18
I didn’t go to Voran’s room the next day.
Nor did I go anywhere near the east wing, where he might have roamed when I failed to visit him.
I ate each meal and went to my room before anyone could bother me.
During garden duty, I forced smiles for Tyressa.
I pretended my sore heart hadn’t affected my magic and that all was well whenever a priestess roamed by.
On the third day, my heart hurt a little less. Enough that I let my eyes wander where they wished as I walked through the prayer hall at breakfast.
Voran was already seated at the back table. He leaned against the stone wall behind him, hair bound low at his nape and his spoon hanging from his mouth.
When he realized I was looking at him, it fell, and he quickly caught it and straightened. He swiped oats from his lips with the back of his hand. Those blue eyes narrowed—telling me he was displeased.
I’d known he would be.
But I just sat down and ate a few mouthfuls, sipped some water, then headed to the gardens.
A rattle lured my eyes from the stars beyond the window to the door.
To the handle.
It shook again. Louder this time.
Heart beating hard, I sat up and pushed hair from my face. As I tried to decide what might make a better weapon—my hairbrush or the candle—there was a quiet crack.
The door creaked open.
There was no need for a lit candle or a fuller moon. Even shrouded in darkness, his towering form was unmistakable.
“You could have knocked,” I whispered. “Now my lock is broken.”
Voran gave that no response. He closed the door behind him. “When someone fails to fulfill a debt, their fate is chosen by who they owe.”
“In Valadorn, perhaps.” I flopped back down onto the bed. “You could get thrown off the isle or into the sea cells if you’re caught in here, you know.”
Again, he ignored me and prowled to the window. Without removing his eyes from the view beyond, he reached down to my nightstand for my hairbrush. It was lifted to his nose. As he inhaled deeply, his eyes closed.
His hair was wet, as if he’d not long bathed, although curfew was hours ago, and slicked back over his head.
It allowed the moonlight to better gloss his nose, his steep jawline.
It also made it impossible not to notice how his lashes curled against his cheeks like butterflies perched upon stone.
Such harsh features. Too much individually.
Yet combined, they created something so dangerously alluring, I couldn’t stop staring.
His eyes opened, but he didn’t look at me.
He gazed down at my hairbrush before plucking at the dark strands in the bristles. “Would you like to know your fate, broshklin?”
“Can we talk to—”
“Me,” he said—and so simply, my skin shouldn’t have chilled. “Now get on your knees.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Voran, please. It’s late.”
He tucked the strands pulled from my hairbrush into the sash of his evening robes. Then, with a cold calmness that elicited gooseflesh, he turned to the bed and ordered, “Get on your fucking knees.”
I wouldn’t do that. But I tossed the blankets and sat on the side of my bed.
Voran looked down at me, waiting.
My heartbeat quietened. Just like his features, his eyes were still. Empty and unblinking. Something within me stirred and prodded. Instinct, maybe. Whatever it was, it warned against disobeying him right now.
Pulling my robes tight, I carefully lowered to my knees. The stone dug into them, and I whispered, “Why are you making me do this?”
“You think you can evade me.” With that lethal calm, he said, “I’m ridding such dangerous notions from your whimsical mind.”
It became undeniable now—what was happening.
Punishment.
As I looked up at him, I began to wonder if he didn’t know why I hadn’t been to see him. Perhaps he truly wasn’t in contact with anyone during his stay here, and he hadn’t overheard gossip about the recent news.
It shouldn’t have mattered whether he lacked the knowledge. Not when his uncle and his fellow wolves were causing such terror and heartbreak. When he had caused so much of both.
Raxon’s claws, they called him.
He tucked his hands behind his back. “I know how to read your little story.” Continuing to stare down at me over the strong bridge of his nose, he said, “Let me show you what keeping a promise looks like by reading it to you now.”
I couldn’t do it—hold that eerily void gaze.
For some reason, my body further tensed when I averted my eyes to his hair-dusted legs. His robes sat above his knees, revealing thighs so muscular they could probably crush things between them.
“Eyes on me, Princess.”
Frowning up at him, I asked, “You brought the story?”
“I don’t need it.”
“You don’t need it,” I repeated, confused.
“I have memorized it.”
I almost laughed because although the story wasn’t all that long, remembering every word in one week would be difficult.
Yet he told me the story of the great stag with ease.
Staring at the wall alongside my bed, he repeated the entire tale. As he neared the end, my shock waned. His low, lilting voice caused my eyes and limbs to grow heavy. My knees begged for reprieve from the stone.
Before I dared to move, eyes bright and beckoning in the dark fell upon me like a hand on my head.
He didn’t speak. I began to think he was waiting for me to say something.
Then he stepped forward.
Every part of me awakened and tensed as he stood mere inches from me. Perhaps it had happened after he’d let me leave his room without a kiss. Perhaps it had happened even before then.
I didn’t know. But as fear crept into each breath, stilting them, I realized I’d stopped being so afraid of this strange prince.
A grave mistake.
My chin was snatched between his fingers. My head forced back.
Gone was that cold calm. Venomously, Voran whispered, “You broke our agreement.”
“You broke my heart.” The impulsive words drifted softly into the small space between us.
Instantly—and almost comically—his eyes flared.
“Not you, exactly.” I swallowed. “Your cruelly reared wyverns.”
His lips parted. He tilted his head. “Explain.”
“They killed Sunspray,” I whispered. “Tore him apart.”
“Sunspray,” he repeated. “Your realm’s wyvern.”
Swallowing again as tears welled, I nodded.
In the quiet that followed, a fyrefowl screeched. It failed to lure his attention. He remained perfectly still, seemingly perplexed, and continued to gaze down at me. “That’s why you won’t come to me.”
“Yes.” Confessing made it seem somewhat stupid. “It’s not your fault, I know, but you’re…” I gripped my robes and forced the words loose. “The mere thought of reading with you feels like a betrayal. It was already a betrayal, but now…” Sighing, I ceased trying to explain it.
“You loved this wyvern.”
“Very much.” My lower lip trembled. “My mother raised him.”
Voran finally blinked, fingers gentling at my chin.
His thumb glossed my bottom lip, and my heart missed a beat. It stopped entirely when he lowered. As his formidable form crouched before me, I braced. My fingers squeezed and squeezed my nightrobes.
Then his nose brushed my forehead.
A slight noise came from his throat when he exhaled. He whispered, “Our lessons will resume after tomorrow, broshklin, but you no longer need to kiss me.”
Shocked, I met his eyes.
The action caused our noses to almost touch—our lips a harsh breath apart.
I should have felt relieved. But as I stared into pools of darkest blue, I was tempted to reach for him. Tempted to ask him if there was anything else he’d intended to make me do, as punishment for avoiding him, before I’d explained.
His thumb gave my lower lip one last stroke. Then he was prowling toward the door.
It closed with a quiet creak behind him.