TWENTY-SIX
M y breathing settled as I waited, staring up at the prince who wouldn’t cease fucking smiling.
“Say that again,” he finally seethed between his teeth. “I’m not entirely sure I heard you.”
He’d heard me just fine. So I merely smiled and writhed beneath him. His gaze dipped to my wriggling body, returning to mine when I said, “You don’t need me to. But you do need my sister’s kingdom for what’s to come.”
A light brow arched. “And you’re rather…” He lowered to croon against my mouth, “Intimate with such knowledge?”
I didn’t cower, nor falter. I pressed the tip of my nose to his and whispered, “Extremely.”
He snarled, then shocked me by biting my lower lip. Hard. His teeth scraped when he released it and used the hand braced beside my head to push himself up.
I didn’t need to question it, and I wouldn’t mention it. It didn’t need pointing out when it glowed in his eyes.
Atakan the heartless was jealous. In fact, he was more than jealous.
He was enraged.
His nostrils flared as he stared down at me, and if I had to guess, I’d say he was attempting to soothe his pride. Attempting to forget that someone else had touched his pet halfling.
But he failed.
Though his shoulders gradually loosened, his jaw remained tight. As were his confirming words. “Did he fuck you?”
“That’s hardly relevant.”
“Perhaps not, but it is imperative that I know.”
“Why?” I taunted.
“So I know which part of him to mutilate first.”
Iced water dripped into my chest. He was utterly serious.
I couldn’t let the trickle of fear keep me from playing. “I would start with his lips.”
He growled. “Mildred.”
“Then his tongue.”
He pressed his nose against mine. “You’re doing a very poor job of bartering.”
“Maybe his hands.”
His glower suddenly turned into a grin, and he straightened. “You can stop now.”
“I’m not done.”
“You are.”
I frowned. “You don’t know that.”
“You said maybe.” He left to lay beside me. “He kissed you, and for that he will pay. But no matter…” He bit into his wrist as though it were fruit and not his own flesh. “You’ll soon forget you cared enough to let him.”
Too distracted by the blood pooling upon his wrist, the bulging veins in his forearm, I hardly heard what he’d last said. “What are you doing?”
“You want to make a deal,” he drawled, extending his arm between us on the bed. “You must drink to seal it.” When I just stared at the blood, unsure what trap I was about to land in, he sighed. “Really, dread, do you not know anything?”
I scowled at him.
I was well aware that the Fae always used blood to bind deals. The memory of Vane’s promise flashed through my mind like lightning.
But that hadn’t required drinking.
“Hurry now.” Atakan shifted closer, his blood dripping onto the bedding. “You have until it dries.”
I rolled to my side to face him. “You haven’t asked me about what I might know.”
He just waited.
Carefully, as if his arm were another two-headed serpent, I picked up his hand and leaned over his wrist. I didn’t know why, but I closed my eyes.
Maybe I knew this was not merely a deal, and I didn’t want to see any of my stupidity.
First, I licked the blood cooling upon his smooth skin, intending for that to be enough. But then I lapped at the punctures he’d made and sucked, falling victim to a hunger I hadn’t known I could feel.
A hunger so demanding, I bit into his flesh, seeking more—seeking all that he was—and swallowing only when his blood filled my entire mouth.
Vaguely, I felt his fingers upon my inner wrist. Felt his mouth caress the sensitive skin before the sharp sting of his piercing teeth rendered me still.
Heat blazed an instant trail through my limbs.
They quaked with my moaned breathing. My very bones seemed to hum as I licked and sucked and swallowed. As I feasted with desperation that should have shamed.
There was no room for that. Not even when Atakan ceased drinking from my wrist, and I didn’t want to stop. I wanted more. So much more.
Need, powerful and painful, bloomed in my core.
I panted from the brutality of it as he pushed me onto my back and moved atop me. For dizzying moments, he just gazed down at me.
“What have you done to me?” I croaked.
Through the haze of desire—a hunger so sharp it hurt—I saw his emerald eyes. I heard him swallow thickly. Then he murmured, “You must be famished.” Challenge soaked each lethally soft word. “And it’s dinnertime.” With that, he left the bed.
And then his rooms.
Atakan was already seated when I entered the dining room.
Ruelle was nowhere to be seen. At his side, Pholly lowered her goblet of wine. Her eyes narrowed on me, then widened as she looked at the prince. “You didn’t.”
Walking from Atakan’s tower had been torture, but making it across the room when I caught a whiff of his scent seemed impossible.
I tripped on nothing and halted just beyond the doors, his pheromones causing the heat within me to boil. I hadn’t eaten since returning to Cloud Castle, and I was indeed starving.
But not for food.
Whatever Atakan had done to me felt incurable. I knew I needed him. He needed to fix it. After lying upon his bed and fighting the urge to touch myself, I’d come to demand he find me the remedy for what had possessed me—castle full of foes be damned.
