FOUR
S wallowed by mist and surrounded by snow-kissed and sloping woodland, Cloud Castle blended seamlessly into the Sky Mountains.
While hiding in my rooms or up high in a tree, I’d studied depictions of the forest-made fortress I would soon call home more often than I would ever admit.
My father happily sourced any books and illustrations I requested. His guilt required that he provide whatever I needed to acclimate to this forced marriage, and I took full advantage.
Sometimes I wondered what he’d do if he knew that what I needed could never be found on parchment. If he knew that such requests were not about easing my discomfort—but arming myself with the knowledge to better my chance of survival.
I wondered if he’d do anything.
The castle towers were gigantic ancient trees, their leafy branches almost touching, and the fortress between them crafted from wood and steel. A battlement built from branches stretched between the towers, dotted with patrolling guards.
More stood in stiff formation on either side of the steep mountainside drive.
By carriage, the journey across the continent would have taken three to four weeks, depending on the weather. This evening, it had taken all of ten minutes of preparation. King Garran had sent his most trusted to vanish us to Cloud Castle, esteemed warriors with the ability to move from one place to another at will.
Bernadette had almost vomited as soon as our feet met the dirt drive.
Quietly fascinated and only a little dizzied, I rubbed her back as she squeezed my arm, and the warrior made a face while quickly retreating.
Open wood and steel gates rose high behind us, allowing entrance to those ascending from the valley below in their glittering finery.
We’d been summoned to Ethermore to celebrate the demise of the Unseelie king.
The royal city of Cloudfall was a sparkling diamond in the distance, their celebrations illuminating the river beneath the mountain valleys.
King Vorx had joined his forces at The Boneland’s borders, hunting the witches who’d worked tirelessly to guard the rest of the continent from his insatiable wrath. For months, covens had traveled under the protection of our armies to ward the Unseelie realm. Nearly half of them had perished, and one witch had been captured.
Bernie had told me that the witches were oath-sworn to take a potion if captured by the enemy. It would put them into a deep sleep. I needn’t have asked if the captured witch would ever wake up.
Regardless, their spell had worked. King Vorx had been slain, and his son, Vane, now ruled over a kingdom trapped unto their own darkness.
My father and King Garran were more than pleased.
They were absurdly intoxicated. Wine sloshed from their goblets as they personally greeted every warrior and guest of importance who entered Cloud Castle.
Many warriors were dead. Others were gravely wounded, forever scarred, and many more understandably lacked interest in the festivities. Our own soldiers couldn’t have traveled the distance even if they’d wanted to, as the worst of the bloodshed and the spell work had ceased only three days ago.
As we walked uphill to the kings, Bernie’s grip on my arm tightened. “Stay close.”
I frowned at her. “I’ll be fine.”
An uneasy look was cast at King Garran. Her whisper was so quiet, I barely heard it even with my better hearing. “Any oath is considered law to the Fae, and breaking it treason, but I still want you to remember that they’ve now gotten exactly what they wanted.”
Our kingdom had aided the Seelie in their quest for safety against the Unseelie and their late king.
Now, I would wed their heartless prince.
They wouldn’t break their oath. They couldn’t. Yet they could find a way to bend it, and it would be no fault of their own.
Such as my untimely and unpreventable death.
I shivered, clutching my furred coat at my chest.
The wind blistered, so it was easily disguised as a reaction to the colder climate when Bernie glanced at me. I nodded, forcing a believable smile I’d practiced too many times. “I know the dangers.” I knew far more than she would’ve liked. “And I tread carefully.”
“So carefully,” she whispered, “that the prince just so happened to fall ill after attending our ball two years ago?”
I pursed my lips. “He seemed perfectly fine when I saw him.”
Bernie stopped me before we neared our father and Garran.
Grabbing my coat, she unbuttoned it to button it again, due to the watching guards astride the drive. “I don’t know exactly what you did, nor if his sudden sickness had anything to do with you, but I do know that he torments you.” Her eyes were damp when she stopped fussing and took my chin. “If you cannot find a way to make him soften to you, then you must make him leave you alone.”
I almost laughed. “Say I do want him to leave me alone…” I spoke quietly. “How do you lose the attention of someone who hates you?”
“By being boring,” she said. “So boring, he loses interest.”
