Castle Has Bite (Royals of the Opalese #2)

Chapter 1

His Number One Enemy, De facto Archnemesis, and Perilous, Dark-Haired, Curvaceous, Spitfire Obsessions

Alobaz’s footfalls reverberated off the frigid stone walls of Castle Hawxfure as he climbed its stairs, seeking the highest turret.

The legendary warrior, renowned for being more soft- and sure-footed than his brawny frame suggested, stomped up each step.

Everyone already knew where he was, where he was going—and where he wasn’t going.

His friends, and the uninvited parvnit and goblin, they wouldn’t mind their damn business. Each hard, angry step—as loud as he could make it—was a warning he hoped they’d actually heed this time.

Leave.

Me.

The.

Fuck.

Alone.

Mauldrene, the mean, terrible bitch of a castle, had no eyes he’d ever spotted, but her relentless shadows encroached on the scant privacy he’d managed to hold on to for himself.

She watched—always fucking watched him—casting judgment; he just didn’t know of what sort.

The orchestral music she played continually in the background was an itch he could never scratch.

How could he hide his actions from a sentient castle that was everywhere all at once, and that he and the rest of the Bazrian Seven weren’t allowed to escape—by order of the emperor?

Scorch the emperor.

At least Baz’s thoughts were still his own. That was something. Especially as they’d been careening toward perilous, dark-haired, curvaceous, spitfire obsessions lately.

If only his plodding were capable of rattling the damnable castle’s very foundations. Maybe then he’d shake some sense into his prisoner deep below in the dungeons!

Despite her evident struggles with bloodlust, she had steadfastly refused to feed from him. She could so simply ease her suffering and yet she wouldn’t. She’d take his cock like it was the key to her salvation, and then refuse the blood that truly was.

Of the Bazrian Seven, Edwidge was the gentlest of them.

She was as large and strong as most men, with tender insides that had mysteriously survived the centuries of war they’d together waged all over their world.

All Ed had done was ask, “What are you doing with the prisoner, Baz?” and he’d bolted from his seat at the massive dining table, upsetting their dishes and tankards, fleeing like a skittish trufy bird confronted by a predator.

As Baz had stalked away, the concern of his friends had been a searing accusation against his back. He was letting them down, dammitall.

The unforgiving curiosity of the parvnit and goblin had tracked his abrupt departure too.

What was he doing with the prisoner?

He had no fucking clue! Allowing her to sink her claws into him and drag him into a consuming madness? Maybe. Risking what goodness was left in his essence? Probably.

What he knew with certainty was that she wasn’t the prisoner.

She was his prisoner.

His and only his.

No one else’s.

His prisoner was the crown princess of the D’Arco Dynasty, believed dead for so long it was a scorching miracle she was alive at all. Her power and beauty had been lauded in equal measure by history: the most fearsome s?nglure ever to emerge from the D’Arco line.

Which automatically defined her as his de facto archnemesis, the one person in the entire Opalese World he should despise beyond reason, that he should want dead—permanently dead this time.

If his father the emperor were to discover Baz had her locked up in his dungeons, he’d expect him to drain her of all her blood, absorbing her power for himself, and to slice off her head and present it as a trophy.

Emperor Junot would likely display her head until its bones were picked clean and bleached by the sun, until every Opalesian knew the Rubor Dynasty was superior to the D’Arcos—the millennia-old family rivalry decided once and for all.

But the princess’ head was such a pretty one, and it perfectly matched the most gorgeous body Baz had ever seen.

Never in his long, miserable life had he felt the rapture he did when he was buried deep inside her.

No experience before her came remotely close.

Not even his dear Arabella with her infectious smile had enchanted him so.

She certainly had never made him feel like his insides were on fire and the only way to douse the flames was by slamming into her.

It’s desire, not need, Baz assured himself.

The princess was a constant lure, the sun and the moon to his Fuerin Star.

The call to see her, to taste her, touch her, feel her—to fill her—wove around him like a hypnotic melody.

It suggested he turn around and go down, down, down to the dungeons, where she’d once more muddle his mind.

Where his yearning for her would overpower his every sensible instinct for self-preservation.

Where he was—apparent-fucking-ly—powerless to resist her.

