by Ella Fields
I sneered at Raiden, and he leaned down, murmuring in my ear as we neared the dais. “Behave, silk.”
“Silk?” I questioned. If it was his plan to dumbfound me into losing my ire, it worked.
“Your skin, your hair, and I bet…” His eyes found my lips. “Your mouth too. The finest silk known to our kind.”
“Sweet talk will get you nowhere,” I retorted, but I was all breath and heaving breasts.
His hand stayed steadfast around mine, gently squeezing, then he tugged me forward.
His parents stood, stepping down to greet us with forehead kisses and arm rubs.
“Perfect,” his mother crooned, adjusting the lapels of her son’s coat with adoring cinnamon eyes and shoulder-length curls to match. Her smile glimmered beneath the floating lights as her fingers danced through my hair, and she chattered on about what our children might look like.
The mere thought of breeding with the arrogant male who carried an alarmingly wonderful scent was the last thing I wanted floating into my rioting mind.
Still, I smiled, my cheeks aching as I kept it fastened, and then turned to my father who finally decided to grace us with his presence.
His arm was heavy around my shoulders, as well as the lager on his breath, when he lowered his head, and said, “Your bosom is catching too many eyes, daughter.”
I swallowed, not daring to look or touch my gown. Not in public. “I shall adjust it when I get a moment.”
“Do that,” he said with a tap on my shoulder. “You’re a committed female now. Act the part.” Then he moved to Raiden, wrapping him in a hug that had my stomach clenching as Raiden’s entire form stiffened. He was a head taller than my father. As I peered at him, I found his lips had flattened.
Interesting. But not interesting enough to hold my attention once I caught sight of a passing tray of wine. I snatched one, then began circling the room, searching for Berron and Truin.
I found the latter by the outer wall, standing with one of her coven friends.
Truin smiled, lifting her glass as I approached. “Stunning as always, my princess.”
“Quit with the niceties.” I took a huge swig of wine, swallowing. “Let’s start devising a plan to get out of here.”
Truin frowned. “Well, it’s your party. You can’t…” She stopped talking, and I needn’t have asked why. I felt him approach this time, inhaled that scent of his clouding the air around us.
Truin blushed, then curtsied. “Congratulations, Prince Evington.”
“Raiden,” the man himself said, stepping forward to take Truin’s hand.
My face and shoulders became granite as I watched his lips descend upon her skin. As if sensing it, Raiden didn’t let them meet and graciously released her hand.
Truin raised a brow at me, and I felt my skin begin to warm. I drained my wine and set the goblet down on a marble topped statue of a furbane.
“Excuse us,” Raiden said, taking me by the arm and leading me to the dance floor.
“You really need to quit manhandling me,” I said through a fake smile.
In answer, Raiden pulled me close, aligning my stomach with that of his crotch.
His very hard crotch.
“If you think that was manhandling, that trainer of yours has a lot to learn.”
Reluctantly, I looped my arms around his neck when his circled my back, and he began rocking us between the other dancing couples. “Berron bothers you that much.” Not a question.
Raiden huffed, his hands roaming my back as if he were studying the curve of my hips and spine through the material while his eyes wandered the room. “I merely find it concerning that you’ve been left in the hands of a pup who only wants to mount you instead of teach you.”
I murmured low, “Oh, but he has taught me a lot.”
Raiden’s gaze snapped to mine, eyes ablaze. I fluttered my lashes, and he smirked.
“Evidently. Though we do need to work on those reactions of yours. Or else when I have you in my bed, I’m afraid you’ll send every piece of furniture flying about the room.”
I wouldn’t take shit from him. For a female of only nineteen summers, I knew I had a remarkable hold on my powers. “There’s no need to worry your pretty face about such matters.”
“No?” he asked, spinning me around and then pulling me back to his chest.
My stomach leaped. “No, it’s never going to happen.”
His head fell back, and his loud bursts of laughter caught most eyes in the room. Including my father, who squinted at us.
