by Emma Alisyn
“Stop staring,” she said sharply, and stepped back.
He followed her. “You missed a spot. Did you mean to leave some for me?”
Rhina didn’t know how to respond as his head lowered, mouth hovering over hers. Her body seized with tension, lips hyper-sensitive to his warm breath. Then he pressed the tiniest of kisses on the edge of her mouth and his tongue flicked out once, then twice.
She made a sound and his expression altered. Suddenly, her bottom lip was caught between his teeth, and hands were sliding up her back. Deep inside her body, something flared.
Rhina jerked away, Geza’s hands clutching in the cloth of her blouse for a moment before her let her go.
“What are you doing?” she asked in a whisper.
“Wanting,” he said, no hint of mockery or playfulness in his tone, in his face.
“I—”
He shook his head, and the tension was gone from his body as if he’d shunted it away behind a shield. “Have you ever been on a Ferris Wheel?”
She seized on the change in conversation. “I can fly.”
Geza rolled his eyes, now fully immersed in his insouciant persona. “That’s not the point. Come on. I think we need to get some alcohol in you, so you can give yourself permission to relax.”
Coming from any other male that would sound creepy, ominous, and borderline harassing. Geza had no need to get her drunk, for any reason. She was already in his custody and more or less voluntarily. He’d just proved that he could make her body stir—and he hadn’t even really been trying. His Council would have a frothing fit, and there was no telling how his brother and Sir Niko would react.
“Do you ever stop flirting?” she wondered aloud, an edge to her voice. She didn’t like feeling off balance.
“You haven’t seen flirting.” He stopped, turned to her. “Is that a complaint? Would you like me to flirt with you?”
“Are you insane?”
“I am Ioveanu.”
“Demonstrably.”
The rest of the outing was just as strange as the beginning. He continued to ply her with all manner of strange food items until she had to plant her feet, bare her fangs, and threaten his life to make him stop.
“I am going to vomit all over you,” she said. “Stop feeding me.” Rhina pressed a hand to her stomach. After the last roller coaster, a monster of a contraption that dangled a person from a metal harness and proceeded to fling one in all manner of directions at breakneck speed . . . Geza laughing maniacally, while Rhina closed her eyes and endured . . . her insides were roiling.
“Spoilsport.” He regarded her. “Maybe we should have stuck to the kiddy rides.”
“That doesn’t offend me.”
So, he herded her towards the merry-go-round in the center of the carnival. Rhina stared at the sculpted animals, bright colors, and twinkling lights, going round and round in a fairytale of color and sound.
She held up two fingers. “I want to go twice.” The unicorn first, and then the carriage, drawn by a set of dolphins.
He cocked a brow at her, but obediently exchanged the requisite number of tickets. He chose the tiger next to her unicorn and refrained from making fun of her, instead watching with a kind of indulgent expression as the ride turned in circles, which she ignored.
Faces passed in a blur, and the strangest thing happened. A small smile curved her lips, her hands wrapped around the pole. She’d always wanted to ride a Pegasus. This was as close as she’d ever come.
“I think this is a history-making moment,” Geza said when they’d left the platform. “A Mogren and an Ioveanu, playing together.”
“You’re playing. I’m here because I have no choice.”
“You had a choice.” His voice was steely for a moment. “You could have protested, and you didn’t.”
They stared at each other, Geza displeased, Rhina dispassionate. Then she shrugged, and walked ahead of him. “Have it your way.”
“Do you really want me to have it my way?”
He was behind her, and the low spoken words set off a strange tension in her shoulders. Her fangs itched, hidden wing blades twitching.
“Is that a threat?” she asked without stopping or looking over her shoulder.
“If I wanted to threaten you, why would I choose now of all times?”
What game was he playing? Rhina stopped, Geza running into her back. Probably on purpose. A warrior had the reflexes to react on a dime. She turned, aggravated.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, and gestured, arm sweeping to take in everything. The carnival, the food vendors, the guards hovering in the background not pretending to be nondescript. “What is all this for?”
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his dark jeans, eyes impassive. “I wanted you to have a few normal memories. The kind you should have had from your childhood.”
“Your childhood was sweetness and lollipops?” Her voice was scornful.
“No.” The reply was measured, and he looked at her without any of his usual mockery, insouciance, or playfulness. “It was still a childhood.”
“You feel sorry for me?”
“I wouldn’t dare. You’d gut me.”
“Damn straight.” She was angry now, the clean emotion burning aside apathy and confusion. Anger was good, healthy. She understood anger. “I don’t know what you’re purpose is, or what game you’re playing. I want this to stop. The dates, the pretending we're friends—”
“Why?”
“Why? Are you . . . argh.” Her fingers dove into her hair, clenching as if she literally wanted to tear it out. “I hate you. I don’t understand any of this.”
“You don’t hate me, Moghrenna. You just think you should.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, I cause confusion in most females. You aren’t any different.”
Her eyes narrowed and she took a step forward, chest brushing against his as she glared at him. “I am different from every female you have ever met,” she hissed. “No other female could take you out, Prince.”
