His hand latched around my throat and he pulled me to my feet as easily as I wouldplucka dandelion from a field.
The moment his fingers touched my skin, the stained glass maze of my emotions shattered into endless fragments, jagged slivers drawing blood as I frantically tried to piece it back together.
I’d thought to see death in his eyes. A merciless death, a brutal death, a painstakingly chronicled in the family book of leave-the-Old-Ones-the-fuck-alone death.
I saw death.
But not the cessation of breath and body—at least not mine. No. . .my lifepath in that moment changed irrevocably.
Aerinne died and rose as Aerinne, of the Prince.
It made about as much sense as my shattered soul.
“Aerinne.”
That single word, accompanied by the claim of his fingers on my skin. The barely perceptible caress of the pad of his thumb in the hollow of my throat, as if he were tasting my trainwrecked pulse.
“Nyawira.”
Howdid he know my middle name? The one only my father used?
He savored my names and suddenly the hand around my throat was not a cage but a cradle. A promise of benevolent ownership, of velvet covered chains and silk sheets, of lounging in his lap while he sat on his throne, and who was I not to sink to my knees in submission?
What?No.
“Prince,” I said again, impotent fury and accusation over Maman'smurderand Danon's imprisonment bleeding in my voice.
On the heels of that I denied guilt. I would not loathe myself for Embry.
“You know my face,” he said, and released me.
How could Inotknow his face? It was on my Goals dart board.
Slowly, lingeringly, his gaze fixed where our skins met, tasting of yearning as if he hadwaited, wanted, denied himself even now.
I staggered, rejecting everything,clutching my head, and an invisible breeze kept me upright until the ground steadied under my feet.
I straightened, unbending my hunched form with the gingerness of an old woman.
“Lady Aerinne Capulette. It seems I have arrived just in time to preserve your life.” The barely perceptible mockery, delivered with no hint of emotion, infuriated me. But Isensed.“You are indebted to me.”
I. Would. Rather. Die.
I clung to that emotion, rather than the others his eyes dredged from the depths of my soul.
He must have recognized my expression. Thunderstorms darkened his, his hair lifting in static breeze, and I braced for a strike.
“Not today,” he said.
“It's a good day to die.” My grin was savage, cut with every level of pain.
The Prince surveyed my face, pausing briefly on my bitten lip. “The dead offer limited use or amusement, little halfling.” A subtlethreat. All warriors knewdeathwas peace and life unendurable anguish.
“I'm not afraid of dying. Or of you.” I'd rather he killed me quickly than keep me alive to play with.
“You lack imagination.” Old affection in his voice, shuttered behind the glacier fortress of his self-control. “Not intelligence, though one wonders, considering the state of your House.”
I sucked in a breath at his gall, my rage igniting. Hedared.And my tenuous control snapped. ”If you don'tkillme now, I Vowyourstate will be death.”