I hissed at Raiden, “You can shut your filthy mouth any moment now. Everyone is looking.”
He did, though the amusement never left his eyes. I had a feeling that was common for this prince. “I have an idea.”
“I don’t care.” I made to remove myself from his hold, not liking the way his skin felt against mine. The way it felt familiar and new all at once.
He squeezed my hips. “A dare?”
“I may be young, but I don’t often play.” I stepped back, and he chuckled.
“Fine.” Reaching for me, he cupped my chin and whispered into my ear, “If you change your mind, I’ll be down in the cellars, getting drunk on my own, or maybe not…” His hands skated to my shoulders, down my arms, then skimmed my wrists and palms as he released me. “I guess it’s up to you who’ll join me. You?” He swung his eyes around the room. “Or someone else.”
I watched him leave and didn’t move even after I lost sight of him.
“Princess.”
I blinked, wondering how long the lord of the east had been standing beside me, and reluctantly turned to him.
“You look…” His gaze slowly swept up my body, his fiery eyes warm as they met mine. “Beautiful,” he finished, and the way it rolled off his tongue, soft and intimate, felt like a thousand compliments in one word.
Peering up at him, I realized just how finely hewn his features were. High, sharp cheeks, thin yet plush lips, a square-cut jaw, and lashes a shade or two darker than his auburn hair. If it weren’t for the bump in the bridge of his otherwise straight nose, one would think he were forged from magic stone by the goddesses themselves.
“It is customary to say thank you after a compliment,” Zad said, waking me from my trance.
Someone must have laced the wine.
“And it is customary to leave those who do not desire your company alone.” His brows lowered, and I gathered my gown, smiling tight as I made to leave. “Apologies, my lord, but you’ll need to find yourself another princess to read to from now on.”
Unamused, Zad nodded once. “Insults aside, we should talk.”
“Talk about what?”
His eyes flicked behind me. “Not here.”
I laughed at his audacity. “Not anywhere, Zad.” Before I could leave, he snatched my wrist and pulled me close. “You have some nerve—”
“Listen,” he said so painfully quiet into my ear, his breath tickling. “I don’t know enough yet, but I still think we should—”
“Well, if it isn’t my favorite lord,” my father said, coming up behind us.
I wrenched free of his grip, my heart thumping as my father threw his arm around Zad’s shoulders.
“I’m glad you made it. We have much to discuss.” With a wink and a hard look that suggested I go play the role expected of me, my father led a seemingly reluctant Zad away.
I stared after them for a beat, worry rolling over me in the form of a shiver.
Across the room, Zad’s eyes flicked to me while my father reached for two goblets from a passing tray, then fell away as he accepted the wine.
My father sipped, cringed, then tossed the goblet at the server’s head, red wine spraying his white uniform and face. I didn’t need to hear him to know he was berating the server for something he wasn’t aware he did wrong. Zad said something that caught my enraged father’s attention, and when he turned back to the lord, the terrified server raced away while he had the chance.
&n
bsp; Zad smirked, sipping from the golden goblet, and my father threw his head back, clapping the lord as he laughed loud enough to scare the few guests nearby.
The clenching of my muscles eased, and I released a breath that shook my shoulders. Of course, the lord of the east knew how to play my father like a fiddle, or else he’d likely had lost his lands long ago.
Walking aimlessly, I found Berron and Truin outside by the fountain smoking pipes with some of the guards.
Berron glanced up, offered me a smile, and then emptied his goblet.
My breath sailed out of me, and I rushed forward to grab his chin. “What in the darkness happened to your face?”
He winced, then plucked my hand from his bruised skin. “It’s fine.” Purple and blue surrounded his right eye, and a gash split the middle of his lower lip. “Your betrothed apparently meant it when he warned me not to fuck you again.”
“I’ll rip his—”
“Where is he?” Poppy cut me off.
I barely refrained from sneering at the young guard. “Who?” We all knew who she was referring to, but it would not behoove me to act as though everything revolved around Prince Annoying.
