I pass out of the innards of the palace where only royalty and those with express permission from royalty are allowed to enter, and I step into the main entry, which is surprisingly busy for this early in the afternoon. Men and women--half of whom are likely just here to complain about something or another--bustle and shove their way toward the waiting area where a team of bored men instruct them to wait their turn.
I’m about to head outside for a breath of fresh air when I see Dirk jogging up to me.
“I thought I told you to bury your face in a book until you found something of substance,” I say.
He comes to a stop, expression grim. “You could say I found something, I guess. But you probably won’t like what I found.”
“Try me.”
“The only way to nullify the arranged marriage between Prince Titus and Princess Elizabeth is if Prince Titus issues a blood challenge against you and loses.”
“You’re sure?” I ask.
“You think I’ve spent the last several days sitting on my thumb? You know how many virgins I’ve let slip by because I wanted to do this favor for you?”
“Okay, okay. But what if I were to issue a blood challenge to him.”
“It’s not the same, not unless you’re planning to actually kill the man. But the last time a prince killed his brother was in the seventeen hundreds, and it led to a civilian uprising that ultimately sent him to the dungeons where he died a few months later.”
“Encouraging,” I say. “Though I don’t recall asking specifically about Prince Titus and Princess Elizabeth. I was asking hypothetically.”
“Right,” says Dirk. “And I just gave up some of the sweetest pussy in the Shrouded Kingdoms for your hypothetical question. Like fuck.”
“Eloquent as always,” I say, smirking.
Dirk shrugs. “You don’t pay me for my pretty tongue.”
“You sure?” I ask.
He barks a laugh. “Fair enough. Maybe you do.”
“I need you to do me another favor. Tonight.”
He quirks an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”
“Send a message to Princess Elizabeth. Let her know I’ve cleared the guards between her room and the exit. Tell her the only thing between her and the escape she craves is me. If I catch her, she knows the price. If I don’t, she earns her freedom. I’ll even escort her through the city walls and get her a car to take her home.”
Dirk frowns “So you want me to tell Prince Titus’ bride-to-be she can try to escape?”
I nod.
“And this has nothing to do with the question you had me spend days researching, right?”
“Right.”
Dirk licks his lips, showing a rare flash of nervousness. “You know what you’re risking, don’t you?”
“Yes. If my brother catches wind of this, he’ll be sure to leverage every ounce of power my mother has to get back at me. It could start a civil war.”
“And you’re sure you want this?” he asks.
“I’m sure.”
I wait in the darkened hallways of the palace just after midnight. I have bribed the guards into taking an early night like I promised. The hallway I’m in overlooks the exit from Elizabeth’s staircase, so I’ll know if she plans to try escaping. The challenge will be running the length of the long hall and descending the stairs quickly enough to catch up to her.
My mind wanders while I wait, specifically over how I should interpret her decisions. If she stays in her room, I first thought there was only one clear meaning: she’d be telling me she had no interest in repeating our encounter from the night she tried to escape. What if she denies my offer because she thinks it’s some sort of trap? Or a test?
If she does try to escape, I’ll be equally in the dark. She might truly believe she could get past me. If she really wants her freedom from this place--and who could blame her for that--I just offered her the only real way to get it. As plausible as it all is, the hunger in me only wants to accept one outcome, one possibility, and one motivation. She will try to escape, and she will want to be caught.
If I catch her though, I’ll never know the truth, so I decide to take an immense risk--an intolerable risk. If I’m wrong, the entire kingdom may pay the price, but the alternative is unacceptable. I’m going to let her go if she chooses to go. It’s the only way to know if she wants to be caught. If she lingers or comes back to wander until I find her, I’ll know her true intentions.
Elizabeth emerges from the doorway of her tower about an hour after midnight. She wears a thin dress that has me urging to get her back in the dungeon and see what’s underneath, but not yet, not by force. I need to know she wants it without a doubt, that she wants me and not Titus. If I’m going to go forward with this and risk destabilizing one of the strongest kingdoms in the Shrouded Kingdoms, I had better be damn sure.
9
Elizabeth
I run through the darkened hallways of the palace, wind rushing in my ears and bare feet slapping against the marble. The sounds of my frenzied run echo through the vast hallways and chambers, but no one comes. Was that man really telling the truth?
He showed up at my door after the servants left for the night and gave me the strangest message: Prince Roark will clear a path for me to escape, but I can only earn my freedom if I manage to make it out without him catching me. I wrote it off immediately as a lie, but when I tried to sleep, I could think of nothing else. If he told the truth, it meant two things.
One was that my only real opportunity to escape this place might be tonight. The other implication was that Prince Roark wants me badly enough to risk what I have to imagine are dire consequences. If I were to actually escape, I’m sure one of the guards he must have bribed into leaving these halls will talk, and then Titus will find out. Little brother or not, my time here has already taught me that Prince Titus is not a man to be crossed, and neither is his mother, who wears her loyalty to her youngest son so plainly that even a blind dog could see it.
