17. The Nightmare Prince
Chapter 17
I did not see much of the princess in the coming days after our full moon night.
Before the sun rose each morning, I left my side of our divided chamber for the upper corridor, sometimes pausing to wonder if she still slept or if she rose with the dawn. She spent most of her days in her chamber, even taking meals alone.
One of the few times we’d crossed paths was when I delivered a missive from the elven king. She’d offered a brisk thanks, but when I returned to retrieve her response, it had been placed outside her door.
Tonight would be different. A week since the vows, there was a feast to honor the alliance our way. More ale, rowdy chatter, and simplicity. Dorsan insisted the princess would attend for it would be improper to refuse.
I didn’t see how, but I took it to mean I would be beside my wife after days of clear avoidance.
I let my head fall back against the wall.
Damn her.
Damn me.
The night of the full moon with her body close to mine, her scent all over my bed, turned into something dark and greedy, like I might suffocate on my own desire if I did not touch her, hold her, taste her.
“Done for now.” Von smacked my arm. “He’s out here, Sander. Doing nothing while we work.”
My brother emerged from the empty room, wiping a bead of sweat off his brows, and closed the door at his back.
“Sander won’t do it, so I decided to become princely and order you about, Von.”
“Give it a try.” Von rubbed his neck where runes were tattooed on the sides. “I’m older, more cunning, and will promptly ignore you.”
“Do you have a key for the lock?” Sander asked.
“What would be the point?” I tapped the latch. “Everyone in this place can pick a lock in their sleep.”
The benefit of living amongst those of questionable moral character meant it was never impossible to gain access to anything. A benefit, but when I hoped to keep a private project private, it proved difficult.
“We forgot some.” Von had his hands in his dark hair, re-braiding the longer, center strands out of his eyes, and used his stubbled chin to point to a stack of dusty books.
Dammit. I plucked them off the floor, studying the top cover. Blue leather with gold filigree embossed on the corners. A saga of the wandering maiden who was kidnapped by a troll king and dragged to his underground world.
Opposites. Forced together. The maiden soon came to love the troll king and his dreary world, so much she gave up her upper lands and placed her heart in one of the troll king’s chests in his treasury.
His, for all time.
With a sigh, I shouldered into the darkened room.
Dust and the smell of old parchment burned my lungs with each breath. It was a corpse of a room. Tattered draperies blotted out the sunset. Linen covered sitting chairs that would need new padding and furs were shoved to the sides, and in the center endless piles of supplies for the empty shelves were stacked and orderly thanks to Sander and his focus.
I added the stack of children’s folk tales to the chaos, then returned to the corridor.
“Jonas.” Von leaned a shoulder against the wall. “Where are your thoughts? You look miserable. Quite unlike you, my friend. Was your moonlit night so terrible? Not compatible in bed?”
“Not miserable. Hungry.” I used the back of my hand to strike his chest, laughing to hide the disquiet in my blood. “And you know we did nothing but sleep, stop trying to imagine anything else.”
“I do not imagine you in bed, you ass. That would ruin any pleasure I hope to find in my own.”
“Ah, did you decide to speak to Brunhild other than thanking her for the food she serves?” Sander asked. “If you never say more, she’ll never know you wish to eat more than her wine rolls.”
“Gods, Sander.” Von studied my brother like he had never seen him before. “Sometimes you say things that make you more of a sod than Jonas.”
“Because I enjoy reading, you all think I am some innocent babe. Von, you live with Niklas Tjuv, the least innocent of us.”
Von chuckled. “True.”
Niklas and his wife, Junius, had territories in the northern provinces. Former smugglers (who were still prone to smuggle) and guild leads of the Falkyns.
Niklas was the most scholarly soul I knew. When we visited their province as boys, Von and I would race through the streets while Sander and Nik read the days away, then tested each other’s knowledge about different mesmers or cultures of fae folk.
“So what is all this, Jonas?” Von asked when we made our way down the darkened corridor. “What’s the ploy?”
