“I'll tell him no.”
“You aren't listening. We are not human, Aerinne. We don't subscribe to human sensibilities.”
Renaud hasn’t looked away. A High Lord is denied nothing; asking permission is a pretty ruse to placate their prey. A ruse abandoned as soon as it proves fruitless.
“If you have doubts,” my father says, “we can turn back.”
He’s human. He can lie, even to himself. But I appreciate the sentiment.
I exhale. “My doubts are centered mainly around his sanity. You can't end a five-hundred-year feud—” ostensibly the purpose of this farce “—you mostly slept through, with dancing and wine.”
“Lots of wine,” Juliette mutters behind me. “If we're lucky.” My cousin guards my back as always, her tension akin to kitten claws clawing up my spine.
“Your job is to keep Aerinne and Lord Étienne alive,” Numair says, “not drink.”
I am of far more use than these children you call guards,Darkan says.There was no need to bring them, especially not the boy.
When will you stop calling Numair “the boy?”
When he is fit to protect you. If he survives until then.
A hush falls over the Courts as we walk up the flowered forest path where the Prince waits on the first step of a sweeping staircase. Courtiers drift to either side of the uneven white stone pathway. Their heady fragrance fails to hide the Faes’ toxic psychic scents. Malice, lust, amusement mingled with disdain and curiosity.
“Vultures.” The word slips out of my mouth.
“Manners,” Baba says without moving his lips.
“Tell them to stop fucking staring.”
“One hour of good behavior, little thorn, then I’ll release the baby kraken.”
“Aerinne.”
Fine, I silently tell them both.
“Lord Étienne, Regent of House Faronne,” an orderly drones once we’re halfway down the path.
Behind the Prince shadows shift with an impression of great black wings.
“If you tell him no after he has descended past mere heat into a rut, he will come for you. Your family loves you, and your House holds you in honor. They'll fight. Their deaths won't be pleasant.”
“Aerinne Kuthliele, Lady of House Faronne.”
The eye of a beast slowly opens, fixed on me as if to drag me these remaining inches across the threshold into his personal domain.
Renaud descends the step.
We’re locked in a stare; no one sane would hold his gaze likethis. He would not allow it. But sanity is subjective, and Old Ones, fickle.
The Prince lifts an arm, slowly, long fingers inches from the curve of my cheekbone. Cold emanates from his skin, when he'd been heat in the White Square. Cold, and power.
I breathe in both and it fills my throat, choking me, the animal side of my nature rising in response. The side that cares nothing for Court politics, the death of my family, honor.
It scents male, our male, andwants.
Almost, I jerk back, but freeze for one breath in terror—of myself.
I don’t want this.