“The Sun Prince.”
“In the wine cellar,” said Garris, joining us. “I saw him head down there as I was trading shifts.”
The urge to ask if he was alone itched like a rash, but I suffered the torment in silence.
They chattered on, discussing who was the best and worst dressed, and who would pair off with whom.
I lasted all of ten minutes before I was excusing myself. “Ladies’ room.”
Berron’s eyes narrowed, and Poppy nodded. Truin merely smiled as I gathered my gown and dragged it with me back inside and through the throng of lively bodies in the ballroom.
It trailed behind me as I wound down the halls and breezed past servers and cooks in the kitchens, then down the winding, dusty steps to the cellars as fury and frustration simmered in my veins.
The door clanged shut behind me, alerting Raiden that he had company and also plunging me into darkness. A flicker of light bounced from a sconce below the stairs as I rounded the last row of them and emerged to find the prince sprawled over sacks of grain.
Apparently making my arrival known didn’t deter him or his companion in the slightest.
I coughed, my hands scrunching. The handmaiden giggled while Raiden laid beside her, murmuring something into her ear.
“Ennis, aren’t there guest rooms you should be preparing?”
She froze, then peeked at me beneath Raiden’s arm.
He kept his attention on her, said something that made her laugh again, and then he flopped over to his back, his tunic crumpled, coat on the floor, and his smile casual. “Do you mind? We’re a little busy here.”
Ennis giggled once more, and I couldn’t stop it if I’d tried. My fingers unfurled before I could rearrange my thoughts, suctioning the air from her lungs.
Raiden cursed, eyes no longer playful but wide with shock as he hurried off the sacks of grain and raced to me. “Stop. Now.”
I couldn’t, and I wasn’t sure why. It was blinding, this hatred. This feeling of being defied in the highest order. I was her princess. He was my betrothed. “She laughed at me.”
Ennis’s hands were wrapped around her throat, her eyes twin pools of bloodshot fear.
“I am her princess, your future wife, and she laughed at me.”
“Audra.” Raiden’s hand clasped mine, warm against my cold, but I didn’t let up.
I wrenched away from him and stomped closer, my fingers spreading and forcing air back inside her lungs, but not kindly. No—all at once.
Ennis coughed, sputtering and wheezing as she doubled over onto the floor.
I felt my lips curl as I then stole her oxygen again.
And then a wave of unbearable heat sent my head spinning. I teetered, careening into a hard chest. I blinked as it drifted away, dizzy and disoriented. I was draped over the very sacks of grain the two co-conspirators had laid upon, and when I pushed up on my elbows, my dress fanning around me in waves of red, I came face to face with that of Ennis.
Raiden was handing her a goblet of wine, whispering comforting words as her shaking hand lifted it to her lips. Her eyes were still stained with red, but clear. Clear but saturated with horror as she stared at me.
“It would serve you well to quit looking at me like that, or I might just end your existence.”
Raiden sighed, then stood and helped Ennis to do the same.
The way he was helping her, soothing her when she’d conspired against me and insulted me encouraged the rage to climb back to the surface.
As if he knew, he hurried her to the stairs. “Return to work and speak nothing of what you saw and experienced here.”
“What’s it matter if she does? She’s lucky I don’t drain her for her actions.”
Raiden watched her go, and when the clang of the door sounded up the stairs, he turned and leaned against the stone wall at the bottom. He rubbed a hand down his face and laughed low at the ground. “You almost killed her.”
“She’ll lose her tongue come sunrise.”
Raiden shook his head, laughing once more.
“I’d love to know what you find so amusing about this, you cretin.”
“You,” he said, leveling me with a gaze so cold, I felt my stomach dip.
“Me?” I asked, exasperated.
He took two slow steps forward, tucking his hands inside his pant pockets. “You abuse your magic with a dramatic flair. Only”—he crouched down in front of me—“you don’t mean to play like most of us. You mean to harm in extremes.”