A spike of alarm and something else—something fluttery and warm—danced within my stomach. “He has no interest in me. He merely loathes me because of what I am and what he’s being forced to do.”
Bernie gave me a look that said I was being obtuse. “Just…” She sighed. “Be careful. I’ll be royally pissed off if something happens to you.”
“How pissed off?” I taunted.
She hushed me, admonishing with laughing eyes, “Language, butter.”
I refrained from reminding her that I was over eighteen years of age, and we walked on to the kings.
Both of them engulfed us in hugs.
King Garran must have been under the influence of more than liquor to do more than greet us warmly. He reeked of wine and a citrusy soap, his arm too heavy around my shoulders as he mumbled about years of horror finally coming to a joyous end.
Guests approached behind us, and he forgot all about me. Relieved, I hurried inside with Bernie.
We paused in the foyer, our necks craning painfully as we gazed at the domed ceiling. Through the stained blue-and-pinkened glass, the moon was a gleaming scythe, and the stars patches of spilled blood.
I doubted Bernie saw them that way. She grinned and breathlessly admitted, “Simply magnificent.”
Her awe remained as we meandered between two curling wooden staircases to the wood-paneled halls beyond. No fire flickered from the sconces. Glass orbs sat tucked within the copper leaves, and within the orbs, insects with glowing wings.
“What are they?” Bernie asked.
“I don’t know. Bugs.”
“What are all those books and portraits you’ve collected good for, then?”
Worried that someone might hear about my obsessive studies, I peered behind us down the empty hall, then hissed, “A handful of books doesn’t make me an expert, Bernie.”
We stopped at the entrance to another hall, lined with patterned blue-and-clear glass that gave a view of the Sky Mountains. My breath caught at the sight of a waterfall. We were too high up to see the river it fed far down below.
“They’re glowflies.”
Flushing at being overheard, I turned only because Bernadette tugged on my arm.
A lithe female in a slinky blue-gray gown stood in the hall, her hands folded primly before her. Her sharp chin rose. The edging of her gown and heeled slippers matched her silver eyes. “Cordenya.” A feline smile accompanied a gentle incline of her head. “His Majesty’s consort.”
Though I wasn’t sure we had to, I followed Bernie’s lead when she dipped her head. She said, “Your home is magical.”
“It is, isn’t it?” I was given a careful appraisal that made her smile spread into something genuine. “Your betrothed should be along shortly. He’s been…” Her bloodred lips pursed. “A very busy prince.”
She then walked on, leaving us gaping in her honey-scented wake.
I frowned, saying when she’d disappeared at the end of the hall, “The king’s consort?”
Bernie hushed me again, checking our surroundings before she whispered, “Cordenya’s been a permanent fixture in this court for many years now. Garran refuses to take a wife after losing his great love.”
A royal coupling was important for a myriad of reasons, my father had once told me when I was little and I’d asked why he’d married Agatha.
Insurance, primarily. Power not so easily bested.
As far as I knew, Garran’s mother had been the last queen of Ethermore, and that had been some centuries ago. “The Unseelie queen?”
“Hush.” Bernie looked around again. “I was quite young, so I don’t remember well. But many believe it was Kalista, yes.”
“Yet he killed her.” I didn’t even try to hide my disbelief. “How could she be his great love?”
Bernie patted my arm, her voice wistfully soft. “Love knows no bounds for mortals and has no end for faeries.”
Those words plagued me as we followed the sound of revelry to a ballroom so full, I was eager to leave minutes after arriving.
King Garran swayed among a bevy of females. Beside them, Lord Stone, who’d recently lost his wife, observed the room blankly while twirling a clunky-looking ring. Bernadette was in conversation with our extremely unkempt father and two of his advisers by the balcony.
I made sure my presence was noted before I tapped Bernadette’s hand twice, letting her know I needed some air.
Truthfully, I wanted to find a faerie who could vanish and ask them to take me home. I couldn’t. Not yet. So I searched the halls to battle the fear that made me feel cowardly with a desperation to flee.
I’d need to grow accustomed to it. Living with fear and living within this tree-made castle of duplicitous and scheming creatures.
Only one staircase led to the third floor. Guards stood before it.