The lids of his eyes lowered. “You could try. You couldn’t take me in a real fight.”
“Do you want to bet on that?”
“You already owe me a kiss—a real kiss. Which I’m saving for the most inopportune moment possible, just to annoy you.”
“You annoy me well enough, just by breathing.”
“Fine. I’ll take the bet. A duel.”
Rhina smiled. “A duel. Your guard won’t interfere?”
“Of course not.” He looked insulted. “You’re just a female. To interfere would be to dishonor me.”
“When?”
He bared his fangs. “Now.”
“The stakes?”
His hand rose, and his fingers brushed her cheek. Rhina flinched away automatically, both because it was him and because she wasn’t used to having anyone in her close, personal space.
He stilled, waiting until she controlled the momentary jerk, then spoke slowly. “If I win, you spend a night with me.”
19
Rhina stared at him, feeling the color leave her face. “Wh. . .what?”
“Not sex,” he added quickly. Quietly. “I wouldn’t—fuck, Moghrenna. I wouldn’t do that to you. I want you to spend time with me, get used to being around me without anything between us. No noise, no guards, nothing.”
“Why?” How many times tonight had she asked him why, and how many times had he evaded the question? She wasn’t going to allow him to evade anymore. “Why, Geza? I thought you were playing a little game, but now I know you’re playing a big one.”
“No games.” He stared at her for a moment, eyes still shielded, and then he swore. “Fuck it. I wasn’t going to say anything. I was going to creep up on you, court you without you realizing that was what I was doing.”
Rhina took an involuntary step back, and he seized her by the wrist, halting her. Automatically she twisted, breaking his hold. He flowed with her, countering the move. There was a quick, vicious, little scuffle until she
remembered herself, and controlled the reflexive sense of panic.
“Back off,” she heard him snarl and looked around. The guards were surrounding them, expressions lethal, one or two with iron blades naked in their hands. Rhina felt herself still, ice over. A rumbling growl against her back as Geza snarled, then the guards, eyes flicking between his face and hers, slowly melted back into the crowd.
“They have iron,” she said. “You know what I am. You armed your guards with iron.”
The betrayal . . . hurt.
He spun her around in his arms, and the movement jolted her back into fight mode.
“Stop, Moghrenna,” he said roughly. “I didn’t order the iron.” His eyes were hard. “I’ll speak with the person who did. He will never take action like that without my knowledge again.”
She laughed hollowly. “Sir Nikolau will always do what he thinks is in your best interests, short of disloyalty.” The sound of his teeth grinding distracted her from the roil of emotions in her chest. It wasn’t that she had never allowed herself to feel. She’d just only allowed herself to feel things that helped feed anger and vengeance and the desire to prove her worth. She’d never allowed doubt to penetrate her conviction. “Why are you angry?”
“You’re asking a lot of questions tonight,” he said, sounding angry. “Why can’t you just go along with things and trust that I have everyone’s best interest in mind?”
“You’re Geza Ioveanu. The Prince.”
“I was your friend.”
“You were my mother’s friend. Not mine.”
“We were friends, too,” he snapped. “We’re friends now, because I said so.”
“That’s just not possible, Geza. I don’t do friends. That’s not who I am.”
“No offense, but you don’t know who you are. Come on.”
This time his fingers entwined not around her wrist but lower, taking her fingers and one by one positioning them in the correct fashion. “There. I know hand holding is foreign to you. Try to go with it.”
“Your guards must be shitting bricks.”
He looked around. “The teeth gnashing is good for them.”
They walked out of the carnival grounds down the block where foot traffic was plentiful, but lessened.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Somewhere to sit and get a drink. We’ll have to return soon, but we need to talk.”
“The bet. The iron.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think I want any alcohol.”
“Then we’ll have something else.” His thumb rubbed the back of her hand. “Coffee, or tea.”
So instead of a bar, he walked them into a cafe. They ordered drinks, mostly in silence, then took a table. Rhina’s hands wrapped around the steaming paper cup. She stared at the white lid and avoided the temptation to blow into the mouthpiece to make the high-pitched whistling sound. That was too much like play, and she didn’t need to encourage him.
Encourage whatever mad scheme was going on inside his head. He’d mentioned courtship. Stalking her. Friendship. Words no gargoyle male, much less one warrior-trained or a damn Prince, would say flippantly. They just didn’t.
“I should be furious,” Geza said, leaning back in his seat, watching her with a thoughtful expression. “It’s intriguing.”
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. “That puzzles me. I’m an assassin from an enemy family sent to kill you and your brother—and you aren’t even perturbed.”
“I’d suspect sorcery, but I know better.” He picked up his coffee cup with the air of a male who simply wanted something to do with his hands. He didn’t have the stillness of his guards, or even his brother. He was constantly in motion, restless, a ceaseless blur of energy.
He would exhaust whatever female he married, if she didn’t strangle him in his rare moments of sleep first.
“No,” he said, “it appears the seeds of the past are stronger than the complications of the present. Or maybe I just have a perverse nature and prefer to do things the hard way.”
