Chapter 37 #5
“It is not.” My heart thrashed against my ribcage as I shook my head once more. “And I will not risk getting stuck looking like you forevermore.”
“There are far worse fates, Cass,” Drake said cockily, giving me that smouldering look of his which he always offered women.
I glowered back at him, proving I was unmoved by his peacocking.
“Of course, I’d probably have to kill you if you got stuck that way. There can’t be two of me, mate. I’m one of a kind.” He winked at Kyra and she laughed, batting a hand at him.
“Don’t worry, Cassius, I’m more likely to turn you inside out than get the magic right anyway.” She giggled at her own joke, and I stiffened as Drake approached me.
He slammed a hand down on my shoulder, meeting my gaze with a mixture of encouragement and threat in his dark gaze. “Don’t worry about it. It’ll be fine . Kyra will fix you up real nice, then you just need a few pointers from me. Simple.”
I scowled. “I don't need any such thing.”
“Oh yeah? Well, if you don't act like me they're going to figure out that something's up,” Drake pressed. “I’m charismatic, charming, unforgettable. These are not talents you possess. But you’re gonna have to figure it out sharpish.”
I released a low growl, unsure of any other way around this despite my reservations.
I was going to the royal feast to lie to my own rulers. I would be spending the night fooling them all, fooling the princess. I would no doubt be given time with her, to speak with her, court her –
My mind hooked on that last thought and my throat thickened while the devil in me awakened.
A night in the princess’s company where I didn’t have to stand guard, staring at a wall suddenly seemed like the most tantalising thing that had ever been offered to me in my life. And yet here I was refusing it.
Dressed in Drake’s flesh, I would be free to speak with her to my heart’s content, I would be able to get an inside look at the other competitor’s demeanours too.
“Come on, mate,” Drake begged.
“Yeah. Come on, mate,” Kyra echoed as she jumped to his side. “Please, please, please with apple pie on the side.”
“Fine,” I agreed at last, sealing my fate and anticipation trickled into my chest.
“You’d better do me justice. I want the princess drooling over me tomorrow.
Don’t go ruining my reputation with your manners or any of that bullshit,” Drake said, his eyes scraping down me accusingly.
“For fuck’s sake, you're too stiff. Loosen up, you arsehole. You’re going to make me look bad.
” He shook my shoulders and I tried to relax my rigid limbs, but so many years of servitude made it difficult.
He kept shaking me though until I’d changed my posture a little.
“Better,” he said brightly, slapping my cheek in that way that made me want to rip his throat out. But as we were on a tight time limit, I thought better of it and managed to restrain myself.
“You'll get the seat beside the princess, no matter what.” He shoved a finger in my face and I knocked it away.
“There will be a seating plan-”
“Fuck the seating plan up the arse with a cactus. You'll do this, Cassius. Because it's what I'd do,” Drake insisted. “You’ll sit beside her and you’ll tuck your chair in so that you end up good and close to her. I mean it. If there isn’t a thigh brush in your evening, then you will have failed. Do you understand me?”
I released a slow breath, realising it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. I was taking on Drake’s persona for a night, and the man had no care for rules or customs. That was the kind of freedom I had never indulged in, and it was all too tempting a gift to ignore.
“Fine,” I said tightly, not letting him see my shift in mood over this.
“Good. Kyra, let’s make Cassius look like me,” he said.
Kyra smiled as she turned my way. “Do you agree?”
I nodded, trepidation flowing through my chest as her power hit me.
My skin seemed to shiver and melt on my frame, my bones shifting and realigning into a new and unfamiliar posture as her magic ran over me, heating and cooling my skin simultaneously.
I braced in the expectation of pain, but it never came, and as the odd sensation fell away, I knew without needing to see a mirror that it had worked.
A dark lock of hair fell into my eyes and I pushed it back before gazing at my hands, examining the slight shift in skin tone, the tattoos peeking out from beneath my cuffs and crawling up the backs of my hands.
Drake stared at me with his lips parting as he took a step closer, cocking his head and inspecting me, his eyes alight with intrigue. “Wow, I knew I was something to look at, but seeing it like this is really eye-opening. I’m fucking gorgeous.”
I gave him a dry look. “Just get on with it.” I froze as I found my voice wasn't mine anymore. It was his.
