by Bec McMaster
His smile is swift and makes my heart pound just a little. “You couldn’t make me regret them if you tried your best.”
“Challenge. Accepted.”
The Hallow looms ahead of us.
Thirteen ancient standing stones stood on the moor, carved with bronze glyphs in the old language. Each stone is perfectly smooth and polished, gleaming pale in the moonlight. There are twenty-three Hallows in the Seelie lands, used for centuries as portals. They stand where ley lines intersect, a nexus point for the power that bands the earth. Only sixteen of them remain in use. The others were destroyed or altered during the wars, and while the stones still stand in those ruined Hallows, the fae who used them vanished forever. Now nobody dares.
Each step brings the Hallow closer. I can feel the power within the circle vibrating over my skin. They’ll use that power to open a portal and travel to the prince’s lands.
But where?
The city of Ceres, on the bay? Or Valerian, the ancient City of the Dead that was half destroyed during the Unseelie Wars all those years ago?
“Where are you taking me?” I demand.
“Home,” he replies.
“Gather in close!” Eris bellows, gesturing the rest of the prince’s retinue through the lintel stones.
Twenty-four guards and retainers—which was the strict number allowed to attend from each court—make for close quarters. Thankfully, I’m somewhere near the edge, though Eris grabbed a handful of my horse’s bridle as if she feared I’d bolt at the last second.
“Tempting,” I mutter for her ears only.
Her smile could cut glass. “Time it incorrectly and the Hallow will slice you in two. It would be a shame to get blood all over my boots.”
Thiago cuts his finger and paints blood across one of the granite faces.
Power throbs through the stones, lighting up all the glyphs. They’re written in the Old Tongue, power words that were transcribed by mortal ear directly from the Old Ones. His voice lifts as he slowly intones the words that will channel that power directly through the Hallow.
Each stone lights up.
“Ready?” Thiago asks.
A flash of silver glints in the night to my right.
I react purely on instinct, shoving the prince aside as the knife bound for his back drives directly toward me. I snap my palm into the chin of the assailant, feeling something bump my arm. A face glares at me from inside the cowl of its hood, and I grab the assassin’s hand, twisting it to try and force him to drop the knife—
And then my blood turns to acid.
A scream tears loose.
The assassin punches me in the cheek, then vanishes in a whirl of smoke, but I’m barely aware of it.
I stagger back, slapping a hand to my arm. Blood wells between my fingers, a slash I barely felt until it was too late. My vision blanches as the pain nearly drives me to the ground.
“After him!” Thiago bellows, catching me as my knees give out.
The prince’s retinue fan out, hunting the assailant, but he’s gone, vanishing into the trees that surround the Hallow.
I can barely breathe. Barely see.
The whole world is spinning, and it isn’t because of the portal. The magic within it is powering down, losing focus as the prince’s half-formed spell begins to dissolve.
Thiago picks up the knife, his face savage. “Do you trust me?”
Somehow, I laugh through chattering teeth. “Not even an inch.”
“Then trust this: if anything happens to you while you belong to me, your mother has cause to demand my head. Hold out your arm.”
I have no choice.
He takes my wrist, and I nearly scream again as the simple touch ignites new agony. Black veins crawl up the skin of my forearm, twisting like poisonous brambles hunting for my heart.
Every fae alive knows what that means.
A Deathbound Blade.
“Unfortunately… for you,” I pant, “I think you’re… going to lose your… head after all.”
All these years, scrambling to stay alive in my mother’s court, and it comes to this. A tiny little scratch. An act of mercy, my instincts urging me to react before I’d even had a chance to realize what was happening to me.
My old swordmaster would be impressed with my reaction time.
Unluckily for me, I’m going to end up just as dead as if I hadn’t seen the knife coming. There’s no means to cure the curse attached to a Deathbound Blade. More dangerous than any poison, the curse will eat my heart alive from the inside out.
And I’ll feel every excruciating moment of it.
Someone wanted the prince to suffer.
“How little faith you have in me,” the prince murmurs. “Hold still, Princess. This will hurt.”
Heat flares from his palm.
The pain wells. I scream again, throwing back my head. It incinerates me from within, my blood boiling as if it’s pure acid. Some fae know how to heal, but this isn’t healing. He’s using his magic to destroy the curse that creeps through my body.
Then it’s over.
I come to in the prince’s arms, my head slumped against his chest. A warm palm splays across my back, rubbing soothing circles.
“You’re safe,” he promises.
I hold out my trembling hands. The black veins are vanishing before my eyes. The pain subsides to a dull roar.
I think I’m going to be sick. “All over your boots,” I think I say. I’m not sure. The world is spinning again.
“Get that portal activated!” the prince bellows. His voice lowers, just for me. “I’ll forgive you my boots. Just this once.”
I blink blearily against his chest. Everything hurts. My brain throbs, and my eyes ache as if I haven’t slept in two weeks.
Several fae start chanting, and the stones light up again.
The magic rushes through me like a million ants skittering over my skin. Then the prince is staggering forward through the gush of light and power, his boots finding solid ground on the other side.
