“My mother would never choose personal happiness over those she loves.”
He focuses on me. “No. You suffer from the same weakness. Itisa weakness, Aerinne. The selfless rarely survive long unless they are wise enough to walk at the side of a monster.”
“I’m the monster.” I speak with his ice, no pity in my tone. It’s only fact.
“Sweet halfling child.” His voice is rich with amusement. “I am the only monster in your life, and that side of me you have yet to fully encounter.”
The assembled are a blur, standing in a loose circle far enough from us that there’s a semblance of privacy as we speak. He whirls me at a pace to match the music, his grace effortless, his hands on my body certain. It's not a dance with choreographed steps; it's meant to be wild, a slow unleashing. He leads, my footsteps follows.
“Why did you not marry?” I hear myself ask. “She loved you.”
“She was meant as the sister of my soul, not the mate. Addajenari was not to be born for many thousands of years yet.”
It's a word I don't know, and I won't put myself out to ask. If he wanted me to know, he would have said it in Everennesse.
A different word swims to the front of my consciousness, one that explains my inexplicable, growing reaction to him. The opposite of the word Nora used for him.
Closing my eyes, knowing he has me, I see that beach, feel the heat of the sun on my skin and the waves lapping at my ankles. Her hair would have been brighter than the sand, her eyes in sunlight the color of the ocean. Her coloring took my father’s and paled it several shades, meeting somewhere in the middle in their only daughter.
A hand brushes my jaw, gently tilts my head up and I open my eyes to focus on the moonbeam of his gaze. No condemnation, no pity. Acceptance. A spark of desire beneath the cinderblocks of ice.
My heart rate steadies, my breath even, and I am once more Aerinne of Faronne, not a female having a panic attack in a male’s arms.
No, I’d looked into his eyes in the forest and knew Aerinne of Faronne was dead. It’s why I fear him as much as I hate him. As much as I pray to the Ancients I don’t want him.
Aerinne, of the Prince. He stares down at me, and does nothing to counter my understanding. Each word drives a nail into the coffin of his claim.
“Good,” he says. “Now, tell me of yourself, Lady Aerinne. I was not awake when you were born, and I would know my sister’s only daughter.”
“When I was fifteen I almost died when rogue—so Barry claims—elements in House Montague tried to assassinate me for the first time.”
He narrows his eyes, that acceptance now annoyance. Aw. . .does someone want to sweep all the gauche unpleasantness under the rug?
“. . .unfortunate.”
“That I survived? I suppose. If I was of your House.”
“Oh? Will you attempt to avenge Muriel, called Maryonne, tonight?”
His regard, the glint in his eyes, lures me to try my luck—and accept the consequences. But it isn't death in his gaze, at least not death that requires a grave.
“Why would I attempt to kill you in front of your White, Renaud?”
“Wise. They would cut you down a second before you tried, Aerinne. I would not need to lift my finger.”
I want to skin the faint amusement from his face and use it to decorate the dart board in my office where his picture used to be pinned.
“This is a farce.” The ball, the ceasefire. Everything. “I refuse to participate in this, any of this.” I ball my hands into fists and shove against his chest. “Let mego.”
And like that, his air of quiet shatters and he's once more the cruel, mercurial Prince.
“You begin to tire me and when patience expires, so to will this petty game of defiance I allow. The resistance I indulge, so you may retain some small sense of your own independence though it's an illusion built from ignorance and desperate,faulty pride—and because I prefer fire and talon in my lovers.” He lowers his head. “But not too much,Aerinne.”
Hands tighten their grip to the point of pain. A warrior's body shifts against mine and this silk dress is flimsier than a puff of air.
“But I understand your flailing—you never learned to swim, therefore pride is all you have. So I ask you this; whyshouldI let you go? Why, when I've gone to so many years of difficultyto claim what Icultivated and you are nowfinally in my hands.”
These last four words are spoken with the soft, precise emphasis of someone who understands they’ve dived off a deep end and are trying to pretend we all think they are still sane.
