29. Soren
Chapter twenty-nine
Soren
Enna can hold her drink much better than the princess. She stares at me with narrowed eyes, scowling.
I’m determined to crack her hardened shell, to draw out my wicked dancer I met on the beach. “How’s the fish?” I ask.
Her mouth curls up, and I stare at her lips, willing them to curve the rest of the way into a smile. But she doesn’t smile. She just shrugs and says, “Better than the chef’s.”
“And the ale? You don’t seem to be affected much.”
“It’s fine. Oddly chuggable,” she says, tapping the side of her mug. “I’ve never drunk it without a straw before.”
I choke on my drink, caught off guard. “A straw?”
She rolls her eyes. “That was explosive,” she says, swiping her hand across her cheek.
“Ah. I got you, didn’t I?”
“Seems you might benefit from a straw, Your Highness.”
I fold my arms and lean onto the table. “How does that work?”
“The straw? You put your mouth on it and suck.”
My face warms, and I’m suddenly aware of the curve of her mouth, the way she pauses with her lips in the shape of an O , demonstrating the action on dry air.
“I’m not in need of a lesson,” I say, my voice coming out akin to a growl.
“Aren’t you, though?”
My cock shifts, awakened by the thoughts of that mouth sucking on a straw. “No.” I clench my jaw, resisting the urge to adjust myself. How did we get here? I wrack my brain for an alternative conversation—anything but this one—even as I lean onto the table, arms crossed, dipping my head to get a better look.
“Tell me, pretty prince. Why the sudden outing? After two weeks of silence, you show up, ready to woo my princess.”
Gods above. Any conversation but that. I buy time for my response, taking a long pull of my ale before answering. “I’ve been busy preparing for the wedding.”
Her eyebrow arches, unconvinced. “By taking dinner in your room?”
“I’m poring over ledgers, sniffing an inordinate number of flowers, keeping my council in line…” Is that the end of my list already?
“Yet you have time to visit the kitchen after hours and time for long steam baths, but you don’t have time for Aris. If my princess has done something to offend you, I’d have you tell me.”
Her eyebrow stays raised, mocking me with its perfect, dark arch. At the base of her eyebrow, just at the corner of her eye, there’s a jagged scar. When had a knife been that close to her eye? And why had the Abyssal royal healer not attended to her better?
I push my questions aside, focusing on a more pressing matter: “How do you know about my baths?”
Enna leans closer. “Has she offended you?”
“No.”
“Then, would you please spend more time with her? She’s peeling my scales.”
There’s that humor I met on the beach, that sparkle of mischief in her eyes. I can’t help the smile on my lips. “No.”
Her mouth opens, then shuts. She shoots me a puzzled look.
“I don’t much like her,” I admit.
She takes this in slowly. Her gaze shifts from mischief to a deep, unfathomable sadness. “Then send us away,” she says.
“I can’t do that.”
She blinks slowly, her dark lashes brushing the tops of her cheeks. When she looks up, I catch a flash of fear. I don’t like it, not in her, not in the eyes of this female—this fearless, brave, mystery of mine.
“I won’t do that. You have a place here.” My voice rumbles low in my chest and my stomach squeezes into a tight knot.
She shrugs. “Until I don’t.”
My hands itch to touch her, to comfort her. To brush that fear away. Instead, I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Has she always been like… this?”
“You’re going to have to elaborate, before I put words in your mouth that shouldn’t be there.”
“Persistent?”
Enna’s laughter bursts across her face like the morning sun, brilliant against a once-gray sky. “Clingy?”
I chuckle, drinking in the sight of her. “I wasn’t going to say it.”
“She and I, we… grew up together. She practically ra—she’s the closest thing I have to a sister.”
“You have no siblings?”
“My parents were not a happy match.” As quickly as it appeared, her smile fades, and I miss it already.
“We have that in common, then,” I say.
She nods. “I saw your father’s statue in the hallway. You look like him.”
My throat tightens. “Do they miss you while you’re so far away?”
“My father was a sick, twisted siren, and now he is dead.” She shrugs, as if relaying the state of the weather. “I never knew my mother.”
“And that’s when you joined the royal court service?”
“Something like that,” she says.
“It’s a whole other world down there in the deep, I can’t imagine. What do you miss the most?”
I’m asking too many questions. I should stop this silliness now. Should place a barrier, should retreat. Lean away at least. But I can’t do any of that; I’m drunk on her words, eager for another glimpse into the world she came from.