Another possibility occurs to me as my pace slows and I move through the final stretch of my flight more slowly. Maybe Prince Roark knew there was no risk in letting me escape, because he knew he would catch me. This could have just been a ploy to get me alone at a time he could have me again without anyone finding out. The idea should terrify me, especially as I creep through nearly pitch-black rooms and stairwells with the hairs on the back of my neck prickling like I’m being watched. Instead of frightening me though, the idea sets my stomach on fire, and it’s not long before the heat spreads between my legs, leaving no doubt to what my body wants.
After what feels like ages, I reach the front gate. As promised, it stands wide open, giving me a view of the sparkling city ahead and the distant hills that lead to my freedom. I take a step forward, but hesitate. The life I lived up to this point in the outside world was far from good. My parents acted like I didn’t exist most of the time, and my sisters made sure the existence I did have was as miserable as possible. But turning eighteen was going to be the start of something new. I was going to leave home and go off to college, even if it meant taking on debt and working my ass off.
I was going to make a new me. A better me. Except nothing I ever dreamed of making for myself came close to what life could be like here. Even if I’m tied up with a sociopathic maniac like Prince Titus. This is the place where Prince Roark exists, where people walk the city streets on foot instead of behind steering wheels, and where ghosts of simpler times are everywhere, giving day-to-day life a fairytale charm. It’s also a place where I’m a princess. A princess. What girl hasn’t dreamed of this? What would all the little girls out there say to me if they knew I was running from a life that might as well be spun from a dream? Especially if they knew what I was running back to?
I sigh. More than anything else, Prince Roark looms in my mind. I’ll never forget what it was like being in his hands in that dungeon, or the rush of pure adrenaline that came when I gave myself over to him to do as he pleased.
Roark holds the promise of something I want more than freedom, more than the life I thought I would build for myself outside this place. He promises me the knowledge that I’m wanted. I don’t care if it’s selfish to need that so much or childish. I need to be wanted, and his hunger for me is written on every inch of his face when he looks at me.
So I don’t take another step toward the door. I take a step back, shake my head, and turn to walk back to my room.
I’ve only taken a few steps when Roark emerges from a shadowy alcove in front of me with a predatory grin. “You decided not to leave,” he notes.
My breath catches at the sight of him--at the sound of his deep, gravely voice. “I did,” I say.
“Inquiring minds want to know why,” he says, moving closer, circling me slowly.
I lower my head. “I don’t think I’m done here. There’s someone. Someone I don’t want to leave behind.”
“Should I be jealous?” he asks.
My heartbeat quickens. “Jealous?” I ask. Even though I can see in his body language that he wants me, it’s another thing entirely to hear him openly admit it. “Why would you be jealous?”
“You want to hear it for yourself?” he asks.
I say nothing, holding my breath as I follow his gorgeous face through the shadows.
“You’ll have to earn that,” he says. “I caught you trying to escape, after all. I think you know what that means?”
The heat already flooding my body grows more intense. “The dungeon?”
“The dungeon,” he says, gripping my arm almost hard enough to hurt and leading me down the familiar hallway and down the stairs.
He doesn’t speak again until the door to the dungeon is closed behind us and we’re completely alone. He turns a key in the door and slides it in the pocket of his jacket before turning to face me. There’s not much light in the room, and the way the shadows fall over his face makes him seem dark and dangerous.
“I’ve been waiting for this,” he says finally, stepping closer to me.
“You have?” I ask. My voice sounds too shrill and grating in the intensity that hangs between us.
“It’s all I’ve been able to think about.”
“Me?” I ask, mentally pinching myself for asking stupid question after stupid question. Get with it, Elizabeth. He’s going to think you’re a brainless idiot!
His lips twitch just slightly upward at one corner. “Like I said, you need to earn answers, even if you should already be able to figure them out for yourself.”
Should I be able to? Maybe. But with a man like Prince Roark, it seems foolish to assume. How can I even begin to guess what is going on inside that gorgeous head of his? Or do I even want to know?
“Should I be frightened of you, Prince Roark?” I ask.
My question makes him pause for a heartbeat, almost so subtly that I could’ve missed it. “What makes a man good?” he asks.
“You’re going to answer my questions with questions, too?” I ask.
“You want answers so badly? Fine. You can have them. But you’re going to pay for every last one. Take off your dress,” he says.
“My dress? But--”
“Is that one of your questions?” he asks.
I glare, bracing myself for what I know I’m going to do. It feels even more wrong now. Even though I’ve never given Prince Titus reason to think I have any feelings for him or that I was planning to go through with this wedding, he seems to think otherwise. But he must know I’m being forced into this. He hasn’t even talked to me in days I’ve been here--not really. He has talked at me, and all of that has been about himself. He has told me story upon story about how accomplished of a dueler he is or of how many men he has bested at fielding.
