Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Marble statues of faeries and other creatures in erotic repose are arranged in a single line down the center of the library. As I pass two human women engaged in frozen congress, one stone hand lazily reaches for me. I gasp and jump back, and the statue, looking disappointed, returns to its original position.
“You can join them,” Kathras says from somewhere nearby. “Any of them at all. There’s a centaur further down who particularly enjoys—”
“No, thank you, Your Highness,” I say, turning around to find him.
He’s reclined on a chaise that’s floating near the second level, a book in his hand.
“Are we alone?” I ask, wondering if that’s the meaning for his cold reception and demeanor. The Kathras I was with in the faery baths would not have spoken so crudely to me. It must be a facade.
The chaise slowly lowers, and he puts his book down with a sigh of annoyance. “We are never alone. But no, there is no one in this room.”
I assume he’s cautioning me about how I use my words now. I need just one. “Why?”
“I told you. I keep my promises,” he says with a shrug. “Is that all?”
It is, but I’m wounded at this change in him. While I know we can’t be as open with each other as we were in the privacy of the baths, and while I know what passed between us can never be again, his quick dismissal wounds me.
“How can you be so callous?” I ask, forgetting to mind my tongue. “After last night? And now this? How can you treat me as if I’m a nuisance?”
He rises and advances on me, backing me into the stone arms of a statue, which hold me fast. I cannot fight stone, so I don’t try. I also don’t wish to give Kathras the satisfaction of my fear. He should have had his fill of it in the maze.
“You forget yourself, human. You’re speaking to a prince.” He stands too close, looms his incredible height over me to stare into my eyes. “I will forgive this slight once.”
“And then what, Your Highness?” I ask and curse my temper. I’m trying to seduce his father and his brother to steal the throne that rightfully belongs to Kathras. I know that his death is a part of Luthian’s plan, and yet I didn’t say a word of it to him. I could now, and still I do not, bound to my agreement and what I am beginning to view as my only true purpose.
My only true purpose involves Kathras’s death.
And I have the gall to demand, what? Affection?
“I have more than proven my loyalty to you,” he snarls. “And my feelings.”
“Feelings that you now deny.” It isn’t as if he can declare love for me openly. He might not even feel it. Kindness in a time of sorrow doesn’t require romantic passion.
Slaying a monster does.
“You know I must deny them,” he says, but he leans closer to me, his gaze falling to my mouth. “A word of advice, Cenere. It’s easier to not have those feelings if they can’t be acted upon.”
I laugh in bitter derision. “It must be nice to have such control over yourself. Such mastery of your feelings that you can so easily let your guard down for a vulnerable woman in a precarious moment!”
“Are you accusing me of taking advantage of you?” I note the way Kathras’s demeanor changes from dismissal to rising anger. “If you hate it here so much, why not leave? You said yourself that your only purpose was your revenge, and now it’s been taken from you. There’s nothing left for you here. So, go.”
“I…”
He wants me to leave. But I remember the look on his face when he found me in the cave. Though he may claim to have purged his feelings, what I had with him in the faery baths is not something so easily put out of mind. Not even for a faery. Not even for a son of Arcus.
“I made a bargain,” I admit.
“Any bargain you’ve made with my father will only be to his benefit. Break it now and flee.” He flicks his gaze toward the library doors nervously, then back to me. “I can have you far from here by nightfall.”
“It isn’t a bargain with your father,” I say softly. “It was a bargain with Luthian.”
In the cavern, I described Luthian as a kindly guardian who agreed to train me, with no mention of the deal I struck. I can’t reveal it now, either; how can I tell Kathras that I’m a willing participant in a plan that will lead to his death?
A death which I cannot allow. Not anymore. But if I leave court, as Kathras suggests, I won’t be here to stop Luthian.
“A bargain. With Luthian.” Kathras repeats, his tone cold enough to frost the windows if he willed it.