SIX
T here was no fuss over my arrival.
In fact, no one greeted us at all.
Seeming perturbed, the drivers glanced warily at the two guards standing atop the rock-hewn steps of Cloud Castle’s towering main entrance. I studied the etchings of arrows breaking through clouds upon the weathered oak until the doors groaned open.
Not arrows, I noted as my belongings were hurried inside to the foyer, but rays of sunshine.
A minute later, the drivers made haste downhill toward the open gates. The trunk Bernie had insisted I bring along headed back home with them.
Raindrops dried to the peeling paint of the statue in the center of the dirt drive. Hair of flowing rainbows draped over Etheria’s breasts, and a cloud wrapped around her lower body. The goddess’s upraised hand delivered water into a small pond containing tadpoles, moss encircling the chipped stone rim. The trickle grew louder as the carriage trundled farther downhill.
Behind me, a guard cleared his throat. The other laughed, failing to hide it behind a cough.
No one was coming.
Ignoring their sniggering, I lifted my chin and walked inside.
Only to find my belongings gone and a tall male with deep-blue hair that reached his waist in the middle of the foyer. “I’ve had it taken to the prince’s rooms,” he explained.
Stones piled into my stomach.
I’d known Atakan’s threats hadn’t been mere threats, yet I’d foolishly thought King Garran might have made other arrangements for me. Arrangements the prince would have ruined, but at least I would have had some ground to begin this battle with.
The male inclined his head. “My name is Elion, and I’ve been the Ethermore family’s marvelous steward for far too many years.” If I wasn’t mistaken, a hint of glee brightened the male’s near-black eyes when they surveyed me. “I trust your journey was horrid, so let’s get you swept away and refreshed.”
I hadn’t much room to care about my appearance. Not when I was now attempting to envision a time when I might sleep again, let alone comfortably. I should’ve seized the opportunity to rest more during the past weeks of travel.
Elion took the staircase on the right, and I followed, tracing the notches and curves in the smoothed-branch railing.
On the second floor, I peered through the stained glass windows, catching a glimpse of the waterfall between the mountains. We walked down a hall that hadn’t changed since I’d visited eighteen months ago and climbed the stairs to the third floor.
My heart pounded when Elion slowed upon reaching the entrance to one of the towers. Beside it, through the window at the end of the hall, I marveled at the mere hint of the tree-crafted tower’s circumference.
“The prince is away.” Elion plucked a key from a triangular pocket in his chestnut waistcoat. “Probably playing hunting games with the Unseelie.”
I liked the way he easily supplied information. It made opening my mouth far less terrifying. “But the war has ended.”
The arched door swung open without any noise, revealing a spiraling wooden stairwell. Atop it, only a small landing was visible where the tree tower appeared to widen.
Elion laughed, a rasped and dry sound that echoed into the space void of anything but stairs and cobwebs. He slipped the key onto a metal ring housing many others and returned it to his pocket.
“Princess, war never truly ends.” The bell sleeve of his coat swayed as he brushed a hand over the white lapels. “Not when so many hunger for violence.” His mouth twitched, and he gestured to the tree tower’s wooden innards. “You’d do well to remember that.”
I stepped through the door, then turned to ask him what he’d meant.
But there were only dust motes dancing in the orange glow of late afternoon.
Prince Atakan’s bedchamber was a circular, lavish mess.
I wasn’t sure why I’d envisioned something sterile to match his cold personality, but my incorrect assumption stilled my feet and filled my chest with ice. I’d wasted years clutching futile hope that this marriage would not move ahead while steeling myself for survival, overthinking the most minute details.
Something so trivial shouldn’t have disappointed so much. It was more than disappointment, though. The surprise was a leak in the iron-clad armor I’d constructed.
A warning that I might need to tread far more carefully than I thought myself capable.
Silk scarves and a shirt hung from the posts and canopy of the giant bed. Black linen was piled on one side of the mattress, pillows and feathers strewn haphazardly across the silver sheet curling away from the corner. The frame, chipped in places and carved in others, sat on a brown-carpeted dais. Upon closer inspection, I discovered the posts didn’t contain any etchings.
They were marks left by someone’s nails.
I stroked them, as horrified as I was fascinated. What he must have done to someone for them to gouge the wood like that…
Or perhaps he’d made them.
Either way, I shivered and recoiled from the bed, nearly tripping over a large boot. It appeared to be crafted from reptile skin, the deep gray scales darkening to black at the pointed toes.
That was when I spied my belongings.
Through an arched doorway, in a small dark room containing hung garments, my trunk awaited. Whoever delivered it had placed it against the wall next to a chest of long and overflowing drawers that encircled half of the dressing chamber.
I left it there and went in search of the bathing chamber.
The wooden door creaked open. A claw-foot tub big enough for two grown males took up most of the curved room. Beside it was a washbasin and privy, a pile of clothing and a sword collecting dust between.
I stared at the tub, determining whether I had time to bathe before the prince returned. I wanted to be ready for whatever tricks he had up his pretty sleeves. But I had no idea when I might have the luxury of privacy again, and I desperately wanted to clean the journey from my body.
It had long been considered unwise for a royal to stop at inns without guards. So for weeks, I’d freshened up in rivers and creeks.
While the tub filled, I ran back through the bedchamber, jumping over a ripped floor cushion, and hurried into the dressing chamber to find something to wear.
My gowns would need to be hung, though the thought alone made me tense with dread.
The sword continuously lured my gaze as I scrubbed my skin raw with the lavender and mint soap. Rust speckled the blade as if it had dwelled in here for years, forgotten. I quickly washed my hair, wincing as my fingers caught on numerous tangles, then climbed free of the water.
