THREE
I stroked the slightly raised scars on my inner ankle.
The ballroom had already filled to the point of overflowing, but I wasn’t worried about arriving late. Once again, I’d wholly intended to. The less time I spent in the presence of faeries, the better.
My father hadn’t been impressed when he’d found me sipping peppermint tea and reading earlier, nowhere near ready to join the arriving guests. He’d claimed these gatherings were just the thing to prepare me for my future.
I’d never told him the truth about the two-headed serpent.
It had taken a week, most of our journey home from Sparrow Hall, for the fever to break and the hallucinations to end. If I’d been entirely human, the bites might have killed me by the time we’d reached a healer. As it was, I remembered begging for death more vividly than anything else from the torturous journey.
I hadn’t told Bernadette either.
I hadn’t needed to. She’d noticed me touching the tiny scars more than once, and I’d surmised the soldiers she’d convinced Father to demote had confirmed what she’d pieced together. Concern had sweetened her scent and dulled her blue eyes in the days spent preparing for tonight’s ball.
Another celebration.
After years of bloodshed and destruction, the Unseelie had been overwhelmed and forced to retreat to their realm in The Bonelands. The goal now was to maintain the upper hand by keeping them there. I’d heard the whispers from behind my father’s study door.
Our unified strength would not be enough to stop the Unseelie forces from returning, so numerous witch covens were at work on a spell to confine them to The Bonelands.
Meanwhile, more souls perished as our armies continued to hold the ground they’d reclaimed—a victory Garran and my father were already celebrating.
Perhaps too soon.
I had no idea what the spell entailed, nor if such a thing was even possible, and I didn’t much care. I cared only about carving the prince’s pretty eyeballs from his obnoxiously evil head and stomping on them while he screamed.
Of course, I couldn’t get away with something so overt and grotesque. Research stated it took weeks for faerie organs to fully regenerate. But I would get away with something else.
Letting my skirts fall back over my ankle, I rose from the armchair and left the darkened sitting room.
Guards lined the hall outside. Their chins remained high although I felt some of their eyes as I intentionally tugged at my bodice.
The ballroom was a gaudy explosion of sky blue and gold.
Flowers heaved from the architraves. Golden goblets of bloodred wine dotted every table rapidly filling with treats and meats. Globs of wax already weighted silk streamers fluttering from the wrought-iron-and-gold chandeliers.
I half hoped one would catch fire. Then we would all be forced to vacate the ballroom, and I could do anything other than this. Something that did not involve faeries.
Alas, I had a cold dish to serve.
A familiar tune from the piano welcomed me, and I smiled as I knocked a loose curl from my cheek.
Bernadette’s husband, Royce, had been wary of me for some months after their wedding—the halfling little sister who stalked the halls in scheming and stewing silence. Over time, that wariness had turned into a dry humor I’d secretly grown to enjoy. He treated my sister like the queen she would one day become, so I didn’t much mind how he felt about me.
But I loved listening to him play the piano.
Guests surrounded Royce, yet his smile was only for my sister when he looked up from the keys. Bernie’s cheeks were rosy from rouge and happiness.
My father found me before I could join them and fracture their merry bubble.
“My Mildred.” His arms spread as he neared. He placed a kiss on my cheek, then embraced me. “You look lovely.”
Stepping back, I pressed my hand to his warm cheek.
Adorned in his preferred gold-and-black dress coat, his matching crown flattening his thinning gray-and-brown hair, he exuded unkempt authority. Although he’d ruined my life with this alliance, the thorns entangling my heart forever softened against my will.
Despite all he’d done to doom me, this king loved me.
Rejecting love when I’d had so little of it was nearly as impossible as accepting it. No matter how much it darkened with each passing year, my soul hungered for tastes of affection.
“That bodice is far too small.” Agatha, gowned in maroon fringed with golden lace, hooked her arm through my father’s. “You did something about that hair, at least.” Eyeing my bell-shaped gown, she sipped her wine. “We should have Jacqueline’s pay docked for the oversight.”
