Baba indicated the seat on the right of the Prince. I followed the movement, uncomprehending until I glimpsed a place card with my name in gold lettering.
I stared. What?
“Aerinne, please be seated,” my father said.
Renaud moved behind that damnable chair. “My Lady?” His gaze dared me to refuse.
I narrowed my eyes, taking his dare and raising it. As I opened my mouth, he lowered his head and the leviathan in his eyes snatched my protest and ate it whole, then goaded me to feed it some more.
I shut my mouth, rethinking the cost of losing this skirmish.
No murmur of conversation. Watching us was far more entertaining. If only they had popcorn.
“Aerinne?” My father smiled, unnecessarily jovial—his poker face.
I moved around the table, pausing in front of the chair, stifling a hiss as the bastard pulled it out for me. I swung my gaze to my father. This must be a trick. With High Fae,there was always a trick.
But I settled gingerly into the seat, and the Prince tucked it in, patting the back of my tense hand where it rested on the tablecloth.
I almost lunged at him.
The Prince patted myfuckinghand like one might a child or a pet.
He took his seat, surveying us like a conquerer his hoard, and signaled for the banquet to begin.
“What is this?” I asked, gripping my armrests. Idle hands and all that.
“This is dinner,”Renaudsaid. He leaned back in his chair, resting his hand next to his plate. The hand closest to me.
“I can promise you that flippancy will get you nothing from me. So by all means, continue as you are.”
The hand curled, then relaxed. “Forgive my levity. I sought to ease your tension.”
This casually authoritative male had smashed us into submission with a mere flick of power mere weeks ago.
Pulled two wyverns from the sky with the irritation of a parent chiding a reckless toddler.
Only an hour past his lust scorched me, his fight not to rut me against my will—to an audience.
And he was concerned about my nerves? “Why?”
He turned his head, expression impenetrable. Who was the real Renaud? The lethal warrior, the urbane Prince, the smoldering lover, or this glacial, untouchable High Lord?
Then there was the other, the one I’d seen only hints of. A monster in the deep, a creature of shadowy wings and maelstrom eyes.Old One,every instinct in me whispered.Flee.
He is not the one to fear.
“Why sit me next to you? Why make jokes? I don’t think either of us is in the mood for them.”
An invisible rope stretched between us, my demand for answers versus his palpable reluctance to give them to me.
“Why not simply accept your place? My desire to. . .amuse you. Why think about it?” He smiled, brief and thin, as if to say why start thinking now?
Prick.
“Because my place is where I decide. You haven’t given me the impression that for all your plans, you’re taking what I want into consideration.”
“What,” the word was chipped from a block of stone, “makes you imagine I care what you want?”