The words he didn’t say lingered there, sharp and stabbing.
Just like your father.
I shook off the accusation. “If you don’t squash the rebellion of insects, insects will grow enough power to squash you.”
Raiden blinked, a slow dip of his lashes, then narrowed his eyes. This close, I noticed just how smooth, how striking the planes of his face were. How his lashes looked softer than feathers and the way they curled at the very tips. Shadowing formed along his jawline, the finest dusting of hair peeking through his golden skin. He might have been beautiful—most high royal males were—but beauty was a trap. I should know.
I was the deadliest trap of all.
When I realized he’d said nothing, and I was doing nothing but staring, I snapped, “Move.”
“No.”
I leaned forward, growling the words. “I said move.”
He knelt close, his nose almost touching mine, the scent of wine fogging my lips. “And I said no.”
Stuck and outraged, I stared. “We need to call off this marriage.”
“Why?” he whispered, his eyes flicking to my lips before meeting mine, that peculiar spark returning to them. “It’s business, Audra.”
“Because I’d rather die than be miserable.”
He tilted his head. “I get beneath your skin. You’ve met me twice”—his finger drifted down my cheek, gliding ever so slowly—“yet I’ve crawled beneath that ice-cold exterior, and you don’t like it.”
I pushed his chest, but he didn’t budge.
He tutted. “Reactions, silk. We’ll definitely need to work on those.”
“We’ll work on nothing,” I said, attempting to wiggle back over the sacks of grain.
He caught my ankle, and I screeched as he dragged me to him. “Why did you come down here then?”
Remembering what he’d done to Berron’s face and likely to other parts of his body had my spine snapping straight. “Berron. I saw what you did to him.”
“Me?” He had the audacity to raise his brows.
“Yes.” I poked him in the chest, my nail denting his tunic. “You had no right.”
His expression was irritatingly void. “And what is it that I did?”
I inhaled a deep breath through my nose, begging the goddesses for patience. “Don’t try to trick your way aroun
d the truth. You know what you did.”
Raiden lifted a broad shoulder, then rose and walked over to where his goblet sat on the dusty floor.
He sipped, and I forced myself to stand before marching to the crates in the back of the cellar and yanking out a bottle of wine. I cracked the top, then took a lengthy swig. “Nothing to say?”
Raiden smiled into his goblet, then swirled the vine-engraved silver. “Not a lot.”
“Touch him again and I’ll—”
He was in front of me in a flash. “You’ll what?”
I lifted the bottle, draining as much of its contents as I could stomach as he watched, then I smiled. “I’ll find someone you care about, and I’ll make what happened to Ennis look like a nice little entrée to the main course.”
I went to circle him, but I was stopped by his next words. “Stay.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Prince, we’ve deserted our own party.” My father would be furious if I didn’t return soon. “And I find myself tiring of you already.”
“Shame.” He clucked his tongue. “We were just beginning to have some fun.”
“Fun?” I turned, tilting my head. “If arguing is your idea of fun, you’re more delusional than I presumed you to be.”
Pursing his lips, he swished his wine again before finishing it. “I find you… intriguing. To say the least.”
My mouth dried. I drank some more.
Raiden slumped down onto the grain, patting the sack beside him. “Come. Drink. What’s the worst that could happen? We fuck down here while they party up there?” He reached for the bottle of wine he’d left open on the floor. “We’re to be married. They won’t care.”
“I won’t fuck you.” His confidence, that lazy charm—it was maddening.
“Then will you at least do me the honor of sitting with me and enjoying some of the finest wine our continent has to offer?”
It was the smile that did it. That tiny curl to his full lips that set a sparkle gleaming in his glowing eyes.
“I suppose I’d rather return drunk anyway.” I trudged over and sat next to him, leaving enough space between us so I didn’t feel his body heat. Even then, I still felt it. Like standing too close to a fire, I had a feeling I’d feel him in varying degrees of warmth the closer we got. “Don’t touch me.”