Atakan’s sweetened oak scent lingered heavily on the only towel on a hook behind the door. I tried not to think about it as I patted myself dry. I also tried not to think about what I was about to do. What I had to do.
I might have been afraid now, but I couldn’t live in fear forever.
If the prince wanted me in his rooms, he should expect my clothing to hang alongside his. If he wanted to play venomous games, then he now knew that I wouldn’t surrender and play dead.
Surrendering was where true danger lurked.
If faeries unchangeably loathed one thing, it was boredom.
By the time Atakan arrived, my gowns took up most of the remaining space in his dressing chamber. The boots, clothing, and bed had been tidied, and the days-old dishes placed on a silver tray by the door.
The prince paused there and peered down at it.
His hair had been cut. Sharp pieces now framed his forehead and lethal cheeks—until he pushed the thick white-blond strands back, and they stayed perfectly finger-combed over his head.
A scowl sank his brows as he glanced around his bedchamber, and I noticed those blond strands gradually shortened behind his pointed ears and toward his nape.
He then found where I sat in the well of the large, round window carved from a knot in the tree. A book I’d unpacked perched against my knees, but I hadn’t been reading. “Hello, Prince.”
The door slammed.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. I could see everything he was thinking in the tic of his clenched jaw. In the fingers curling at his sides.
And in the steady rise of his broad chest before he exhaled harshly, flaring his nostrils.
Yet when he finally spoke, his words were as smooth as the silk scarves I’d rescued from his bed frame. I’d used them to secure the black velvet curtains against the four posts. “You’ve made yourself right at home.”
“I would have preferred my own rooms, of course,” I admitted and turned the page I hadn’t read. “However, I was given no say.”
“As it should be.” He sniffed, then stalked to the bathing chamber. He pushed the door wide. “You’ve opened the window.”
“I bathed. The steam needs to be released, lest you want more mildew growing on those lovely wooden walls.”
He returned to the bedchamber. “Lest you want to be locked in there with the mildew, I would cease touching what does not belong to you.”
Sighing, I set the book down on the cushioned seat beside me. “You wanted me in here. What would you have me do?” I asked. “Sit among your filth and wither?”
“Precisely.” He stopped before the bed, glaring at the tucked bedding and the fluffed pillows as if they contained a hidden threat.
I smiled as I recalled what he’d said when I’d last seen him. “Oh, that’s right. I am to breathe when you say so.”
“Precisely.”
Containing a snort, I tilted my head, but I was unable to contain a real smile. “You are without words. Does my presence affect you that much?”
“It bothers me that much.” He removed his long coat and tossed it. The black fabric landed beside the floor cushion in a whispering heap.
The scent of blood drifted from it.
As he crossed the room, I noticed the patches darkening his brown leather boots. Not wishing to lounge if he chose to loom above me, I twisted upon the seat to set my bare feet on the wood floor.
He halted with the toes of his boots intentionally touching the tips of my toes.
I looked down at them, then raised a brow. “Unnecessary, Prince.”
“Your existence is unnecessary.”
“As is our impending marriage,” I said.
“That,” Atakan said, “we can agree on.” His attention was akin to the energy of a nearing storm until he ordered a tense moment later, “Look at me.”
My gaze lifted from another patch of blood on his cream britches, as if tugged away by force.
Irritated, mostly with myself for obeying him, I searched his narrowed eyes. My fingers folded in my lap, tingling as my stiff body pleaded for some place to hide. For freedom from the scrutiny ashine in those bronze and green eyes.
“I suppose I will make this worth my while.” His gaze dropped to my mouth. “Unfasten my pants.”
I blinked, then blinked again. “You’re serious.”
His arched brow said he was deadly serious.
Trepidation danced throughout my chest. But I knew what this was. A test that made me wonder what he’d do if I actually did reach for his pants.
“Is this how you usually find your pleasure?” I asked, foolish yet I couldn’t bring myself to test him in kind by doing as he’d said. “You demand it?” Perhaps it was true, though I couldn’t help but think this was a game invented solely for me.
And I was far from flattered.
“What I usually do is none of your concern, dreaded Mildred.”
“No more little thing?”
“Certainly not with tits that huge.”
I gaped.
He smirked.
I laughed, disbelieving. Then I rose, uncaring that it brought my eyes level with his broad shoulder, nor that it meant half of him brushed against me—as he refused to move. “If you wish to touch them so badly, all you need to do is ask.”
Shock rose his chest sharply. I used it to my advantage and rounded him. His laughter was cold. “As if anyone would want to touch your half-human tits.”
“Humans don’t seem to mind them,” I lied, unwilling to make him aware of my innocence.
Atakan’s response was delayed. “They wouldn’t.” But the blow failed to strike as he’d intended. Maybe I’d imagined it—the delay, and the way his voice had roughened.
Regardless, I was unable to believe his lack of interest. Not entirely. So I continued to taunt him. “The way you look at them certainly implies that you wouldn’t mind touching them either.” As my bravado threatened to heat my cheeks, I made my way to the bed to put more space between us.
A flare of energy further chilled the room.
“Your audacity might have been adorable among mortals.” He warned, “But it won’t last here. Not with me.” With that, he left.
He just… vanished.
Plumes of nearly imperceptible mist swirled in his absence. The energy hadn’t been a gathering of tension.
It had simply been his.
All of our encounters had led me to believe the rumors about Atakan having no magical abilities were true. But he was royalty, and those with so much as a drop of noble lineage often harbored gifts that set them apart from the rest of their ilk.
I told myself it was good to know his strengths.
Even as I quietly despaired over what else he might be capable of and all the ways he could use vanishing to make my life worse than it already was.