It was no oversight.
I’d merely matured too much for the queen’s liking. My breasts threatened to spill from the breath-snatching bindings, and my wide hips bruised more by the minute. It should have come as no shock, being that I’d surpassed sixteen years of age.
But I was not supposed to be appealing. In Agatha’s eyes, I was to remain nothing but a consequence of her husband’s failure, best tucked out of sight.
My father still had lovers, but when we were alone, he always reminded me that my mother, a faerie he’d had under his employ for many years, had been his true love. Listening to him talk about her used to fill me with aching bliss, and I would ask him incessant questions about the female I would never know.
In the years following my betrothal, I’d ceased asking about my dead mother.
Instead, I’d started listening.
I was a princess of Nephryn only because my Seelie mother had died giving birth to me in this castle. At least, that was what I’d been led to believe. Whispers said otherwise, and that if Agatha’s plan hadn’t been thwarted, then I too would have died alongside my mother.
The brittle disregard Julis Nephryn had for his wife spoke volumes about what had truly happened upon the night I was born. Once I’d matured enough to understand the whispers and her hatred of me, I never again called Queen Agatha my stepmother.
“With the exception of my late mother…” Tentatively, I touched the wild waves pinned into a pile atop my head. “Jacqueline is quite likely the finest tailor this kingdom has seen. Insulting someone held in such high esteem would not be wise.” Royalty be damned, the woman would happily take her talents elsewhere.
Anger deepened the lines surrounding Agatha’s pinched mouth.
But she knew I spoke true, so she merely huffed. “Come, Julis. The Seelie king and Lord Stone are waiting.” Casting a dismissive glance at me, she said, “Do try not to stumble into anything venomous this evening.”
Naturally, Agatha had insisted getting bitten by a two-headed serpent was nothing but a cry for attention. She’d crowed that all of my foolish wood-wandering had conveniently caught up with me at the most inconvenient of times.
My father was well aware that I lacked any desire for the future he’d forced upon me like a noose around my neck. He’d made no comment about the serpent, though I’d found him staring at me more than usual in the weeks after our return from Sparrow Hall.
He did so again now. Then he winked and allowed his wife to lead him into the crowd.
The Seelie Fae of Ethermore were easily spotted. Not merely because of their height, that eerie beauty and the revealing and dramatic ensembles, but because of their behavior.
They stood statue-still along the walls or walked with floating grace among the humans, regarding everything with what could only be described as a mixture of curiosity and revulsion.
None more than my dear prince.
Nestled within a gaggle of faerie females, Atakan slouched against the wall. The lone male with them, who seemed so bored he swayed on his feet, stilled when he noted that something had garnered his prince’s attention.
Pale-blue eyes met mine as he peered over his shoulder. Delight twisted his mouth. Phineus Oldwood, rumored to be the prince’s second cousin and lifelong friend.
Smirking, I took some wine from a passing server before retreating to the wall directly opposite the prince. I leaned against it.
And waited.
Shifting and dancing bodies hindered my view of the prince and his friends. But I kept my gaze fixed on where Phineus stood. A burly man moved, allowing me to see the scowl the prince handed his cousin.
I sipped my wine.
Across the room, King Garran put on a distracting display with his friend, Lord Stone. The latter’s wife stepped back, shaking her head. Jewels glinted as the Seelie king tossed his crown toward the high ceiling using only his wind magic, and Stone hid it from view with a wave of his hand.
Mist, I surmised, as the slight cloud dissipated.
It was rumored that Atakan hadn’t inherited his father’s abilities, and that many believed resentment and shame were to blame for his ruthlessness.
Humans moved closer, too drawn to remember their fear of being burned. They laughed and clapped, encouraging the king and the lord to continue showing off.
Looking back at Phineus, I kept my curious eyes from my betrothed. I waited, sipped more wine, and forced my eyes to briefly wander around the room.
If I could lure Phineus, then I might just catch myself a prince.