“What, exactly, are you planning on doing the hard way?”
The words might have been suggestive if they were just a normal male and female out on a casual date. They weren’t a normal pair—and neither of them was jesting or flirting, though Geza’s dark eyes glinted.
“I wish you could remove your glamour,” he said. “It’s irritating to talk to you when you’re wearing a mask.”
She opened her mouth and he waved a hand. “No, I get why you need to remain like this. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.” His expression hardened subtly. “This shit with the Mogren clan is starting to get on my nerves. I have a life I’m trying to live, and I don’t need these constant interruptions.”
Rhina sipped the coffee, tired of waiting for it to cool. The sweet liquid scalded her tongue. “I failed. There will be contingency plans in place to account for my failure.”
“We know that, and you’ll be questioned again shortly. That’s not what I want to talk to you about.” He stopped, grimaced. “Rather, it's only peripheral to what I want to talk to you about. You’re almost perfect, you know.”
“I—excuse me?” She was rarely surprised, but the abrupt statement floored her.
“I wanted a Princess I knew would survive the tumultuous nature of my life, someone I didn’t have to worry about. I wanted someone who wouldn’t bore me.” He glanced out the window with an air of brooding. “Though I don’t want a court female, the Princess needs to understand the court, so she doesn’t make either of us a laughing stock.”
“That’s why Bea is doing all of this with the ball. To help you find a wife.”
His head turned, and he pinned her with a clear, hard look. “I’ve found a wife. I just have to convince us both the idea isn’t mad.”
Rhina put the coffee cup down, carefully placing her hands flat on the tabletop. “Excuse me. I don’t play word games. Are you proposing?”
He scowled. “Of course not. You’d just say no. I’m telling.”
She’d begun to relax, then stiffened again. “Excuse me.”
“You can’t really expect flowers and jewelry and a proposal? You still hate my guts, at least peripherally. So, this isn’t an official proposal. You need to know what is in my mind, so you’ll stop baiting Niko and my staff.”
Rhina allowed the words to wash over her, the surrealness of the moment. The irony of Geza Ioveanu telling her in his flippant, arrogant manner that he’d chosen her as his Princess. She thought to take a moment to consider how her mother or Lavinia might have reacted were they alive, but even making the attempt caused her head to split. But . . . her mother would have been pleased.
“I do hate your guts. More than peripherally.”
“It should add spice to the proceedings, anyway.”
Rhina regarded him one long moment, then accessed Princess Surah using her wrist comm. The female’s face snapped into view, brows lowered.
“You. Why is everything you lately?” There were circles under Surah’s eyes, and her hair was a frazzled mess.
Rhina felt a moment of sympathy, but this was more important. “Princess, you need to come get your brother now. I think he’s had a mental break with reality.”
Surah, because she was a doctor as well as a female, took Rhina at her word. The speed at which the guards entered the cafe and attempted to usher their Prince away from Rhina, all while attempting to restrain her once one dared to put his hands on her . . .
. . . and watching Geza’s reaction to that was illuminating. At the end of the moment of madness, the guard was on the floor, bleeding from a wound that was intended to be mortal but the male had had the sense at the last moment to realize his Prince was serious and had ceased defending himself, thus softening whatever instinct had snapped into place when the guards attempted to touch Rhina in a manner he must have interpreted as violent.
“Get everyone out,” Rhina snapped at the wide-eyed human manager. Several customers
had already fled, and the manager quickly complied to usher the rest out a back door, well away from the gargoyles now in their full, natural form. The Prince was likely recognized as well, his face as iconic as Surah and Malin’s.
Geza was standing in front of her, and every time she twitched he shifted, keeping himself between her and the other gargoyles. She poked at his back, and when that did nothing, balled her hand into a fist and punched his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “Get out from in front of me!”
He turned his head and snapped his fangs at her, wings spreading open in warning before settling against his back again.
“Prince?” someone said hesitantly.
He only growled.
“What just happened?” Surah asked, entering the cafe minutes later. She must have already been downtown—and Rhina hadn’t recognized the Princess’s surroundings as being the lab. That was fortunate. She raked the scene and went to the injured guard, beginning her medical process. It was one thing Rhina had never learned, so she knew nothing of the commands Surah belted out, or the supplies she withdrew from a kit she’d brought with her, obviously prepared for any eventuality.
“We moved in like you requested, Princess,” a guard replied.
“Moved in? I told you to contain them until I arrived, not to attack them.”
“We didn’t attack the Prince!” someone exclaimed.
“Shut up,” Geza snapped, voice a low growl. “Let her work.” His voice was clearer now, whatever irritation that had caused him to attack his own guards leveling out.
Another medic entered the cafe and took over for Surah, and the injured guard was lifted and taken out. The Princess stood, slashing her brother with a look.
“Rhina said you had a mental break. Explain.”
“Rhina is under a lot of stress,” he said. “Next time she says something stupid, ask me first.”
“He proposed courtship with the intent to marry,” Rhina said from behind him. “You need to give him a full exam. The Ioveanu degenerative condition can attack the brain without any physical symptoms manifesting.”