Seven
C inder Szule Reinholz had kissed the prince of Hallin.
The magic of his outfit fell off him as he raced his steed home, each glimmering piece turning to a sparkle on the breeze, and he could not even find it in himself to worry whether the incredible clothing would return for next week’s ball, because all his mind could conjure was the light brush of his lips against the prince’s.
There had been power in that kiss. Not romance—not destiny or love or any of that—and perhaps not even a huge amount of sexual spark, considering the lightness and quickness of it, but power nonetheless.
For Cin had wanted it, and he’d taken it.
That act had felt like the inverse of his blade sliding between a bastard’s shoulders: emotion and need turned to goodness instead of sin.
As he’d run from that moment, his magical mount had met him at the castle gates, seeming to know exactly what he required of it, but the instant he turned down the final road to home, it began to break apart into single birds, flapping and scattering off into the trees.
It deposited him in his worn, ordinary pants, shirt, and cloak at his family’s front gate.
Lacey and Ragimund landed on the short fence, and Perdition took a loving swoop at Cin’s head before peeling away. The other two followed.
“Thank you!” Cin called after them. The smile on his face felt right now.
He laughed and charged inside. Floy might have unwittingly driven him from the ball, but that meant the whole rest of the night was for him, alone in the house for one of the few times in recent memory.
Cin locked the door behind him and pulled off his boots.
As he loosened his chest binding, the ache between his ribs turned momentarily to a fire, but it slowly settled again and he let himself fall back on the sitting room’s least sagging chair.
He thought of his lips against the prince’s again.
Of the way he’d been so close those last few minutes when they’d talked.
The heat in his gaze when Cin had first pulled himself over the railing.
The way Prince Lorenz had held his own dick, still slick and hard, and looked at Cin, like one man thirsting for another.
It was the first time he’d been so openly desired since discarding his dresses and eye-pens for a chest binding years ago, and those rare times prior had always made him feel nauseous. He’d assumed that the heat of others’ attraction would always feel that way. Now though...
While Cin hadn’t been able to enjoy the attention in that moment, with the comfort of hindsight and in the safety of home, the thought of the prince’s lust forged a deep, fiery ache between Cin’s legs. His fingers felt twitchy. He bit his lip and tipped his head back.
Slow and careful, like he was feeling for someone else’s body, he slipped his fingers into the front of his pants.
The gentle brush of his skin against the coarse curls that covered him there made the yearning grow, and suddenly it would have taken more effort to stop himself than it did to give in.
He thought of Prince Lorenz again as he stroked himself, picturing the way the prince’s body had bucked into his lover, strong muscles tight and his lips parted.
What must his hair look like messed about?
What did his sweat smell of? How did his fingertips feel against the skin?
Cin’s pace moved from steady to rough, like he couldn’t get enough of himself—just as his mind couldn’t get enough of the prince. Cin bit harder into his lip and pushed himself through the spreading fire between his legs until it turned white-hot inside him, the ecstasy spilling up and through him.
He came out of it panting, shaking, and his tender sweet spot twitched. But on his lips was still that smile.
Alone in that darkness, with nothing to lose, he wished Prince Lorenz could see it.
I f the Reinholz family suspected Cinder of having been anywhere besides their home, they said nothing.
Emma flounced from the carriage in a whirlwind of smiles and sighs, immediately falling into Cin’s arms in a half-slumber.
He listened to the rest of his siblings’ chatter as he led her upstairs to undress and put to bed.
“Did you even speak with him?” Floy scoffed. “Or were you too preoccupied flirting with anything within touching distance?”
“While you lose the prince’s hand to some fleeting phantom, I’m gonna get myself a pretty, rich spouse with a house that isn’t caving in and cold as fuck, and never have to see your awful mug again.
” Manfred’s snarling grew ever louder as he ascended the stairs toward his room, until it turned into a full-blown shout.
“Cinder-whore! Why isn’t my fucking hearth burning!
I thought that was the whole damn reason you stayed home. ”
“I’ll be there in a moment,” Cin called back, instead of telling him to do it himself.
It would take longer and more grumbling, and in the end Manfred would fail and make Cin finish it anyway.
At least Cin had the satisfaction of knowing that Manfred had never managed to so much as greet the prince, while Cin had sat so close they’d touched and dared to end the night with a kiss.
Emma sighed again, dreamily, as Cin helped her climb into bed. “I think I’m in love, Cinny-Szule.”
Cin’s heart clenched, and he didn’t know why. He patted her gently on the head before pulling up the blankets. “With who, Emma?”