To my surprise, they stepped aside when I paused to stare up at the circular window atop the stairs. An orange sun framed in bright blue glass that resembled clouds—the Ethermore insignia.
I nodded my gratitude and climbed them, my steps unheard beneath the noise cascading from the ballroom.
I studied the moonlit glass, my fingers rising to the thorny rays of sunlight spearing through the blue. Before they could touch it, a familiar voice steeled my spine.
“Dreaded Mildred.”
My hand dropped to my skirts. I clenched the velvet and silk as my stomach tightened.
“I find myself unable to decide whether I’m shocked or impressed by your attendance.”
“Oh?” My heartbeat slowed, but I turned to where Atakan leaned against the wall, half hidden by shadow. I quickly absorbed his black ensemble. The slim leather boots, tight pants, and the way the high collar of his blue-lined coat brushed his divinely hewn jaw. “Well, you seem to be neither.”
He regarded me in the same way, though his eyes took their time roaming over the bulbous skirts of my gold and yellow gown to the cream-filigreed bodice. They fastened to my chest before moving to my mouth.
His white-blond hair had been tied at his nape with black ribbon, making it hard for me to determine if he’d grown or trimmed it.
For two years, I’d shamefully recalled the heat of his attention. Imagined what it might have felt like to have it in a much less sinister way.
“You poisoned me.”
I widened my eyes and pressed my hand over my cleavage. It did as intended, drawing his gaze like a bird to the sky, as I breathed, “I do beg your pardon, Prince.”
His teeth scraped his lower lip as he straightened from the wall. “The atrocious things I would do just to see you do that.”
Unless I ran, there was little else to do but play along. “Do what?”
“Beg,” he said, the word a forceful blow that wiped all trace of humor from his features. They turned to cold stone as he crooked a finger. “Walk with me, or I’ll tell your precious father just how faerie you truly are.”
He wouldn’t dare. He would need to disclose his own cruelty if so.
Yet I crossed the landing into the hall aside the stairs, following as he stalked down it. Maybe it was fear of what he’d do if I disobeyed. Maybe it was plain stupidity.
Maybe I was just too curious for my own good.
We passed closed doors, portraits of sapphire-crowned ancestors, and beautiful paintings of Ethermore’s mountainous landscape. The prince stopped when we met a new hall that overlooked the drive and slow-sloping valleys.
The open balcony doors allowed the biting breeze to drift into the hall, but it did nothing to stifle the anticipation warming my skin.
Atakan remained inside, hands tucked within his coat pockets as he gazed through the wooden doors. “I was sick for three days.”
I kept a safe distance between us and scoffed. “I was sick for a week.”
“So you admit it, then.” He turned to me. “That you poisoned me with the same serpent venom.”
A trick, the playful cadence of his milky-smooth voice. One I wouldn’t fall for.
I blinked, then smiled. “Do I seem the type to poison anyone, Prince?”
“Princess Mildred.” He clucked his tongue and took a single menacing step closer. “The time for coyness has long passed.” He took another step. “What I want to know is how you did it.”
He was far too close.
The flecks of green in his bronze eyes were too noticeable, his scent a weapon that hazed my senses. Every part of me turned both taut and liquid at once.
Yet I couldn’t move. Moving would show weakness—would give away the fear thundering through my chest.
He could likely hear it. Scent it.
But my smile conveyed something I hoped would hide it—excitement. “I’m quite certain I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He moved so fast that I couldn’t have anticipated his actions. Between one bruising heartbeat and the next, my throat was seized, then squeezed.
His grip was unyielding, shocking.
Thrilling.
Breath escaped me with a touch of sound. My eyelashes drooped. My gaze fell to his perfectly shaped lips as he slowly backed me against the wall beside the balcony doors.
His hold loosened. His thumb stroked my jumping pulse. “You enrage me.”
“The feeling is mutual,” I crooned sweetly.
He was so tall, his mouth aligned with my forehead as he whispered, “You knew I wouldn’t die. You knew I would retaliate.” His lips brushed my skin like sliding silk, and my stomach dropped. “You did it anyway, thing.” A burst of laughter roughened his words. “You fucking did it anyway.”
All I could see was a glimpse of his chest and neck, revealed by the untied ribbon of his ruffled cream shirt. All I could feel was his hand at my throat, the continuous stroke of his thumb, and my erratic heart.
