Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 152616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 610(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 610(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Those swirling irises settled on me. “You and I both know that’s not the case.”
“How would you know?” I crossed my arms. “Are you telling me that you can be so tuned in to a person that you can sense if they have a headache?”
“No.” His laugh was low and soft, sending a chill up my spine. “I simply don’t believe you.”
“Well, that’s rude.”
“The truth is never rude, only unwanted.” His grin spread into a hint of a shadowy smile, causing the irritation to prick away at my skin. “You look like you wish to throw that whiskey bottle at me next.”
“That would be a waste of fine liquor,” I retorted.
“And much harder to claim it only slipped from your fingers.” He’d come closer in that silent way of his. “We have an arrangement. Are you going to honor it?”
“No.” I lifted my chin. “Because there is no arrangement for me to honor.”
“Figured.”
I stepped back an inch. That was as far as I made it. Prince Thorne was on me before I could take another breath. One of his arms went around my waist as he bent, and a second later I was hoisted up, onto his shoulder. For a moment, I was so shocked I could do nothing as I dangled there, my hair streaming over my face and the woodsy scent of his overwhelming me.
Then he turned.
“Oh, my gods,” I shrieked, grabbing a fistful of his tunic. “Put me down!”
“I would, but I have a feeling you’re going to want to argue.” Prince Thorne strode into the bedchamber, passing the bed. “And I prefer to do that while I’m close to the bed I plan to sleep in.”
“You can’t do this!” Fury erupted, erasing all common sense. I pounded my fists against his back, kicking my legs— completely forgetting what I was hitting. “Put me— ” I hissed as pain radiated across my balled fists and up my arms. “Fuck.”
“You should stop,” he said, amusement clear in his tone. “I really don’t want you to break your hands. We may have need of them later.”
“Oh my gods.” My eyes widened as the chamber door swung open. He was truly going to carry me to his quarters? He was out of his mind. “You can put me down.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“You don’t trust me?” I sputtered as my chamber doors closed behind us. “You’re going to make a scene.”
“It’s not me who is making a scene.” Prince Thorne’s head turned, his chin grazing my hip. “It is your shrieking that will wake anyone who has gone to bed and alarm those who have not yet done so.”
“I’m not shrieking!” I, well, shrieked. “I don’t prefer any of this.” I tried to lift myself off his shoulder, but his arm clamped down over my back. “This is ridiculous.”
“I know.”
Disbelief roared through me. “Then put me down or . . .”
“Or what?”
“I may vomit all over your back.”
Prince Thorne chuckled. “Please try not to do that, but if you do, it would be a good enough excuse for you to aid me in my bath.”
A growl of exasperation parted my lips as my gaze fell on the hilt of a short sword just above his right hip. I was lying across the sheathed blade. Once more, I was too angry to think about what I was doing. I lifted a hand, reaching for the hilt.
“I wouldn’t do that,” he warned.
I froze, fingers inches from the golden handle. Did he have eyes in the back of his head?
“Not unless you know how to wield it and plan to do so,” he tacked on.
“And if I did?”
“I would be rather impressed,” he remarked, and my brows shot up. “But I don’t imagine you have such knowledge.”
I could handle a dagger; Grady had taught me that much. But I knew a dagger and a sword were vastly different things, so I let out a frustrated, closed-mouth, and quiet scream as we passed through the darkened hallways.
“However, I also suspect that if you knew how to handle a sword, you wouldn’t hesitate to use it,” he surmised.
“You would be correct— ” I yelped as he bounced me. “That was highly unnecessary, Your Grace.”
“Thorne,” he corrected with a laugh. “I apologize. My shoulder . . . slipped.”
I saw red. “Oh, I’m sure it slipped, Thor.”
The Prince came to a complete stop. “I see I’m going to have to kill Bas.” He started walking again.
My lips parted as my already tumbling stomach dipped. “What?”
“He’s only half kidding,” another, whom I recognized as Lord Bastian himself, said. I lifted my head, catching only a glimpse of his chest and the opening doors of his quarters and the Lord who waited in the hall outside of them. “He’d miss me terribly if he killed me.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Prince Thorne warned.