“I miss the darkness. And the cold.”
I shudder at the thought of a life without the sun. Ugh.
“I can’t sleep here. Your kingdom is too bright, too hot. Even when I close my eyes, I can see the light. Nothing is dark here. And it’s all warm. Like swimming in piss water.”
I laugh. “We’re always swimming in piss water.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “Yes. But at least the piss water down there is recognizable for what it is. You swim through it, and you know.”
“Isn’t that worse? To know? I rather like not knowing.” A complete lie. I’m obsessed with unpuzzling her.
She frowns again. The skin of her brow puckers into a tight V.
“No,” she says finally. “Because if it’s dredgebeast piss, then you have a heads up.”
“Are there many dredgebeasts?”
“Only in the Drink.”
“And you’ve swum in their piss.”
She nods. “Many times. I’m glad I did. Gave me enough warning to stop the bastards.”
I close my eyes, greeted suddenly by the beasts depicted in the throne room mural. Their lithe, strong bodies covered in spines, with four broad paddle fins, each the size of a boulder. Their large, snapping teeth; I imagine a small black-tailed form weaving through them. A throbbing ache pulses in my head, and suddenly I cannot see straight.
“Tell me you didn’t fight it,” I growl.
“Stunned him.” Pride rings clearly in her voice.
My blood should not boil at the mere thought of harm coming to her. This female irks me to no end. She’s sharp and unrefined. She questions everything I say. She has demonstrated disdain for the culture I come from. She refuses to submit to my authority. She haunts my waking dreams.
“How?”
She flashes a lopsided smile, the tips of her fangs glinting in the dimming light of the tavern. “It’s my best secret, pretty prince. What right do you have to uncover it?”
My cheeks warm. I reach for her gloved wrist, needing to touch her. The warning bells peel loudly in my head—the forbidden nature of the touch, the danger of the consequence—and yet my fingers move. They encircle and tighten. The leather of her gloves slides under my touch. Her pulse quickens beneath my thumb.
The leather shreds in an instant as rows of wicked spines rise and slice through the sleeves. She hisses, tugging against my grip. We stare where my fingers encircle her wrist, our shaking breaths intermingling. The noise of the room fades, as if she and I are the only ones here.
With my other hand, I place a knuckle at the base of her spines, stroking upward. They quiver under my touch. I reach the tip of one, gently touching the point. My skin pricks.
“Ah,” I say, as a droplet of blood blossoms. “I remember these wicked things well.”
The spines flex again, as if deciding whether to flare or retreat.
“I’m willing to bet the dredgebeast is not your only secret,” I murmur, swiping my thumb up the line of the next spine. “Who are you?”
Our gazes lock. I stare into the depths of a soul more mysterious than I’ve ever known. I search her gaze, and, with an odd squeeze of my heart, I realize it’s void of the very thing I’m looking for—that burning lust for power. Instead, deep-seated pain molds into crafted defiance.
Slowly, her spines lower into the invisible sheaths beneath her soft skin. When I reach the crest of her elbow, she flinches. Her arm bends, revealing the mottled purple of a nasty bruise. Fresh.
She swallows a whimper, but not before I can hear her pain.
“Who did this to you?” I whisper.
“Your Highness, please,” she whispers, pulling once more against my hold on her wrist.
“Tell me who.”
“I handled it,” she says, her voice reaching me through the cloud of my anger, sounding distant.
If I was hot before, now, I am an inferno. My vision blackens around the edges. Magic burns in my stomach, begging for release, pressing against the fractures in my control.
The sound of the room returns with a chattering force, and the soft padding of the princess’s footsteps filter through.
I peel my fingers away, blinking out of my trance. I settle back into my chair and lift my mug of ale.
Aris stumbles into her seat, her hair freshly dripping with seawater. She notes the fresh mug of ale and eyes it warily. Then her eyes shift to the shredded remnants of Enna’s gloves. She frowns.
“Thank you for the meal, Your Highness,” she says. “I think I should return to the palace. This establishment has no ladies’ room, would you believe it?”
“Oh, really? I’m sorry to have misled you, Your Highness. I hope you did not struggle to find it.”
Aris giggles, still drunk.
I grind my teeth, trying and failing to detach myself from the intensity of the last few moments alone with Enna. Even now, I know it will be fruitless. An evening with her did not cure me of her wiles, did not solve the mystery of her, as I foolishly hoped.
No, it made me want to spend more time with her. And that’s a dangerous thing for a crown prince to want.