But it was not Phineus who finally parted the crowd and strode toward me.
The evening was moving more in my favor than I could have dreamed.
Atakan stopped as he neared, the distance between us perhaps two of his long and gliding steps. He could convey distaste with that distance. He was far too close for my liking anyway, his scent no longer an oaky, sweet addition to all those in the room.
It was a cloud that formed around me, entrapping me.
He stated what he’d long known. “So you survived my venomous gift.” His eyes raked over me, a slow perusal that made me fight a shiver. “Perhaps there’s enough faerie in you to be worthy of a cage in my rooms.”
“That sounds…” I pretended to mull it over. “Titillating.”
“If your tastes stray that way, I could stick to my original plan.”
Intrigued, I laughed dryly. “Dare I ask what that might be?”
Those pretty eyes lowered to my mouth. A moment later, they descended to my breasts. Despite loathing him, a smug, feline satisfaction purred within me.
“Leashed in one of the stable stalls.” His gaze lifted to mine, solid bronze. “Naked.”
I smiled. “Do tell me more.”
His golden brows rose. “My…” Amusement wriggled his lips. “How you’ve changed, little thing.”
“And you haven’t at all,” I lied and paused. “Still so confidently repugnant.”
Five years my senior, Atakan was now twenty-one years of age. The tight fit of his ruffled white dress shirt over his muscular arms and shoulders certainly portrayed it. As did the harsher angle of his steep jaw when it clenched tight.
He’d wholly matured. Well, his body had.
Although aware that there was little he could do to me in my family’s ballroom, and while surrounded by so many witnesses, I still braced ever so slightly.
But his jaw loosened. Just enough for that cruel mouth to curl as he murmured, “I look forward to showing you just how confidently repugnant I can be.”
Peering at the filigreed ceiling, I sighed. “Life can be so dull here in this vast and beautiful castle.” Then I fluttered my lashes and sipped my wine. “In time, you’ll learn that threats only give me something to amuse myself with, Prince.”
A server approached with a tray containing only one goblet of wine.
Atakan’s eye twitched. The bronze brightened with flecks of emerald as he inched a half step closer. “You make a good attempt at bravery, but that’s all it is…” He snatched the goblet without so much as glancing at the tray or server and sipped. He swallowed, then grinned wickedly. “Just an admirable attempt.”
Tilting a shoulder, I boldly stepped forward to whisper, “I suppose time will tell.”
I left him seething behind me and went in search of Bernadette.
Some might say such an effort for revenge was extreme, and I would assume those people hadn’t an ounce of faerie blood running through their veins.
All I’d ever wanted was the comfort that came with love—with acceptance. What I was had only separated me from what I wanted most, and so I’d never wished to be anything like the pretty monsters visiting our ballroom.
Yet surrendering to the part of me I’d resented had given me a morsel of peace I hadn’t felt in years—since before discovering my betrothal would mean my demise.
Revenge was a game the Fae refused to lose.
Finding a two-headed serpent this far east of the continent had been no easy feat. I’d journeyed deeper inland under the guise of meeting a seer as a gift for reaching sixteen years. Closer to the Nephryn and Ethermore border.
I hadn’t met with a seer. I didn’t wish to know the details of my future—the horrors awaiting me. I knew enough.
Instead, I’d paid the guards to await my instruction in town, and to inform anyone who asked about the delay in my travels that I’d met a boy I wished to toy with.
After three days of setting traps and camping by the Ribbon River, I finally captured a serpent. A babe. So although I had no love for the species after that week of terror and pain, I’d let it live.
Only after I was done with it, of course.
It had cost half a pouch of silver coins to have our potions maker secretly extract the serpent’s venom into a vial. Another half to pay Jesper—the only kitchen boy I could somewhat trust—to deliver the wine at just the right moment.
Worth it.
Atakan’s bulging eyes immediately found mine as he stumbled back into the shadows of the staff entrance.
I raised my goblet to him, then sipped.
And for the first time since I’d met him, true joy made me smile.