So he climbed ever upward, winding around and around each stairway Mauldrene deigned to allow him to use. Twice, she’d swung a staircase out from underfoot—when he’d already placed his weight onto it.

Mauldrene, however intimidating the castle was, didn’t make him stumble.

That feat was reserved exclusively for her.

His prisoner.

His greatest torment.

Stomp, stomp, stomp he went. Up, up, up, when he had no reason to go to the tower beyond distancing himself from Crown Princess Soravelle Davana of House of D’Arco.

Common sense dictated that the farther away from her he got, the easier it would be to resist the pull to go to her. But once he emerged onto the balcony of the castle’s tallest turret, thirteen arching stories above ground level, all he could think of was her.

He’d only first laid eyes on her eleven days before, and yet he could conjure her face and body with a vividness and precision that suggested they’d known each other for eons.

That there had, inexplicably, never been a time when they hadn’t known each other, when they hadn’t been pulled toward each other—with the force of dragons colliding in midair.

Outside, Mauldrene was shrouded in her usual damp, gloomy mist that clung to his face and neck, and curled the hairs that had escaped their plaits and queue around his head.

It was a grayish white so dense that it nearly glowed.

He couldn’t distinguish the gnarled, dark trees whose branches he knew stretched for the stone walls like the long, bony fingers of monsters.

At least at the center of the impenetrable fog it was possible to forget that the island extended only a few hundred feet to any one side of Mauldrene before its edge crumbled into the abyss, which yawned wide and pitch-dark.

Legend claimed it was endless. There’d been those stupid and ballsy enough to explore it, vowing to be the first to map its bottom. None who had entered had ever returned.

On foot, the abyss was more uncrossable than any moat anywhere, and was supposed to guarantee only invited visitors. And yet a parvnit and a goblin had arrived on the floating island five days ago, the parvnit to reveal Soravelle’s identity, the goblin to prevent her from doing so.

His prisoner hadn’t given up even that much about herself.

Baz clutched the balcony railing so ferociously that the cold iron creaked. He was the general of Junot’s armies, for fuck’s sake. He commanded entire legions. He was responsible for the lives—and deaths—of so many. Way too damn many.

How was it that he couldn’t get a single woman out of his mind? A woman, no less, whom he knew to be dangerous to him, and therefore to those he had sworn to protect. To those he wouldn’t fail, not again. Not ever.

He froze but for his arms, squeezing the railing so hard that the hollow iron curved around his grip.

“Ow,” he yelped, yanking his hands back and narrowing his eyes as blood beaded up in drops across his palms.

Mauldrene had bitten him!

What … a scorching … cunt.

Unlike Lev, he’d never call her that aloud, not so long as they were forced to live here.

Frowning at his palms, which were bleeding with hundreds of pinpricks, he wiped them on his pants, crossed his arms over his chest, and took a step back from the now indented railing.

The powerlessness he experienced toward his prisoner definitely was not natural. And what else was unnatural?

Dark faithum.

Sorcery.

That was it. Had to be. She must be a sorceress. It would explain his obsession with her. How it took every bit of his self-control to keep away from her, and how he often couldn’t.

Warm relief bloomed through his chest. It wasn’t he who was failing to resist her. It was a spell, a dark enchantment of some sort. Like a s?ngmortarán, she’d cast her thrall over him.

All he had to do now was find the way to break free of her magical influence.

Warm relief spread through him, butting against the scar where she’d done her damnedest to stab him in the heart.

She’d failed—just. The wound had healed into a shiny, dark welt when, despite his countless battles and injuries, his fae nature had otherwise preserved his smooth skin.

Only she had ever been able to mark him—another sign of sorcery.

There was no one more dangerous to him in all the Opalese.

He needed to get her out of this castle, off this island, and as far away from him as possible.

Then he’d be able to forget all about her.

He should send her to Orania, the faraway continent to which she believed her brother, Mateo, had been exiled.

She might even go willingly. The only one of her motivations Alobaz had been able to ascertain was her desire to see her brother again—even if that was only to set eyes upon his corpse…

The piercing whistle of a raptor’s call sliced through the fog. Baz straightened and scoured the sky for the incoming rapplecon. The island’s unrelenting mist—of fucking course—concealed its silhouette, preventing him from properly preparing for its landing.