When the light finally dies, I manage to lift my head from his shoulder. We stand in a second Hallow, the stones cold and gray and lifeless again, as if the magic has been sucked from them. They’ll need at least an hour to recharge, but for now, nobody will be able to follow us.
“It’s clear,” a hard voice says, and apparently, we’re still in my nightmares, for it’s Eris. She keeps a hand on her sword as she sweeps the circle of stones until she’s satisfied. The others must have stayed behind to find the assassin.
Beyond the stones stretches a labyrinthine city—or the ruins of one. We’re on a hill in the direct center, where an ancient palace still stands, draped in snowy skirts.
City of the Dead, it is.
They say Valerian was the jewel of the north once, and as I stare upwards, I see it. The palace takes my breath away. It’s carved completely of white marble that gleams beneath the soft wash of moonlight like alabaster—or bone. Graceful arches beckon and lithe bridges arch into nowhere, their ends sheared off.
It would have been beautiful when it was whole. A palace built to grace the near-constant night that exists so far north.
But the war with the Unseelie ravaged its soul and stole a piece of its heart. As my eyes see past its immediate beauty, I notice the blank holes where windows once stood. They look like soulless pits watching the night. Thorns of the night-blooming Sorrow plant grow up its towers, but no blooms open to the moon.
“There’s no one here except my servants,” the prince murmurs, as if he’s realized where I’m looking. “We’ll be alone. It’s safe.”
Alone.
With the enemy.
“I see.” I don’t consider that safe at all. “And do I get my own rooms, or a tower cell?”
“We could just throw you off the top,” Eris mutters under her breath.
“Considering she just saved my life, I consider that rather ungracious,” the prince replies, shooting her a sharp look.
“I c
an stand,” I tell him, pushing at his restraining arm.
His arms tighten around me. “You can also fall flat on your face, but let’s not take the chance. Eris, make sure our way is clear.”
She shoots me an expressionless glance, then strides down the hill, her hips swinging and her hand never leaving the hilt of her sword. “As you wish, my prince.”
And then the bastard carries me all the way to the ruins of the palace.
6
The prince eases both doors to his bedchamber shut and leans against them with a sleepy look in his eyes. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I just took a knife for you,” I point out, wobbling a little, though I’ll be damned if I show it. Surviving my mother’s court gives me a good grounding to face him like this. It doesn’t matter how much blood you’ve lost, you don’t dare faint in front of my mother or her people.
Especially not when I’m standing in front of the monstrous bed he just set me down in front of.
“And I’m grateful, but shouting a warning would have been just as effective.” His eyes hood, and thankfully he stays by the doors.
“I’ll consider that next time.” Along with simply standing aside and letting the assassin complete their task.
An enormous thronelike chair reclines by the fireplace, and thick, woven rugs are scattered across the stone floors. Everything’s been made on a scale to both impress and threaten, though there’s a sense of luxuriousness I hadn’t expected. Silk sheets on the bed. Luscious velvet throws in a dark mulberry color. The silvery ruff of fur just begging me to lie upon it.
A pair of sconces linger by the bed, and a sheer curtain is tied to the wall. Thiago moves to light the candles in the sconces, becoming little more than a shadow behind the gauze, his cloak flaring behind him like a pair of wings. I shiver, wrapping my arms around myself as I examine every inch of the room.
That bed is big enough for ten.
Unfortunately, there’s no sign of another.
“Not what you expected?” The prince blows out the taper he used to light the candles, and a ring of smoke curls toward the ceiling. He watches me through it.
It’s exactly what I expected.
One bed.
The two of us.
“Where are all the skulls?” I joke, instead. “The bodies of your vanquished enemies?”
“Under the bed,” he purrs. “Care to take a closer look?”
There it is. The suggestion we’ve both been dancing around. “And if I don’t care to?” I turn around, steeling my spine. The treaty only requires that I spend the three months in his court. Not that I serve as concubine.
The prince shrugs, slipping the cloak free of his shoulders. It pools around his ankles like a swathe of pure night, then he crosses to the decanter to pour two goblets of wine. “Your loss, Your Highness.”
My loss?
I stare into the wine he gives me. “Let us establish some rules.”
The prince sinks into his thronelike chair, rubbing forefinger and thumb thoughtfully over the base of his goblet. “Rules, Princess?” A wicked smile crosses his mouth. “I don’t play by the rules.”
I ignore him. “What do you want of me?”
It catches him by surprise. “What do you mean?”
I’ve spent years playing word games in my mother’s court. “Come now. Let’s not pretend you made this request because you’re interested in the pleasure of my company—”
“You might be surprised.”
“You want something from me. What?”
“What would you give?”
Nothing. But without anything to offer, I have little to bargain with. “A kiss.”
His eyes darken as he considers his wine. “A high price to pay.” Draining the goblet, he leans forward. “Once a day.”
Once a week would be preferable—or never—but I nod slowly. “Once a day.”
“And given freely.”
“If you keep your hands off me.”
“A kiss once a day, for the next three months. No more, no less, unless you initiate it.” He repeats it twice more. “Spoken thrice, my oath upon it.”
