Chapter 35
Valen
I stared at the white rose the guard held out, his hand trembling. “What is this?”
He’d slunk into my study like a scolded dog, and I could smell the scent of his cowardice and fear.
Good. He should be afraid.
I circled around my desk. “It’s a crime to pick the white roses from my garden.”
They were my symbol, used for my summons alone.
He placed the rose on my desk and lowered his gaze. “I didn’t pick it, Your Highness. The lady did. She threatened me and forced me to deliver it.”
I leveled him with a cold look. “Threatened you how?”
“With sorcery.”
I released an irritated hiss through my teeth. “Why?”
“She’s requesting an audience.”
That woman. It was like she’d been birthed from the rose bushes themselves—pale and beautiful and a relentless thorn in my side. If she didn’t hold the key to breaking my curse, I would have sent her on a ship across the ocean weeks ago.
Liar. You would’ve locked her in your bedchamber if you could.
The beast urged me to storm down there this minute and teach her a lesson. I, however, had other intentions. She’d grown too comfortable, and I wanted her off balance and reeling.
“Inform Lady Marquette that her persistence has earned her a more…intimate audience. Then escort her to my personal suite. If she seeks my attention, she can have it in full.”
The princess took her sweet time, and when the door clicked open, I was already fuming. Her honey-jasmine scent was intoxicating and distracting beyond measure. Why in the gods did she have to smell so good?
“Do you enjoy testing my patience?” I asked, my back turned to her.
“As much as you enjoy testing mine, I’m sure,” she answered, far too calmly.
I turned from the window and had to force my breath out to keep it from stalling. Her cheeks were flushed with cold, and her hair tousled as if she’d just been out riding in the woods. There was something wild about her, something that refused to be tamed.
That was how she’d be in bed—wild and free and feral.
I held my composure by sheer force of will. “I thought you were supposed to be meeting Isolde Morgrave. Why do you look so disheveled?”
Her eyes narrowed, hard and glinting like shards of amethyst. “I decided to catch some fresh air in the lower garden first, as you well know, but I’m afraid I had to cancel tea. Someone ruined my mood.”
I grinned and set the glass down on the banister. “Was the reunion with Gregoire all you imagined it to be?”
“It was quite enlightening.” She smiled sweetly, though there was a dagger beneath it. “I didn’t imagine you to be the jealous type.”
Every word was a challenge, every breath an invitation I was eager to accept.
“I’m covetous of my prizes, princess,” I said, drawing nearer to her. “And you are a prize beyond measure.”
Her scent shifted, something headier threading through it, and I relished the way her carefully constructed poise began to fracture.
“You must be very insecure to be so possessive,” she said, her voice not quite as sharp as she intended.
I grinned slowly, delighting in her sparring. “Considering your past, it seemed best to keep the two of you from conspiring.”
“Is that why?” When I didn’t respond, she glanced toward my desk. “I see you like the rose I sent.”
I followed her gaze to the flower, which stood in a slender vase. Why the hell had I put it there, as if I was encouraging her insolence? She was already far too confident around me.
“Touching my roses is a crime of the highest order.”
“Let me guess, the crime is punishable by death? Like everything around here?” She approached my desk and touched the petals.
Want blazed through me like a forest fire, consuming and relentless just like her. I locked it away and lifted the corner of my lips in a mocking grin. “Those roses are reserved for my playthings, princess. Is that what you’d like to be? I can certainly oblige.”
She jerked her hand away from the petals, as if they’d singed her fingertips. Her eyes flickered with delightful anger. “I’m not your plaything, Valen. Let’s get that straight.”
I stilled at the way my name fell from her luscious lips, sharp as a blade. I wanted to hear all the ways she could say it—and I had no doubt each would make my blood heat. “I told you never repeat that name.”
“I was cursing.”
I regarded her with quiet amusement, imagining how sweet her defiance would taste once I broke it. “Why are you here?”
She advanced as if she were the queen of my castle and the room hers.
“I want to know how to stop the beasts—and if that’s not possible, then how to break the curse. You must know something if you hold them in your sway. Maybe I can find a way to save the Bloodvale, even if you won’t.”
The accusation cut, but her determination gave me a flicker of hope—something I didn’t deserve. Wasn’t this what I wanted in the end? Her help? If Siggy’s prophecy was correct, she was the key to breaking the curse.
I held my expression steady, a helmsman straining against a storm. The woman was the key to breaking my curse. The question was, would that cost me my kingdom, the Bloodvale, or my life? Did it even matter?
I couldn’t tell her the truth or let on how desperately I needed her. If she knew, the little vixen would hold it over me like a headman’s blade.
I had to keep control, but I’d learned enough about her to make her dance.
Belle was a hunter and loved the chase. If I gave her everything I knew, she’d grow suspicious of my motives.
I had to make her pry each shred of information from my grasp, believing she’d won a victory over me.
If she thought she was using me, beating me, she would pursue it with rabid intent.
“I know truths about the curse and the beasts that you can’t imagine,” I said as I slowly prowled toward her. “The question is, if I help you, what do I get in return?”
Her scent grew sharp, and the furious look on her face was worth everything. “Have you always been this selfish?”
I shrugged. “You don’t stay king if you give gold away for free.”
“How about you get my rapt attention? Not to mention the warm fuzzy feeling of having done one good thing with your miserable life.”
“I hate warm fuzzy feelings.”
“I could promise to try not to kill you,” she said sweetly.
I stalked forward slowly until we were inches apart. “You wouldn’t stand a chance if you tried, princess. We’ve proven that multiple times already.”
Her eyes flared, and she pushed against my chest, her fingers twisting in my shirt and leaving trails of heat. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
“I think I have some idea,” I murmured as my gaze fell to her lips.
Fuck. They were unbearably close. It would be so easy to lean in, to capture them and claim them as mine.
Would she ever permit it? I let the space hang between us, the air growing charged like the sky before a storm.
Her pulse quickened, and my mouth watered as a nearly irresistible need rose within me—one I hadn’t felt for decades. Everything screamed for me to give in.
“What is it that you want from me?” she asked, the subtlest tremor in her voice.
Something I didn’t deserve. Something she would never give. I was a foul creature, and she was selfless, noble, willing to throw herself into danger to protect strangers. I’d do nothing but taint her with my darkness and draw her into my curse.
Gods, but I could imagine it.
And that’s all you’ll do, you bastard. I forced myself to step back—before I did something I couldn’t undo.
The distance only sharpened the desire.
“You’ll be my cup bearer at the next blood feast,” I said with a shrug, as if it were only a game to me.
“I’ve seen your revels, and I want no part,” she said.
I rewarded her with a malicious grin. “Funny. When I caught you spying, it seemed like you were quite taken with our ways.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “I wasn’t in the slightest. They’re base, disgusting affairs.”
Her lips twitched, and it was all I could do to resist imagining them folding around my cock.
“Suit yourself.” I gestured lazily toward the door. “Your guards will escort you back to your room, and you’ll learn nothing from me.”
She hesitated for a moment, then released a furious noise. “I’m not letting you drink from me, nor am I participating in any of the things that your kind do there.”
I’d kill any man or woman who thought she was there for their pleasure—she would be there for me, and me alone.
“You’ll wear the black dress and stand by my side the entire night, waiting on my every whim. Consider it an opportunity for education on our traditions.”
I savored the ferocious battle of emotions that played across her face. Finally, her shoulders slumped. “Fine. You win. I’ll attend your filthy revel. Now tell me about the beasts and how to stop them.”