Chapter 37 #8
She headed away with Kahn and he laid an arm around her waist possessively as they disappeared through the balcony doors.
The fact he had touched her so informally set my pulse racing and violence coursing along the inside of my flesh.
I had half a mind to go out there after her and had I still been a guard, I would have been on her heels this very instant.
I looked to the guards standing watch at the end of the room, their expressions vacant.
“Fucking useless,” I growled.
Captain Hariot looked my way, his cheeks rosy from the wine he'd drunk. “What’s that?”
I sighed, turning my attention to him to try and get my mind off the knowledge that Kahn now had Austyn in his grasp.
“Nothing,” I said, slapping a Drake-worthy grin on my face and he smiled dreamily back at me.
“You really are something, aren’t you?” He lowered his tone and his gaze rolled down onto my body then back to my face, leaving me feeling like his eyes were looking beneath my clothes somehow.
“How do you rate your chances against Magdor's boy?” He slung an arm over Kahn's chair between us, leaning closer.
“I have more chance than you,” I said with a taunting look.
“We'll see about that,” Hariot said, wetting his lips as his gaze slipped to my mouth then back up again.
“Perhaps we can talk more on this later? Kahn has invited me to the Frog Spawn Tavern after the formalities are done. He has some friends who are already getting the party started for us. Warming up the entertainment if you will.” He waggled his eyebrows at me suggestively and I frowned.
“The entertainment?”
“Whores of course,” he whispered low so the maids couldn’t hear, leaning closer so his wine-tainted breath washed over me.
“The finest in the land. They will do anything for a gold coin or two. You can be whoever you want to be in this tavern apparently. There is utmost confidentiality within its walls, it will all be very subtle.” He tapped his nose then slicked his tongue over his lips again.
“So any little fantasies you have can be explored safely there.” His hand moved onto my shoulder, squeezing then starting to massage.
“Take your hand off of me,” I warned through my smile.
He retracted it, chuckling softly as he retreated into his seat. “You seem far more uptight than you were earlier, Count Nazari. I would have thought a man like you would be familiar with the pleasures of such…entertainment.”
I swallowed back the retort in my throat, knowing I had to play the part of Drake more convincingly, and right now I was giving the game away.
I cleared my throat, settling back in my seat in a more relaxed pose as I forced my muscles to lose some of their tension.
“Of course I am. But I doubt the entertainment Osaria provides at a price could even come close to what I am used to getting back in Carubai for free.”
“Do tell me more,” Hariot urged eagerly as I took a sip of wine. “I have travelled port to port, and I doubt there is much you have done that would surprise me. I am a well experienced man; I am sure I could teach you a thing or two about the pleasure that can be bought on faraway shores.”
“I do not need to buy the company of women. If anything, they would pay good coin to have a night with me.” I smirked like an arsehole.
“Mm, I believe that,” he purred.
Austyn returned, her jaw ticking with annoyance as she marched back into the room and Kahn floated after her with a wide smile on his face. I twirled the knife in my grip, watching them and wondering exactly what had gotten him looking so pleased with himself.
Hariot leapt to his feet like a jack-in-the-box. “I'll accompany you next.”
He shot to Austyn's side and bowed low, opening an arm in a gesture for her to turn around. She pursed her lips before twisting around and marching back outside again, leaving him galloping after her hastily.
I could feel the frustration flowing from her and wondered if I should pass up the opportunity to talk with her outside. What would I say anyway? I was going to fuck this whole thing up if I didn't act enough like Drake.
Kahn dropped into his seat with a smug grin, and I glowered, unable to stop my feelings towards him spilling into my expression.
“So, you got a new face, I hear,” I said lightly, placing down the knife that was locked in my hand.
Kahn turned to me with a cocky smile. “Yes. Now Mother says I am more than a match for you on every level.”
“Is that so? Well at least Austyn has no memory of me looking like a potato.”
His face turned a nasty shade of purple. “How would you know what I looked like before?” he growled, and the air went out of my lungs.
Fuck.
I needed to recover fast. “It’s all the servants talk about.” I shrugged one shoulder, swirling my chalice as the crimson wine sloshed inside it.
Kahn’s face went from purple to red and I wasn’t sure what was worse. An angry vein bulged in his forehead, so I suspected red was the danger level.