“My oath upon it,” I agree, and feel the magic bind us together. The oath tingles along my skin before slowly evaporating. “And if thus broken, let the bearer’s ass erupt in boils. Painful boils.”
That steals a startled smile from him. He has no need to agree to my additional terms—the oath is spoken. But he does. “So shall it be.” Then he laughs. “Hoping I’ll break it?”
“That wouldn’t be very kind of me, would it?”
“I do like a challenge. Getting you into bed will be deliciously satisfying, all the more so, when you come willingly.”
He’s got to be joking. “You think I would invite you into my bed?”
Another dangerous smile. “Stranger things have happened.”
“You’d have better luck with my mother.”
Instant erection killer.
His smile dies. “That’s disgusting.”
“My mother is beautiful,” I point out, relishing the look on his face. Oh, he doesn’t like this thought at all. “They say she’s insatiable too. And adventurous.”
“Please, Princess,” he mocks. “Have mercy. No more talk of your mother and her bed. Leaving me for the assassin would have been kinder.”
On that we agree.
I cross the bedchamber, avoiding the bed. “So… if you’re not intending to take what isn’t offered… where shall I sleep?”
He gestures toward the bed. “Right there.”
The bed looms, the demi-fey carved into its massive headboard practically leering at me. “But you promised. You swore an oath.”
“Did you think these chambers were mine?”
There’s a distinct masculine aura to the room. And I assumed they belonged to him.
He watches me with amused eyes. “My chambers are down the hall. Unless you want to share the bed? Platonically, of course.”
“I snore like a drunk troll. You wouldn’t want to risk your hearing.”
The prince smiles again, reaching inside his shirt pocket for something. “You don’t snore.”
“Oh? How would you know?”
He leans back in his chair. “Because I can read you like a book, Princess. You’re a little nervous right now, which makes you bluster and speak a little faster than usual. It’s endearing.”
Endearing.
I want to murder him for the thought, but my hands wouldn’t fit around that thick, muscular throat.
“I’m an Asturian princess,” I say in a frosty voice. “You can pretend to flirt, but I’m not falling for it, Your Highness. We are enemies—"
“We don’t have to be,” he says, in a smoky, sultry voice that could tempt a priestess of Maia.
“Unfortunately, that was written in the stars.”
“A prince makes his own destiny. And this war is between your mother and me. Not us.”
“I’m my mother’s daughter.”
“I’ll try to forgive you for that, if you can forget the fact I’m despicably handsome.”
I growl under my breath. He’s next to impossible. “I’m tired and I want to go to bed. Alone.”
“Come here.”
“It’s been a long day,” I protest.
“Ah, an Asturian queen to her fingertips. You think to renege on your deal so swiftly. Should I be surprised?”
“That you demand so much, so soon, doesn’t surprise me at all.” My eyes narrow. “One kiss.”
He hasn’t specified where, or how passionate it has to be. I can get through this and keep my dignity, and he’ll be forced by his own words to honor the pact and keep his hands off me.
“One kiss,” he repeats.
Fine. If he wants his kiss, then I’ll give it, but I’ll make him regret it.
Letting the borrowed cloak fall from my shoulders, I saunter toward him.
The prince reclines in his chair, watching me with those darkly amused
eyes. His shirt’s unbuttoned halfway down his chest, and the only sign he feels anything is the way he swallows before his gaze dips down the length of my body.
I suffer a moment’s hesitation.
This is the enemy.
But this is also the price I’ll pay to keep myself safe.
I rest a hand against his chest, leaning down to brush my lips perfunctorily against his.
Soft lips brush against mine, but he doesn’t lean into the touch. I can feel the tension in him, his hands curling around the arms of his chair as if he’s fighting to restrain them. It’s a heady feeling, knowing that in this moment, I hold all the power. He cannot reach for me. He cannot touch me. Not without permission.
I own him in this moment, and the thrill is a dangerously beckoning lure.
He tilts his face to mine, breath whispering over my lips. I can taste the wine, the heat of him, the barely caged desire….
It’s the faintest of caresses, barely a kiss, and we both know it. And yet it holds a taste of the forbidden, a reckless, pinwheeling sensation that feels like I’m skating on ice without knowing how thin it is….
He captures my wrist, and our eyes meet, breaths mixing as I’m forced to hover over him. It gives me the ability to start thinking again.
“If you don’t want to sit for a week, then please, continue. I won’t mind at all.” I can feel his touch like a manacle.
His thumb brushes against the inside of my wrist, and I swallow.
Hard.
“Unless you initiate it,” he points out, and that’s when I realize my own hand is curled in his shirt, thumb brushing small circles over his chest.
All it would take would be for him to pull me down into his lap, and then I’d be at his mercy. It’s a heady feeling, knowing how much power I could wield with a simple “yes” or “no.”
And it is a no.
It has to be.
“You have your kiss.”
Thiago releases me, smiling slightly. “Is that what you call it in your mother’s court? Oh, Princess…. What I could teach you about kissing….”
Heart racing, I immediately set a few feet of distance between us. I have little doubt he could. Say what they like about his kingdom and people, they didn’t call him the Master of Dreams for no reason.