Phineus cursed and failed to smother a coughed laugh.
Garran was absent. Cordenya smiled from his seat at the head of the table, petting my felynx. Sitting beside the king’s consort, Meadow flicked her tail impatiently while eyeing the food on the table.
Her smile might have been serpentine, but Cordenya’s silver eyes appeared pleased. “Mildred.” Her mouth drooped as she noticed my flushed state. “Skies, you look awful.” Setting her wine down, she then gestured to the table. “Join us and eat something.”
I couldn’t resist. It was as if his presence alone commanded me to look at him. To seek him out.
Atakan, seeming wholly unaffected by the exchange of our blood, watched me. One look at those bright eyes, the teeth he sank into a chicken leg, made my thighs clench and my mind burn.
Cordenya tossed my felynx a chicken breast. “Relax, Princess. No one here means you any harm.”
The gleam in Atakan’s eyes said otherwise.
Meadow collected the chicken and hurried from the dining room, paying me no mind at all. Some bond , I thought, though I hadn’t the energy to care.
I wanted to believe Cordenya, especially since I was in no state to sense a threat or defend myself. But these faeries had every reason to wish me ill or even dead.
Believing they were unbothered by the consequences of my time in the Unseelie realm would be a foolish mistake.
Atakan’s gaze narrowed as I looked at the empty chair next to him, and then opted to take the one beside his cousin.
“I would say you look well,” Phineus said. “But you certainly do not.” He feigned thinking about why. “Was the Unseelie king as beastly as they say?”
I couldn’t spare a thought for Vane. For anything but the hollow ache within me. “More so,” I said flatly, staring straight at Atakan.
His clenched jaw rotated.
Cordenya tsked. “You must be positively traumatized, darling.”
“I think I must be,” I said, still looking only at Atakan.
My peripheral caught Cordenya leaning over the table. She needlessly whispered, “Did he ever turn into an actual beast?”
I almost laughed. “No.”
“Not once?” Pholly asked.
Participating in conversation seemed absurd.
I drew in a breath through my nose, and forced coherent words to form. “He doesn’t shift. But his steward does.” I waited for the sadness to come at the thought of Daylia, but the heat engulfing me permitted only a morsel. “She turns into a cat.”
At that, Atakan looked at Pholly, brows rising a little. But he said nothing, and Pholly hummed. “Is she clothed when she leaves her cat form?”
I nodded.
“Then the steward isn’t a shifter. She’s what you call a mirage.”
“A mirage?” I asked.
“Faeries who can present as their soul animal.”
Unable to care about shifters and mirages, I reached for the water. My hand shook.
Phineus said, “Allow me.”
The test proved Atakan wasn’t as unaffected as he seemed.
He leaned forward to pour me some water himself. He set the goblet in front of me with a thud, and took his time dragging his fingers free of the crystal before leaning back in his chair.
My mouth dried.
Though it physically hurt, I met his gaze as I sipped. Pure promise shone within. The rigorous chewing and the way he shifted in his chair the longer I stared at him made it clear I wasn’t the only one suffering.
And that this was but another game.
Cordenya cleared her throat delicately. Pholly snorted while continuing to eat.
Amused, Phineus said, “The scents in here are…”
“Overpowering, yes,” Cordenya intervened. “They did such a lovely job with the chicken. I’ll be sure to pass on the compliment to Herwen and his new apprentice.”
“Indeed.” Phineus carved into his meal. “So warm and…” He said around a mouthful, “Moist.”
Pholly spat wine back into her goblet, her laughter choked.
Atakan ignored them. He stabbed at pieces of corn on his plate one by one, as if doing so needed all of his attention.
I selected a chicken breast and focused on slicing it open. Watching the steam rise, I pondered if the heat in my body was worse than that of the dead bird.
My thighs clenched with my core when Atakan rose from his chair to put creamy sauce over my chicken. Ever so slowly, he poured directly along the crevice I’d cut.
The jug was then set down, but he wasn’t done. He dragged his finger through the cream as he gradually leaned back over the table to sit down.
Don’t look, don’t look, don’t —
The sound of him sucking his finger lured my eyes like fire to kindling.
My cheeks flushed even more, and I unhooked my hair from behind my ear in an effort to hide it.
Hiding anything was futile. Our scents, as Phineus had said, and our behavior gave our arousal and this perilous game away.
Regardless, I ate. I knew I needed to in order to survive whatever plan the devious prince had in mind.
Atakan broke the taut quiet. “As I mentioned earlier, the princess has garnered some important information for us,” he said smoothly. “Hence why I’ve permitted her release from the dungeon.”
Cordenya paused in brushing something from her apricot bodice. “Yes, of course.” She straightened. “Let’s hear it, then.”
