Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
THE MIDNIGHT BALL CONT…
“My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me
That I must love a loathèd enemy.”
—Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene 5
T onight I submit to Prince Renaud, and die.
We pause outside the arched entrance to the lush forest bower of Everenne City's soaring white palace. I glimpse my mother's killer, my brother's jailor. The thief of my childhood, and the usurper of my future.
“You woke the fucking Prince, Aerinne!”
His wintry moonstone gaze scythes through the crowd then stops.
I remember from the garden that glimpse of ancient pain but the way he looks at me now is different.
Chilling calculation as if he’s weighing the worth of my life against the trouble required to end it; a demigod contemplating the annihilation of a troublesome ant.
I am a threat, if he allows me to live. No male, especially a High Lord, wants to be at another’s mercy. Or even the punishing mercy of self.
“Your mother should have warned you what happens when you catch the eye of a High Lord. Of this High Lord.”
My mother, I think bitterly, should have stayed home.
He disarmed me that day starting with his presence in my home, and the regifted necklace.
Stolen my anger as if it never existed. It wasn’t until evenings later I lay in bed in a cold sweat, fully understanding how insidiously he’d infiltrated my will.
It took me days as I healed to shore up my shaken defenses.
“Are you ready, Aerinne?” my father asks, offering his arm.
I slide my hand into the crook of his elbow, anchored by his unflappable bearing.
Glancing slightly up at Baba’s stern profile, for a moment it’s another male juxtaposed at my side.
Just as tall, dressed in the same ornate robes of our House, he glances down at me with a slight quirk to his lips, true gold hair wild waves down his back.
Ocean and driftwood eyes gleam with an elder brother’s secret, mischievous message.
“One hour of good behavior, little thorn, then I’ll release the baby kraken.”
I grin up at him. I get to be Danon’s distraction today.
Maman and Baba will be furious, though I think Maman pretends sometimes just to make Baba feel better.
She’s a High Lord first, ruler of a House, and Danon warns me all the time that means she’s our mother second. High Lords use the tools they have .
But he dragged me out of bed at the ass crack of dawn, shoved me into dress leathers, snuck me out of the house—he says ask forgiveness not permission—and briefed me on my assignment in the coach as we struck a deal.
“Just remember I don't work for free. A three month supply of Hershey’s or I’m a perfect princess.”
He winces, brow wrinkling a bit in amused distaste. “Have I ever reneged on a deal?”
He'll have to smuggle the candy in since the Courts are still bitching over the new trade agreements like whiny babies with heads stuck up their ancient asses.
I figure by the time I'm twenty they may have figured their shit out.
That gives me seven years to start my own little underground trade in American chocolate.
My brother actually thinks I'm gonna eat all of it.
No, I’m gonna make some money then go legal, open a coffee stand and then a cafe. I’m Aerinne K of fucking Faronne, so I don’t need a stinking permit, just my last name. And my brother.
“There was that one time ? —”
His eyes gleam. “I didn’t renege. You didn’t take care with your words.”
Yeah. . .he’s my brother, but he’s still almost High Fae.
No one fucks with Danon. My rep is getting to where they won’t fuck with me either. You’d think Fae would know how to handle crazy better, but they don't, and I'm good at crazy, so there we go. I get to be the distraction.
“I have ever really reneged on a deal?”
“Nope, you ? —”
“—never have.” My voice hitches.
The one advantage I have in this situation is that my heart broke long ago, so I’m safe from Renaud Gautier shattering it anew. Though I expect my body will be his to do with as he pleases and there’s plenty left there to break.
“The fire of humanity combined with the ethereal grace of the Fae. A hint of Other. We underestimated your allure, Aerinne.”
“Tonight is going to end in someone bleeding,” I say. Though it’s supposed to herald the start of peace I can’t accept. Not if I want to live, and that is now my choice.
Live, and sacrifice my people.
Die, and save them.
“The safest option for you is for our Prince to take you now and sate his desire. It may be harsh, painful even, but quickly over.”
“I'll tell him no.”
“You aren't listening. We are not human, Aerinne. We don't subscribe to human sensibilities.”
Renaud hasn’t looked away. A High Lord is denied nothing; asking permission is a pretty ruse to placate their prey. A ruse abandoned as soon as it proves fruitless.
“If you have doubts,” my father says, “we can turn back.”
He’s human. He can lie, even to himself. But I appreciate the sentiment.
I exhale. “My doubts are centered mainly around his sanity. You can't end a five-hundred-year feud—” ostensibly the purpose of this farce “—you mostly slept through, with dancing and wine.”
“Lots of wine,” Juliette mutters behind me. “If we're lucky.” My cousin guards my back as always, her tension akin to kitten claws clawing up my spine.
“Your job is to keep Aerinne and Lord étienne alive,” Numair says, “not drink. ”
I am of far more use than these children you call guards, Darkan says. There was no need to bring them, especially not the boy.
When will you stop calling Numair “the boy? ”
When he is fit to protect you. If he survives until then.
A hush falls over the Courts as we walk up the flowered forest path where the Prince waits on the first step of a sweeping staircase.
Courtiers drift to either side of the uneven white stone pathway.
Their heady fragrance fails to hide the Faes’ toxic psychic scents.
Malice, lust, amusement mingled with disdain and curiosity.
“Vultures.” The word slips out of my mouth.
“Manners,” Baba says without moving his lips.
“Tell them to stop fucking staring.”
“One hour of good behavior, little thorn, then I’ll release the baby kraken.”
“Aerinne.”
Fine, I silently tell them both.
“Lord étienne, Regent of House Faronne,” an orderly drones once we’re halfway down the path.
Behind the Prince shadows shift with an impression of great black wings.
“If you tell him no after he has descended past mere heat into a rut, he will come for you. Your family loves you, and your House holds you in honor. They'll fight. Their deaths won't be pleasant.”
“Aerinne Kuthliele, Lady of House Faronne.”
The eye of a beast slowly opens, fixed on me as if to drag me these remaining inches across the threshold into his personal domain.
Renaud descends the step.
We’re locked in a stare; no one sane would hold his gaze like this. He would not allow it. But sanity is subjective, and Old Ones, fickle.
The Prince lifts an arm, slowly, long fingers inches from the curve of my cheekbone. Cold emanates from his skin, when he'd been heat in the White Square. Cold, and power.
I breathe in both and it fills my throat, choking me, the animal side of my nature rising in response. The side that cares nothing for Court politics, the death of my family, honor.
It scents male, our male, and wants.
Almost, I jerk back, but freeze for one breath in terror—of myself.
I don’t want this.
“When he approaches you, bow. When he touches you, submit. If he asks, is this against your will, tell him his will is yours. Do as I say, and survive. Then you can plan.”
No. I refuse to want this.
His hand moves forward?—
I grab his wrist.