“The prince’s drinking chocolate,” Emma purred. She rolled over with a yawn, snuggling the covers around her chin. “Drinking chocolate is so good...”
Cin laughed under his breath, but the tightness in his chest didn’t release.
If anything, the pain grew. He had the urge to kiss her forehead and tell her not to fall too deeply in love with the imported chocolate drink, but to find a nice young person who loved it as much as she did and run away with them, as far from this house as she could get.
Which was absurd. She was fine here. She had everything she needed, and Cin to make it all happen.
And he certainly wasn’t going anywhere.
As he left Emma’s room, he caught Floy’s gaze down the hall. Their eyes narrowed, but they only nodded as Cin passed.
He couldn’t help but ask, “Did you get to tell the prince about your little science project?”
Floy lifted their chin. “I did indeed.” They looked down at Cin with a kind of arrogance that seemed so different from Prince Lorenz’s.
Like Floy was keeping others out from this imagined place of betterment, while the prince was bringing them up to join him.
Floy added, smirking now, “He seemed to rather appreciate it.”
And Cin thought that wasn’t a lie, it just wasn’t the whole truth: the truth that Prince Lorenz knew how to pretend to be interested in anyone.
But he hadn’t pretended with Cin. He’d run after them—not for love or future partnership, of course, but from intrigue, at least. “How long did you speak for?”
“At least three and a half minutes,” Floy boasted, as though they hadn’t watched Prince Lorenz slide down a banister to chase after another quest. “No one else had half as much time with him.”
No one but Cin.
He smiled all the way to Manfred’s room. It didn’t even feel like such a chore to put up with his grumbling and snarling. When Cin reemerged, Louise was waiting for him. She caught his arm.
“You know I’m so disappointed you couldn’t come tonight,” she said, frowning.
“But I appreciate all you did for our family. It gave me such comfort to know you were here. And I’m sure your father will feel the same when he returns.
” She patted the arm she’d been holding—squeezing, actually; it hurt a little now that she’d let go, though Cin didn’t think that was her intention—and she lowered her voice, like it was their secret.
“It wasn’t that grand an event, truth be told; you know your siblings are just weak for such frivolities.
I would not even bother to return next week if they didn’t require a chaperon. ”
It was such a blatant lie that Cin’s shock almost reached his face before he managed to offer a weak smile and a nod. “Of course, Mother.”
Of course. Of course , he said, as though he believed her, believed that the ball—that incredible, wonderful ball—had been anything less than perfection.
But would he have seen through the lie if he hadn’t been there?
He wondered as he went through the motions of finishing out the night—now nearly sunrise.
He knew Emma was easily impressed, Manfred dramatized everything, and Floy would have spoken only of how much the prince was taken with them regardless of the state of the ball itself.
If Cin had not seen the ball himself, he wouldn’t have known. ..
But he had been there. He had been privilege to the beauty and the joy and the prince’s smug smiles, and he would be back again in seven days time. The thought made him giddy.
Bone-tired but still clinging to the embers of the night’s happiness, Cinder curled up beside the kitchen hearth, and for once he didn’t dream solely of its flames.
C in needed new boots. He knew the moment he slid his feet back into them mid-morning, tired and sore, the pain between his ribs barely lessened by the few hours he’d rested.
The lacking state of his broken shoe was made all the more clear as he trod, exhausted, around the garden, then trekked into town.
Once he had collected the short list of purchases Louise had requested that morning, he took the long way back to check on a pair of young children he’d left with only a father after watching their mother pour little doses of poison into the family’s meals to force them into her care.
They seemed healthy for the first time in years, the youngest giggling as she chased a new dog around the yard.
The extra walking widened the torn section of Cin’s sole with every rock in his path. Somehow he made it back, only to dump an assortment of tiny pebbles out of the broken boot as he sat on the back stoop.
He contemplated arguments for Louise: it would just be a small repair; he didn’t need brand new shoes; how was he meant to go to and from town like this?
But the more he thought about it, the more Cin didn’t want his old, battered shoes restitched.
How likely would they be to break again, just as soon?
If they tore on the way down a wall or slowed him as he fled a killing, what then?
He was already fighting his chest binding at every turn—he could not deal with this too.
“I hear there’s a pair of free elves setting up shop in the border forest,” the local shoemaker had said, but Cin had nothing to offer them.
He’d had nothing to offer, anyway. He glanced out at his flock, not just a few pigeons now, but a whole host of birds, twittering and shifting in the foliage beyond the garden.
When they dressed Cin for the ball next, he wanted to be ready to run after.