked my hand from his. “And you didn’t think to tell me?” I’d thought perhaps he was going to try to give me some pointers on how we’d walk inside the throne room. On how we’d handle my father after arriving so late, and together at that.
I thought wrong.
His top lip rose into a sneer. “It will likely take a considerable length of time to get over the way I first saw my wife. On her back.” His long lashes dipped, then fanned high, almost meeting his thick brows. “With another male.” Then he was jogging down the hillside, leaving me behind to wonder how much he’d seen back in that field before making his presence known.
Quiet blanketed the dungeon.
Ghosts, the whistle of the wind through the cracks in the stone, and the beating of our hearts the only sound.
Then, finally, Raiden’s jaw snapped shut, and he began circling his cell, laughter falling out of him. “You scheming royal witch.”
Funny, how one was always so quick to curse a kind that was not their own. Or, at least, so he thought was not his own. “It’s true, husband.”
He was at the bars immediately, their clang surprising us both as they shook the stone walls and ceiling. Dust crumbled in a nearly imperceptible falling rain. “You lot are all the same. Power-hungry animals that do little more than mate and scheme for more power and then mate some more. I would never want a thing to do with the likes of you.” A quick survey of my body had his teeth gnashing. “Especially you.”
“Perhaps you never did.” It was something that became obvious and had made me feel even more the fool, but it was all too little, too late. “Perhaps, even if you never cared, you still enjoyed playing your games. I suppose we might never know.”
His brows knitted. “What in the darkness are you talking about?”
“You know.” A low sound escaped me, a struggling thrum of laughter. “Deep down, you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“No,” he said, sounding slightly crazed. “I really don’t.” He gave his head a vicious shake. “I grew up in The Edges, raised by my grandparents.”
“And who told you this?” The potion forced down his throat, alongside the incantation, was meant to suppress, to give him a generic backstory formed by dreams of his own and little else.
He looked at me as if I were crazy for asking such a thing. “No one. It’s just the truth.”
I hummed, then slid down the table until my burgundy suede heels met the floor. Their click over the stone dragged his attention to my exposed legs as I stalked closer to his cage, my wits about me but my smile lazy. “You want to know what I think, Prince?”
His head snapped back at the word. “I’m no prince, you fucking psychotic—”
A flick of my fingers had his lips slamming closed. “As I was saying.” I wrapped my hands around the bars. His nostrils flared, and his green eyes danced—wild, untamed, and filled with something I’d never seen on this male before. Fear. “I think you’ve concocted a nice little tale from nothing. All the better to help warm your bed with that almost wife of yours.” My fingers neared his as he grabbed the bars, and I licked my crimson-painted upper lip. “I wonder what she’d make of it. Discovering that her betrothed was not a common worker from The Edges, but a prince.” A hand met my breasts as I gasped, my lashes fluttering. “But wait, she already knew you weren’t a prince. All along, she’s known you were a king. My king” I grinned. “Naughty, naughty.”
The tendons and veins in his neck bulged, and then he lunged.
His hand was steel around my wrist, but I just laughed before I sent him sailing back into the wall. His back greeted it with a booming thud, and dirt sailed through the small square space as he slumped to the floor, groaning.
“We’ll resume tomorrow. Or not. The choice is yours.” I left before he could answer, before he could inflict any more damage to what remained inside me.
He’d already murdered my heart, but I wouldn’t put it past him to find something else to attack. My shadowed soul would surely suffice.
Upstairs in my rooms, I ran a brush through my hair, ignoring the way my hands shook as I walked circles around the gray and white Ergin hide rug. Then I braided it, something I didn’t bother with unless, as I’d told Raiden, I was fighting, training, or had long days of riding.
The silken strands weaved between my fingers while I thought back to a time when I had handmaidens. I’d culled and burned the lot right before the castle walls after discovering how some had aided in my father’s demise. In the attempted demise of me and this palace.
Some had probably been undeserving, innocent, but the burning inferno inside my chest hadn’t cared. In any case, it was best not to take any chances.
Raised by grandparents. I scoffed and grabbed a piece of silk to tie the ends of my hair.
His pa
rents were dead, and none of those in power had grandparents anymore.
Unnerved and frustrated, I didn’t return to the dungeon for two nights.
Two nights spent staring at the cracks in the ceiling, wondering how my heart fared in comparison.
My heart had it worse than the ancient stonework.
I was better than that, and I proved it to myself. If I couldn’t sleep, and if I couldn’t fuck—though not for lack of trying, I just wasn’t interested—then I would fight.
I dodged left, then pirouetted, arcing down and slicing through Garris’s holster as he stumbled back. “Majesty,” he said, out of breath, fear a shining entity in his eyes.
I swallowed, then rolled my shoulders. “Again.”
Ignoring his broken holster, he took his position, raising his sword as he squared his feet.
Pinks and muted oranges gave backdrop to the square balcony, bouncing off the vines and blood red roses circling it. I dodged its rays as well as Garris’s lunge and leaped backward into a roll, my stomach protesting as I found my footing.
“You need to eat,” a deceptively soft voice said from behind me.
Distracted by Zad’s sudden presence, Garris howled when I spun into a roundhouse kick and struck him in the ribs. He collapsed, groaning and cursing.
“When you’re done whining, clean up.” I sheathed my sword and left it behind. Without looking at Zad, I floated past him as I began unbraiding my hair.
“You’re back,” I said once he’d caught up with me.
His favored knee-high black boots scuffed over the concrete stairs, and I frowned, annoyed that I hadn’t even heard his approach to the rooftop.
The sooner my king was dead, the better.
“We have things to discuss.”
“Such as?”
He kept his hands clasped before him as he stared straight ahead, his profile unreadable when I chanced a quick glance. “After you’ve eaten.”
I bit my tongue. We hit the hall, gliding past ancestors trapped in silver heavy frames, and wound down the next, and the one after that.
When concrete met woolen rugs, I caught the scent of freshly baked bread and coffee. My stomach vibrated once more, but I didn’t care who heard. I pushed open the doors to the dining room and shooed the kitchen staff and servers away.