Every word from Prince Titus’ mouth has only further convinced me that he’s the last man on this Earth I’d want to marry.
Yet, I still feel a paralyzing guilt that keeps me from lifting my dress up. It would be wrong, wouldn’t it? Not only am I to marry another, but if I do this there will be consequences that could end in bloodshed.
“I can’t,” I say finally, letting my hands fall lifelessly to my side. “He’s your brother. And he believes we will marry. This--what we’re doing--it’s wrong.”
Roark takes a step closer until we’re nearly nose to nose as he looks down to me. “My brother will ruin you. He will use you up and discard what’s left. You’re a tool to him, just a pathway to the throne. Will you really remain loyal to a man like that?”
“Loyal to him? No. But I have my own standards. I need to be able to live with myself every day. I have to look at myself in the mirror, and I’d like to be able to do that with a clear conscience.”
“What would you do then?” asks Roark through gritted teeth. “You’ll just walk the path everyone has laid out for you without your consent? You’ll march down the aisle, let him stick his tongue down your throat, fuck you and put one of his twisted offspring inside your--”
My palm stings. I just slapped him, didn’t I? I didn’t decide to or plan on it, but my hand whipped out. I just had to make him stop. I raised my hand against a Prince, the heir to the kingdom, and I’m alone with him in a dungeon where no one knows to look for me. I look down in confusion at my own hand. I know I shouldn’t have hit him, but I’m not sorry.
“Don’t talk to me that way,” I say, chest heaving.
He watches me through dark eyes for a long time, not bringing a hand to the reddening spot on his cheek, not even moving at all. “I’m within my rights to talk to you any way I like, Princess,” he says. His voice dangerous. It’s low and full of violence, but a stubbornness borne out of years of mistreatment rises up in me.
“No one has a right to make assumptions about me. You barely know me. You have no right to guess at my future like that.” My eyes are watering. My stupid, traitorous eyes are watering and my voice is breaking. “You have no right,” I say quietly.
He wraps his strong arms around me. One moment we were apart, and then he’s surrounding me like a warm mist, filling my senses and refusing to let me go. I fight at first, pounding my fists against his chest and struggling to be free of him, but he’s too strong. “You say I don’t know you?” he asks, breath tickling my ear. “Show me who you are, then. Show me I’m wrong.”
He lets me go suddenly, pushing me back a fraction so that I can see his full frame. So I can see as his hands move to the buttons of his jacket and then his shirt, peeling away his clothes so that nothing is between my eyes and his chiseled body. The air around us turns electric. My gaze skates over his broad chest and shoulders, down the tapered muscles leading to his waist. I take in the way every jagged line is carved into his sculpted torso leading my eye inevitably and irresistibly down, down to the bulge in his pants that my instincts are clawing to reach for.
Show me I’m wrong.
The woman he thinks I am would let this work. She would get on her knees and do exactly what he wanted right now, and she’d say to hell with her honor. But I’ve lived my whole life letting others write their own version of me and stamp it on my forehead like it was gospel. I’ve lived with the consequences of that for as long as I can remember. Well, I said I wanted to start a new life after my eighteenth birthday, didn’t I?
“Stop,” I say. “I don’t know what this thing between us is--if it’s even a thing. But it can’t happen. I’m promised to Titus. I may not like it, and you may not like it, but that’s reality. I should have never did what I did with you that first night, and I’ll have to live with that, but at least I can
know I resisted this time and all the times after.”
I expect him to wear a stung expression or to at least look angry. Instead, he steps forward, bringing that sinfully perfect body within arm’s reach. He flashes a half-grin. “So you do want me, then,” he says.
“I didn’t say that,” I say, taking a step back, but my retreat is halted when I bump into the wall.
He advances again, closer now. “You said you resisted. It wouldn’t be resistance if you didn’t want it.”
“That’s beside the point,” I say, licking my lips.
“No, Princess. That’s the only point there is. Me. You. Two bodies and a lot of potential. That shit between you and my brother? That is beside the point. You say you’re promised to him. Fuck that. Did you ever promise to marry him? Your parents--your biological parents--made the arrangement before they died. Your foster parents knew when they accepted you into their home that this would be your future and treated you like shit because of it. The way I see it, you didn’t promise him anything. You don’t owe him a thing.”
“It doesn’t feel right,” I say, shaking my head but finding nowhere to look that doesn’t push the fire inside me toward the breaking point. He does have a point, I think, but I don’t know if that’s the heat between my legs talking or my good sense.
“Be with me now. Here. We can deal with this arrangement together. Your body is telling you what you want. Stop fighting it. You want this as much as I do.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. His words wash over me like sweet poison, carrying so much promise and yet so much deadly potential. Giving in to Roark now is what I want. I can’t trust myself to make the right decision, not while my nose is filled with the pure masculine scent of his skin and the heat of his breath, but my body is sending a very clear message. Kiss him. Let him take you. Be his.
Punished by the Prince Page 7