Twenty-Four #2
What made it all the worse, though, was that neither, it seemed, did his prince.
As he drew closer, Cin could see the shift in Prince Lorenz’s attention, the slipping away of the chivalry and arrogance and poise into a soft, bright smile.
His eyes seemed to twinkle as he broke away from his conversation with the other guests to meet Cin halfway, both his arms outstretched towards him.
He was such a joy to look at that Cin almost didn’t catch the frustrated and jealous glances from the guests Prince Lorenz had abandoned.
“My dove,” the prince whispered, taking both of Cin’s hands in his. “I’m glad you’re here. After you spoke of magic last week…”
It felt as though a flush went through Cin’s chest at the idea of Prince Lorenz thinking of him at the very moment he’d stood before the frog prince. He pulled Prince Lorenz a little closer, smiling as he teased, “Did you worry for me?”
“I…” Prince Lorenz’s gaze dropped, and he released one of Cin’s hands, his fingers pressing against his heart in a now-familiar way. Cautiously, Cin lifted his own fingers to set them atop the back of the prince’s hand.
“What is it?” Cin asked.
Prince Lorenz shook his head, his smile flashing back into place. “As I said, I’m just glad you’re here.” He pulled Cin to him, maneuvering them both into the small dancing space that remained in the large ballroom. The musicians rolled into a new song just for them.
Already, Cin could feel the other guests’ eyes boring into him, and the hour was still early enough that new additions were coming through the doors as they danced.
He took a deep breath, reminding himself of what it felt like to have sought after what he wanted, what he knew was right for him—no pain, no fear.
In its place was the joy that had touched him at the Frog Prince’s request: to care for his Lorenz.
He wanted that , too.
Cin inhaled again, and when he released it, he let himself say the words.
“I could always keep being here? I know the parameters I dictated at the beginning of this, but I’d like to continue seeing you, after tonight, in whatever capacity you’ll have me.
I don’t want you to become a distant memory. ”
The prince’s face lit up, whatever tension his original smile had masked fading away so quickly that it felt unreal after. “Yes!” He laughed. “I will do whatever you need—make a space for you here, or come to you in Darmburg—anything. Our friendship is the most important part of my life.”
Friendship . That was all it would be. All it could be.
Even if there was a world where the kind of friendship they had, deep and true and lustful, could be forged into a partnership—even a marriage—there would still be no place at Prince Lorenz’s side for the Plumed Menace.
And the idea of being a king of Hallin someday…
Cin wasn’t sure he could even envision that, much less live it.
Part of him was still thinking of the tasks he’d need to complete when he returned home.
The prince spun Cin around before pulling him back in close. His breath on Cin’s ear was delicious. “I must ask, though,” he said, his voice beaming with delight, “what changed?”
Cin could have told him of the Frog Prince’s bargain, but now, basking in the prince’s joy and the lightness of his own heart, he knew that had merely been the crack he’d needed to open himself up to the idea, not the reason for it.
“I’d always yearned to,” he admitted, heat pooling in his cheeks despite everything he’d done to stand up for himself already that day.
“But my family wouldn’t have approved it.
They never wanted me here. All this time, they’ve thought that I’ve been home, tending the house, while they’re in the city for the weekly balls.
When I finally told them I’d been here, all along… ”
It broke my stepmother’s heart , Cin might have once said, and to some degree he’d have believed it, even if that heartbreak was purely selfish, pushing Cin to prove his own dependability and trust tenfold.
But now what he saw in his memories was not Louise’s devastation or his father’s empty sadness or his siblings’ jealousy, but wrath.
Reassertions of control. Hands on wrists.
Nails and slaps and deep, unhealing wounds.
Cin hadn’t wished for his family to see him here, because he hadn’t wished for his family to see him .
If wedding rings could not go on invisible hands, perhaps neither could chains.
Horror hollowed out Prince Lorenz’s expression, and he seemed to miss a beat in the dance, barely picking it back up in time to swing Cin into the next move.
“After all the work you do for them, they wouldn’t even let you.
..” He made a choking noise. “My dove, my— my Cinder-Ella, that is tyrannical! Abominable! You deserve admiration, respect, love for all you do for them, not… Not this .”