Kyra fashioned an elaborate cream tunic onto my body with golden buttons running up the middle and the kind of embroidery that would have taken days to perfect.
The britches she created to match them were tighter than I'd normally wear, and I shifted uncertainly as I grew used to my new body within them.
“Right, so the rest of the bastards in the pageant think flashing their money and talking about how many horses they have will make the princess warm to them. But women don’t give a fuck about any of that,” Drake said.
“Especially not one who’s got a palace fit for the gods and already owns every trinket under the sun that she could ever wish for. ”
“Agreed. So perhaps she would be more enthralled by conversation about her interests and-” I started but Drake cut over me.
“Naaah, Cass.” He waved a hand in my face. “She’s a secret rebel. I’ve seen it for myself. She wants to play with fire and she might even wanna feel it burn, if you know what I’m saying.”
“Shall I give Cassius a lit torch? Maybe he could set the princess’s lovely silver hair on fire?” Kyra suggested.
“No, little goddess, it’s a metaphor,” Drake explained, and she scrunched up her nose as she tried to understand that.
“Like a flying lion?” she asked in confusion.
“That’s a manticore,” I said.
“Look, it ain’t important what a metaphor is,” Drake barrelled on. “Point is, you have to act like you don’t want the princess. Like you couldn’t give a fuck even though you do give a fuck, got it?”
“I’m not sure I understand,” I said with a frown, though I couldn’t help but want to try. Drake did seem to have a way with women that defied all logic and reason, and I certainly had never had any experience courting a woman for something meaningful.
Fuck, am I really taking advice from a thief?
“Look, I’ll be the princess and you be me. Act aloof when I talk to you. Be a bit of a prick sometimes too. Give her a compliment then take it away again. Go on, try it.” He fluttered his lashes at me, batting my chest. “Oh Drake, what big muscles you have. How handsome your smile is.”
I gazed coolly back at him and he shoved my arm.
“Do it,” he commanded and I huffed out a breath before trying to mimic his casual stance and his general air of owning the world. “Come on, be more aloof.”
“Stop saying aloof,” I hissed.
“Do it then, big man,” he demanded, shoving me once again and Kyra nodded encouragingly.
I cleared my throat, trying to take onboard what he had said and nodding stiffly at Drake as I pictured the princess in his place.
“Good evening. You look very beautiful tonight.”
Drake faked a girlish laugh and twirled a lock of imaginary hair around his finger. He was taking this too fucking far, but I didn’t have the time to reprimand him for it.
“Now take it back, sullen man,” Kyra whispered to me, her eyes wide as she watched.
“But I find most things beautiful. Including dirt. And….pig shit,” I said abruptly and Drake stared at me before bursting out laughing.
“By the Fallen, you’re fucked,” he said as I scowled at him and his face fell as he realised that he was fucked too.
“How about I throttle you, bury you in the gardens and remain looking like you. Then I will act appropriately, and everyone will forget your previous behaviour while I win the pageant and leave Kahn bloody in my wake,” I suggested and Drake gasped, pointing at me.
“There,” he announced excitedly. “That’s it, mate. You just gave me the tingles right down to my balls. That dark, forbidding shit is your angle. Go with that. That’s more like me than your stick-up-the-arseness, so it’s better than nothing.”
“All this talk of sticks up things is making me hungry for some skewered potatoes. Is that still a thing people eat?” Kyra asked, then muttered under breath. “Wait…did people ever eat skewered potatoes?”
“I’ll skewer whatever you want me to, little goddess,” Drake said, giving her a look which was so far beyond inappropriate that I had half a mind to punish him for it. There was no chance I would be speaking to the princess like that.
“Oh,” Kyra replied, biting on her bottom lip and forcing me to clear my throat.
“Focus on why we are here,” I barked, and Drake snapped his head back to me again with a wry smile.
“Go with the menacing thing,” Drake pressed, clapping me on the arm. “Just try not to talk too much and for the love of the Fallen, don't embarrass me when you do talk to her.”
I pursed my lips. “I am a royal guard, I will not be an embarrassment.”
“That's the problem,” he huffed. “You’re too…restrained. All of your personality has been stripped outa you and tossed away. It isn’t coming back either, I can see that.
It died a long time ago, mate. There was a wake with people mourning and everything before your personality was cremated and cast to ash on the wind.
But at least try and pretend you have one. ”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, not liking that cutting assessment of me.