He swallowed as if trying to collect himself and failing. His throat dipped, and I was tempted to lean forward and lick it. Kiss it.
Bite it so hard I tasted his blood.
“Admit it,” he growled low.
“Never.”
He snarled, his head tilting for his eyes to meet mine.
Rage, true and terrifying, shone within them. But his restraint spoke of something else. Something he wanted hidden.
Something he probably loathed more than me.
Unable to resist, I prodded at the sore spot. “Don’t you have females waiting for you to leave them to fix their finery and reputations all on their own?”
Atakan laughed quietly. “Sex does nothing to reputations here in my court. If anything, it only serves to elevate one’s status.” His gaze lowered to my mouth. “Besides, I find myself poisoned by thoughts of ruining only one dreadful little creature.”
“I am no longer so little.”
“I can see that.” He glanced pointedly at my chest. Looking back at my mouth, he warned with breathiness, “But you’ll be whatever I want you to be.”
I didn’t like that. Not one tiny bit. So why was I without words—my mouth drying the more he looked at it?
My question was rasped. “And what if I don’t want that?”
“What you want will soon be irrelevant. You’re a halfling who will breathe when I tell you to, eat when I say so, and pleasure my cock when you manage to make it hard.”
“And here we all are, believing our united forces have herded the monsters into their spelled cage.”
“They missed one.” He inhaled deeply. Exhaling, he smirked. “Afraid, Princess?”
He knew I was. I refused to let it show and slipped my hand into his coat. I clasped his hip, enjoying his shock, the way he stiffened, and the granite feel of it. “Not in the slightest, Prince.”
His brow arched. “You’re lying.”
“And you’re a beast wearing the skin of a refined male.”
Green embers sparked within that bronze gaze. “A beast who wants to kiss your pretty mouth until it bleeds.”
“Why?” The question both betrayed and assisted me, a little breathless as it fled between my tingling lips.
Wrapped in silk and delivered with slowness, his answer wasn’t what the foolish part of me longed to hear. “So I can lick it clean until you heal, only to kiss your lips raw again.” A rumbled noise coated his harsh exhale. “And again.”
Another part of me, the part that was just like him, relished the imagery.
I shouldn’t have. But when his head lowered, I clung to his shirt at his hip and rose onto my toes.
His nose brushed my cheek, and he inhaled deeply once again. His exhale was groaned, and if blood could freeze, mine surely did. As exhilaration blinded, I became heated stone, a whisper of all I’d intended to be around this cruel creature.
“My Prince,” a feminine voice said.
I was grateful that Atakan blocked me from view. Even so, my eyes closed. A growl, so low the intruder might not have heard it, preceded his clipped words. “Evidently, I am busy, Ruelle.”
“So I can see,” she said coolly. “But your father grows impatient for your appearance in the ballroom.”
“Then he’ll be mollified when you inform him that my betrothed is responsible for my absence.” The tight words were more of a dismissal than an explanation.
The faint melody of flutes, violins, and laughter on the floor below muffled Ruelle’s sigh. “You should also know that the princess’s sister seeks her whereabouts.” Princess was said as if she’d meant prey, her departing steps barely audible.
Atakan’s fingers clenched.
Then left my throat.
My eyes opened to furious bronze, not a trace of emerald to be seen. “We are to marry now, and once we do, you won’t have your mortal family to protect you.”
Emboldened by the lust hooding his eyes, I glossed my knuckles across his cheek. It was shockingly smooth yet just as cold and sharp as it seemed. “I look forward to it.”
His sneer drooped, and his brows furrowed.
I smiled and pushed off the wall, his attention a brand at my back.
Atakan never appeared in the ballroom.
Later, as we waited outside the castle to be vanished back to Nephryn, I tugged on my coat and made the fatal mistake of searching the cloud-dusted night sky.
The prince stood upon the balcony of the same floor I’d left him on.
Even with the distance, I could see it. The finger he rubbed over his lower lip and the bright flash of his teeth as he grinned.
As trepidation and exhilaration warred within me, certainty twined tight around my bones. Nothing else would work.
The only way to survive Atakan the heartless was to play this game of hunter versus prey—even if it drew blood.