“I believed they only wanted me at home because no one else can tend it well,” Cin said, and stopped as a fresh kind of pain spread through his chest, not the deep hurt he’d lived with for years, but a fire, hot and angry.
There was so much more to their mistreatment—Cin had seen it first-hand, as Louise refused to even consider the thought that Cin could both enjoy the ball and tend the house, or that he could teach any one of his siblings to help.
Perhaps not born of outright malevolence—if Manfred or Emma had been a little more skilled and Cin a little less, perhaps it would have truly been one of them in his place, always pushed into the work, always expected to carry the burden. But it hadn’t been.
It had been Cin. The Cinder-whore, with the ashes of his family’s sins smeared across his cheek.
How the hell had he never seen this?
Cin hadn’t realized a tear had slipped free from the corner of his eye until Prince Lorenz wiped it aside, cupping Cin’s cheek after, his gaze so soft for such an enraged expression.
His thumb ran across the very place where soot had smeared six days prior.
“If they don’t treat you as you deserve, you need never return there.
You have a home here, a family here, whenever you need it. ”
It was the kindest offer Cin had ever been given, and he wanted to cry all the more for it—for the beautiful gesture as much as his inability to ever accept.
Because regardless of whether the prince knew what he was asking, for Cin to live with him, in the castle, surrounded by the crown’s watch, he’d have to give up the Plumed Menace, settle for a quiet, secluded life, watching the prince live out his with someone else.
Cin thought that would kill him just as surely as living under his family’s thumb was.
“Thank you,” he whispered, trying to keep the sadness out of his voice. “You know one of my siblings is still in the running for your hand? They’ll likely be here soon.”
“Which one are they?” Prince Lorenz all but demanded. “I’ll tell the guards to cross them out!”
The thought made Cin momentarily happy, but he did have to return home after this, still. He shook his head. “Don’t. It’ll be just as delicious to see their face when they watch you and I dance.”
“Then dance the whole night we shall.” The prince laughed, adding an extra flourish into his next move. “But please do tell me their name. If they are one of my parent’s favored...”
Cin wanted to sink into the floor as he said, “Floy Reinholz.”
Prince Lorenz breathed out a sigh so relieved that Cin’s anxiety instantly lifted.
“They’ve not even been brought up,” the prince said.
“I think they’ve only remained on the list this week to give the impression that we’ve included those from beyond the city so that it seems less inevitable when they select a candidate they’ve known for years.
As valiant as their intentions were in inviting the whole of the kingdom to my coerced marriage, they still fear the thought of a stranger within their home. ”
That meant Cin had never been an option either. It hurt more than it should have—but exactly as much as he knew it would. More and more, the thought of someone else with his prince was sharply painful where it had been more an aching frustration before.
“Floy, though?” Prince Lorenz made a face. “My God, aren’t they nearly intolerable!”
Cin suspected that the prince was dramatizing things for Cin’s pleasure, but he smiled anyway. “Truly the worst. Though I imagine they put on a decent mask for you.”
“How much of a mask can you don if your only conversation starter is scientific classifications of flying animals?” Prince Lorenz shook his head in mock disgust, though after a moment he looked sheepish, the impenetrable depths of his gaze seeming to part for Cin to view the full breadth of his curious emotions.
“It was actually an interesting topic, I can’t lie.
” His lips quirked. “If only Floy talked more about pigeons, I might have been seduced.”
Cin slid his arms around the prince’s waist, his gaze landing pointedly on Prince Lorenz’s mouth. “Is that the only reason you’re here with me, then? It’s all down to the pigeons...”
“You do know a fair bit about one particular winged fowl,” the prince confirmed, leaning closer as he wrapped the arm on Cin’s hip firmly around his back. His lips brushed Cin’s, but instead of kissing, he spoke, ever so gently. “It’s one of the many, many aspects of you which fascinate me.”
Prince Lorenz pulled Cin’s upper lip between his, then Cin’s lower, breathing into them between his gentle sucking.
Cin could manage nothing but to release that air in a sigh, cradling the prince’s lower back in one hand.
There were people watching, he knew, people jealous of him, hating him for this, even, but somehow that made it all the more delicious.
For once, Cin was the one whose life everyone else wanted.
He lay his head onto the prince’s shoulder after, swaying absentmindedly to the music.