41. Max
Max
We stayed in my penthouse.
Drakken prowled the edges of the rooms and said nothing.
He wasn’t Caspian, who’d have juggled jokes until I laughed. He wasn’t Nikolai, who’d have slid the whole weight off my shoulders and onto his. And he wasn’t Aelindor either. The Fae heir would have made an impossible thing sound survivable.
He was Drakken, a rock in a storm.
Then the doors opened without a knock and the noise arrived.
“Princess! Don’t move, let me look at you.”
A petite demoness came in on a wave of entourage, six more trailing her with cases and cloth. She was the most elaborate creature I’d ever seen, wearing a layered gown in green and oxblood, embroidered to the last inch.
Under one arm she carried a ledger the size of a shield.
“Greta.” She dropped a curtsy that her gown made into an event. “Chief of Staff of His Majesty and Royal Archivist. I have been the Mistress of Rites for ten thousand years, Heir, and do you know how many public matings I have recorded in that time?”
I gaped at her. Drakken scowled at her.
“None.” She said it with enormous satisfaction before I could get a word out. “Not one. Countless executions and a dozen civil wars, though. Never this. So you can imagine how excited we all are.” She turned to her aides. “Aren’t we?”
“Yes, Mistress Greta, we’re so thrilled!” her people answered as one, every last one of them failing to contain herself.
Greta nodded, smiling wide enough to hurt. “You’ll be the first entry in the Royal Record, and I intend to do you justice. Now sit.”
“Go away! Take your entourage with you,” Drakken barked. “We’re busy here.”
“Don’t be rude, dragon.” Greta clicked her tongue. “I know your kind, all arrogance and fire and macho, but this isn’t about you. This is about the princess, the Heir!” She looked between us. “Do you want to get rid of the geas, yes?”
I sighed. “Let’s just get this over with.”
I took a seat on the leather sofa, and Drakken sat beside me, one ankle up on his knee, relaxed and guarded at once, ready to move at a moment’s notice.
“Good, good,” Greta said. “You’ll want the law of the rite.
It’s not theater, though it comes with plenty.
” The demoness chief set the ledger on the table and held up a finger with a ring on every joint.
“Three conditions bind the rite. First, the witness. The high court must watch the consummation from beginning to end. What is done before the court is done before the realm, and what the realm has seen, no contract from any lesser power may contradict, which is the entire point, Heir. The witch who signed you away is a lesser power compared to His Majesty, the forever brightest star.”
“How many,” I said, “is the high court?”
“Hundreds.” She beamed. “It’s a very good turnout. Word has traveled.”
Shit.
“Fucking hell,” Drakken murmured.
Greta gave him a scornful look. Her entourage glared.
Drakken and I had to fuck in front of hundreds. But then, they were demons, strangers. Maybe we could stomach it.
“Must my father be present?” I held my breath.
Please, please at least let him stay away.
“Very unfortunately, His Majesty will not attend,” Greta said, her voice regretful. “He instructed me to tell you so. He said you would understand.”
The relief left me lightheaded.
“I understand,” I said immediately.
“Second condition.” She held up a second finger.
“The truth. The rite tests you, Heir, and it cannot be fooled. Desire cannot be performed for it. This is not a matter of doing the act well.” She regarded me, then Drakken, then me again.
“It must be your heart’s desire. Both hearts.
If either one withholds, the rite dies on the bridge and the record stays blank.
” She took a deep breath, as if she were the one doing the deed and failing.
“There is no penalty, of course, except that you will have done all of it for nothing. I suppose that’s not what you want? ”
Drakken’s jaw locked, shadows flitting through his cold gray eyes.
“And the third, demoness?” he asked, gruff.
Greta glared at him. “The third I will bring you an hour before, along with His Majesty’s gift.” She gathered her ledger up under her arm. “Now you should bathe, Heir. I’ll return.”
She swept out, her chin lifting high, her entourage streaming after her, and the door closed behind them.
It was just Drakken and me again.
He didn’t look at me.
“You need rest,” he said. “I’ll take the far room.”
I watched him go, and my mind stayed a snarl of threads. I sat alone for a long minute, then rose and went to the bath.