The princess returned to the room before he could reach boiling point and I frowned as I noted the scowl on her face. It was clear she hated this whole thing, and I wasn’t at all surprised.
Hariot bowed low, bidding the princess goodnight as he pressed a wet kiss to the back of her hand. I could practically hear the sucking sound as he tugged his lips off of her skin and my shoulders stiffened.
“Get your filthy, unwashed mouth away from her,” I snarled, suddenly on my feet before I’d even realised I was moving.
Hariot bolted upright, looking to me in shock along with everyone else in the room.
I cleared my throat as Austyn wiped her hand down the side of her dress, looking to me with parted lips.
“I beg your pardon?” Hariot gasped, fucking flabbergasted by my rudeness.
I was consumed by a hot, thundering rage that had me stalking towards him and the princess at a fierce pace. I couldn’t control it now that it was unleashed, and I didn’t want to either.
“He has kept me waiting long enough for a moment with you, princess. Are you going to keep me in suspense any longer?” I asked, knocking Hariot aside and firmly placing myself between them, needing to increase that distance as soon as possible.
And there was one clear way to do that. I was owed time with her on the balcony, and I was going to claim it now to get her away from that uncouth boar, even if it would put me at risk of her noticing the difference in the man she thought was accompanying her.
“You cannot speak to me so crudely,” Hariot hissed, taking hold of my arm.
I yanked my arm free of his grip and slapped him on the cheek in that patronising way Drake always did. “I can do what I like, Captain. Now off to bed with you. Or to your whores. I don’t care which so long as you are out of my sight.”
“How dare you?” Hariot gasped. “I do not bed whores!” His eyes whipped beyond me in the direction of the princess. “Do you hear these lies he is trying to spread about me? How he tries to besmirch my name, My Lady?”
She didn’t answer and I glanced back to find her walking out onto the balcony, completely dismissing us both. I followed her, ignoring Hariot as he called after me, cursing my name. But the name didn’t belong to me anyway, so hell if I cared what he had to say about it.
I heard the maids whispering excitedly to each other before I stepped outside through a curtain of white silk and found Austyn standing there with her back to me, gazing out across the palace gardens.
My eyes travelled over the gold material hugging her curves and pooling around her feet on the tiled floor.
Although I couldn’t see her expression, I sensed she was weary of this interaction already, probably dreaming of returning to the privacy of her rooms far away from any of the men who were trying to win her in this twisted game.
“My apologies,” I said in a low voice.
“For what?” she laughed humourlessly. “For outing Hariot’s escapades? I may not have seen much of life beyond these walls, but I am not a fool. I know that every man in this pageant will have whichever woman he likes even if he is to marry me.”
“Not every man,” I vowed, though could I really do so on Drake’s behalf? I would certainly castrate him myself if he planned on bedding other women whilst courting the princess, so I supposed I could guarantee it for now.
She clucked her tongue, glancing back at me and the way the moonlight lit her eyes made my heart stall in my chest. She looked like a magnificent goddess come to rain her fury down upon my flesh, and by the Fallen I would have welcomed it.
“Do not lie to me, Count Nazari,” she warned. “Do not paint me as a fool in your mind, it will be the most dangerous thing you ever do.”
“I am not lying,” I swore.
She frowned at me then turned back to face the view, her head tilting as she gazed up at the glittering stars as if wishing upon every one of them that this night would end.
I could still hear Hariot ranting back in the hall, so as much as I didn’t want to keep her here longer than she desired, I also wasn’t going to allow her near that cunt again tonight.
The silence stretched and I forgot all about trying to be like Drake, falling into the stronger instinct I had which urged me to try and soothe that pain I saw in her.
“I know you hate this,” I said quietly, and she glanced back at me, her brow creasing then quickly smoothing out. “You don't have to pretend.”
Who would want to be bought and sold? My mother had lamented about the poor princess in her castle, forced to be a waiting womb to house a true heir.
A boy. It enraged me that Austyn was so overlooked.
This here was the true Lunarelle heir, the one who should be ruling the empire and bringing some good to this land.
“Excuse me?” she breathed, suspicion etched into her features.
“The pageant,” I said. “You despise it.”