But I hadn’t the ability to tell them what I’d intended to tell Atakan. I could scarcely remember what it was, or why I’d even needed to.
But then Phineus reminded me. “I was very sorry to hear about your father and stepmother, Princess.” He paused. “Well, not so much the latter.”
Pholly said, “Unnecessary, don’t you think?”
Phineus just shrugged.
He’d seemed sincere, yet I couldn’t look at him as grief tried to weave through the curse of intense arousal. It pricked like tiny needles, bursting the heavy beat of my heart.
It strengthened enough for me to steel my spine and ask, “Where is Lord Stone?”
Silence reigned.
Then Cordenya said carefully, “He fled shortly after Atakan took you, as the Unseelie court believes it was he who vanished you beyond the wards.”
I looked at her. “Why would they think it was him?”
“Because…” She slid a wary glance at Atakan. “He knows where some of the fractures are.”
And very few others likely did.
“They’ll kill him,” I whispered, imagining those jeweled hands streaked crimson with his own blood.
Cordenya earned my attention again. “Not if this ends before it goes too far.” Before I could tell her they stood no chance at defeating Vane’s armies, she propped her hands beneath her chin and said, “Tell us what you know, Mildred.”
So I did.
I told them about the pytherions, the warriors training to ride them into battle, the eggs they’d been hiding to lure the enraged beasts right to this castle and the city…
And I felt not a shred of guilt.
Satisfaction lifted my chin, even as my body screamed that it wasn’t satisfied at all. Arousal still burned, bittersweet. Yet it was easier to breathe when I thought of what Vane had done to my family. To me. And what he intended to do to our kingdoms.
As I finished speaking and Phineus asked me about the warriors, Pholly taking out her parchment and drawing something, Atakan remained quiet. He studied me with low brows and a fixed jaw that barely moved to chew.
“Thirty pytherions,” Cordenya breathed and glanced at Atakan.
He ripped his bread in half and continued to stare at me.
“Nearly,” I reiterated as if it mattered.
“We need to find those eggs,” Pholly said to her parchment, hand moving furiously. “Or this castle will be reduced to cinders as soon as they arrive.”
Phineus concurred, and they made plans to begin searching tomorrow.
Atakan interrupted them. “The city first.” It was more of a grunt, his gaze still firmly stuck to me as I ate.
“There’s one egg somewhere in the center,” I said, reaching for water. “That’s all I know about the location.” I sipped, but it failed to quench my thirst.
“I don’t suppose you know how much time we might have?” Phineus asked.
I shook my head. “They were ensuring they’d be ready to strike as soon as the wards fell, but being that they’ve only fractured…” I shrugged.
Cordenya determined, “They’ll need to find gaps big enough for their army of flying serpents first.”
Atakan’s hum was too throaty. Too damned deep.
That ache morphed into agony. I withered in the chair, the fork falling from my slack fingers.
Beside me, Phineus sighed. “For skies’ sake.” Then his chair creaked as he stood. He collected what remained of his dinner, presumably to eat elsewhere. “You truly are heartless, Atakan.”
The prince licked a smear of cream from his upper lip, then grinned wide and wolfishly.
I wanted to follow Phineus, then Pholly when she left a moment after her brother, her laughter tinkling from out in the hall.
But I couldn’t surrender. Not when I’d made it this far.
Not when the prince stared at me while he leisurely drank his wine, and I stared back while I ate, and the tension grew taut enough to make Cordenya leave us.
She paused behind Atakan’s chair, a hand poised to land on his rigid shoulder. Then she sniffed and thought better of whatever she’d been about to say. Her gown’s small train of blue butterflies whispered across the floor in her wake.
My hand trembled as I clasped my water.
Atakan leaned back in his chair, his gaze wholly green. He watched me drink while further loosening the neck ties of his cream tunic. “You look like you’ve barely had your fill.”
The word fill was a stone falling through my body, landing with bruising impact at my swollen core. I shifted in my chair. “You look like you tricked me, yet still so very…” I trailed my finger through the condensation on the crystal goblet. “Unsatisfied.”
He reached beneath the table, and I didn’t need to see to know that he was palming himself over his pants. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
Tempted to leap across the table and maul him, I raised a brow. “Oh?”
“You should know by now that watching you squirm pleases me beyond measure.”
“I thought making me surrender into quivering pieces did that?” A dangerous question, but one I hoped would lead to an end of this suffering. “Or am I imagining someone else?”
I didn’t care who he was.
I didn’t even care about what he’d done. All I wanted, all I could think about, was having him inside and all over my needy body.
It worked.
His upper lip curled. A low growl that induced a shiver rolled through the dining room. Between gritted teeth, he warned, “Better run, dread. If I reach you before you make it to my chambers, I’ll take your surrender wherever I find you.”
I didn’t ask any questions nor linger. Victorious, I smiled as I stood.
And then I ran.