Chapter 32
ALEK
Stairs made me ill, so I climbed them patiently so as not to tax my lungs on my way to my quarters with the four guards flanking me.
Meeting with Amara had given me hope. She would find where Feloré had been taken, and she’d get him out of here. If anyone could do it, it was her, and by the time my father noticed he was missing, it would be too late. There would be no tracking him down with her in charge.
My breathing was labored by the time I arrived at the top of the stairs, and I was forced to hunch over to cough.
“Prince Alekus.”
I whipped my head up to find Neopal standing before my door.
“How was your visit to the Hacerium tree?”
“Where the fuck is he?” I asked, charging toward him at the same time the soldiers dispersed wordlessly to their positions as stiff, nameless bodies against the far wall. “What has my father done with—?”
“He’s inside.”
My head jolted back an inch. I glanced at the door, then back at him. Something was so stilted about his expression, like there were a million words on his tongue, begging to be released.
“If I might speak freely, Your Grace,” he said.
“Shut the fuck up with the Your Grace nonsense and talk.”
“As you wish.” He lifted his chin and said, “This is on you.”
My eyes narrowed as I searched his expression. “What’s on me?”
“If you had taken any one of the humans presented to you, all of whom were sacrificing themselves, then this”— he gestured toward my door— “would have been avoided.”
I blinked, wide-eyed. “Are you fucking mad? I didn’t ask for an innocent human to be chained to my room.”
“But you did,” he said, eyes sharp. “With your careless choices. With your disregard for structure, you sure fucking did.”
I had to reorient myself around his sudden hostility.
“You still believe you’re so clever, Prince. You still believe you’re better than everyone else with your grand ideas. You think I don’t remember them? You think I don’t remember how you wanted to save the world one spared human at a time?”
My nostrils flared as I glowered.
“But we’re not children anymore, are we? And you can’t avoid who you are. You’re a goddamn vultus, Alek. No, not even. Your bloodline is more incubus than anyone in this kingdom, which means you feed on sex.”
I tried to step around him. “Fuck you, Neopal—”
He shoved a finger into my chest, making me stumble backward. “You will kill a human, or you will die. There’s no way around it.”
“Touch me again, sweetheart,” I said, my eyes likely as red as his as I stepped so close our noses almost brushed.
I was taller than him by a full foot, and he had to tilt his head back to hold my gaze.
“You’re right. I do have incubus blood, and I can rip your body to shreds from the inside. So, go ahead. Touch me again.”
He stared up at me for a long time. So long, I wanted to snap each bone of his ribcage just to prove a point. Then he wisely stepped around me.
Without another look back, he was gone, his footsteps disappearing down the stairwell, and I couldn’t decipher what this strange feeling sinking in my stomach was as I stared into the darkness in his wake.
But Feloré was inside, which meant he was safe. For now.
I pushed open my door.
It was…dark. The fire had nearly burned out. Feloré’s chain lay scattered across the floor, like they’d forgotten to reattach it.
Something was unusual about my room. It smelled peculiar. It must’ve been the empty bowl of stew or whatever was on the desk.
“Feloré,” I said to the propped open door of the washroom. “Are you here?”
“I am,” answered the sexiest voice imaginable. “Come in.”
It was so sexy that it startled me. I stood frozen in time.
“Do you need a cigarette?” he asked. “I have them in here.”
I stepped closer to the door, rolling my lips. I was…hesitating. I didn’t know why; only that I was.
“Alek.” He switched to Vultaen as he said, “My prince. Come in. I want to show you something.”
I creaked the door open, questions roaming on my tongue, but my words dried up the second I saw him. He lounged on the chaise in the corner, smiling.
“Do you like what I’ve done?” he asked, motioning around him.
It barely registered that he’d probably lit half the candles in here. It must’ve taken him ages to do that manually, but that wasn’t the startling part. That would be his outfit.
The outline of his stomach was visible through the black gossamer shirt he wore. And the pants were so low on his hips that they directed one’s gaze downward toward the V-cut lines below his belly button.
“Why are you…?” I trailed off, digging into my pockets.
“Looking for a cigarette?” he asked, and something was so fucking different about him. It was his smile. “Come. I have one right here.”
Both my shoulders twitched, and he chuckled.
“Sorry, don’t mean to laugh,” he said and elegantly rose. “You just look so cute when you do it.”
I twitched harder when he started to walk toward me, struggling to clear my head. “Snow Fox. Wait, why are you dressed like that? And where are the cigarettes?”
“The cigarettes?” he asked, tapping a finger against his chin. “Hmm, let me think.”
My eyes wandered down his body, snagging on his muscular stomach as he continued to stroll toward me.
I just noticed how much he was touching himself. He was grazing his fingertips over his collarbones, neck, and arms like it felt good.
“You know what is so tragic?” he asked, slinking closer, and he smelled different, too. Not the cassia bark, but a strong fragrance I didn’t quite recognize. “This whole time together, and not once have you asked me to dance.”
Was he…drunk? “My apologies, but it’s not really safe to ask you to dance right now, my love. Especially without a cig—”
He took my hand in his, and I buzzed alive at the touch as he lifted my arm above his head, twirling himself once, laughing as he untwirled. “Well, I can see why. You’re terrible. As stiff as a tree.”
I twitched hard when he dragged his fingertips across my chest, circling my body where he gripped my shoulders from behind.
It stunned me still when he dug his thumbs into my muscles, massaging them firmly with deft hands.
“Cigarette,” I pleaded. “I fucking desperately need—”
“About that.” He pushed up to his toes to whisper into my ear from behind, “Oops.”
I cut my gaze back to him. His mouth was so close to mine. “What does that mean?”
“You know what I want to see?” He twisted me around and looped his arms around my neck. “What you’re like without them.”
My body jolted like it’d been shocked as my fingertips slid up and down his muscular arms just to feel his soft skin.
“I want to see you fucking unhinged.”
It was like warning bells were trying to blare, but they were smothered beneath a swell of my own senses. Ignore it, insisted a voice from within. Take him. Bed him. EAT him.
What was happening? This wasn’t him. There was an imposter inside his body.
But he was so close to me. I was so close to him.
Which was how I finally noticed it.
It was so dark in here that I couldn’t see it before, but it was obvious that something was wrong. Very wrong.
“Hey,” I whispered, angling his chin upward with my fingers. “Look at me.”
He did as he was told. Gazing up with his striking blue eyes. Or at least they were normally blue. Now they were black. Seriously black. His pupils had been blown so wide that they nearly consumed every portion of the icy color.
“What in the kingdom?” I whispered, twisting his face to the side, my eyebrows furrowing. “Snow Fox. Why are your eyes like that?”
He didn’t respond, just sort of writhed beneath my touch like he was entranced by it.
“Feloré.” I wanted to shake him. “What’s happened?”
“He has my brother,” he said.
I searched his eyes, my head shaking as I tried to make sense of it. “Who?”
“Your father,” he whispered. “He has Landry.”
My eyes widened as a jolt of panic charged through me. I cupped his face in my hands. “He what? Why? What does he intend to do?”
“Do you want to know what I thought when I first met you?” he asked, squirming even more, dragging his nails down my stomach as I twitched. “I thought, how rare to see a vultus with freckles.”
I blinked.
“They’re so special, Prince.” His voice was a breathy mess, and it was like he was trying not to writhe but couldn’t help it. “They really are.”
“Darling,” I said, fear settling into my bones. “What did my father give you?”
He smiled as he smoothed the pad of his finger down my nose. “I hope when you wake tomorrow, they’re still there.”
I struggled to formulate a response. “Why wouldn’t they be there—?”
He kissed me.