“Not every step is a mark.”
“I’d believe that except here, we scheme.” Von winked. “Tell me about her. She’s why we are here behaving like gentlemen, right?”
What the hells was I to say? Should I admit how it felt damn near impossible to keep my distance from her after a mere week? How somehow the bleeding woman sparked heat in my blood?
In my bed, she’d left me in an inferno.
To get close again would simply be another dose of this new, unwelcome obsession.
“Damn.” Von’s voice snapped me from my melancholy. “I’ve never seen you so out of sorts. I think I might be in love with your new bride if she has done this to you.”
I narrowed my gaze, and it only made both Sander and Von laugh.
“She is a piece in a game, much the same as me,” I insisted. “Nothing more.”
“A game you arranged.” Von quickened his step and followed me around a corner. “Now, I have to wonder if you added stakes greater than you anticipated.”
“There are no stakes other than peace for the fae realms and sea folk against the elven. What other stakes matter?”
“Stakes of the heart, Jonas.” Von cuffed the back of my head.
“Those are not on the table.”
“Then what is the purpose of this little secret project for the princess?”
Sander said nothing, but came to my side, the same furrow of concern he had the day of the vows written on his face.
“It’s nothing but a bit of advice from Ari about adding joy to her days.” I looked at each of them once before going on. “It’s nothing more than trying to make a piss-poor situation more tolerable.”
The trouble was I didn’t think there was nearly as much misery returning home with a wife as I anticipated.
Von sobered. “I don’t think it is a bad thing, Jonas. I was glad when you asked for our help with all this.”
“Von, your tender heart is showing.” I knocked his shoulder as I strode past. “Don’t read so much into it. You’re as romantic in the eyes as Mira.”
“Well, she might have a point.”
“I have a request,” Sander interjected.
“What?” I spun around, walking backward to look at my brother.
“Find a way to make my new sister not look at me like I’m going to attack in the night. You’ve told her, right? You’ve let her know I don’t hold ill feelings that I was wounded?”
“Probably thinks you’re embarrassed by the scar.” Von gingerly patted Sander’s ribs where Skadi’s knife had lodged into his innards during the battle.
He shook his head. “Not in the least, she was the better fighter of us. The woman is fearsome with a blade.”
It was a strange feeling, the pain of nearly losing Sander to the Otherworld was there, but now it was edged in a bit of pride that Skadi was a damn warrior beneath her stoicism and mild temperament.
“Jonas, she knows, right?”
These bouts of drifting thoughts needed to end. “I might’ve mentioned it.”
Sander frowned. “I’ll speak to her.”
“Don’t corner her and demand friendship, Sander.” I hooked an arm around his neck, squeezing him against my side as we descended the tower staircase that led back to my wing. “Give her time to get her bearings.”
“Well, I think she is searching for them. I do hope she finds them soon.” Von went still at the bottom of the stairs, eyes straight ahead. “She’s mystifying, isn’t she?”
A strange stutter stilled my breath. Skadi was in her doorway, one hand behind her back, glancing in the opposite direction.
“She is.” I wasn’t certain if I was the one who spoke or one of the others.
Like a fist rammed through my middle, I could’ve doubled over from the sight of her. Hair spilled down her back in loose waves. Delicate braids crowned the top of her head, and woven around them was a small silver chain. The dress she wore was a shade of green like sea foam and moss that split high enough on her leg I could see the smooth shade of her soft, sun-toasted skin.
The scrape of our boots from stone steps to wooden floors drew her attention.
“Oh.” She straightened and drew in a sharp breath. “I was looking for a ser—staff.”
“Jonas.” Sander elbowed me. “She’s speaking to you.”
I cleared my throat and stepped forward. “Ah, they’re likely downstairs finishing with the feast. What is it you need, Fire?”
Skadi’s cheeks pinked. “Oh. I suppose I could ask Dorsan, but . . . he will likely die of impropriety.”
“We can’t have that. You have your husband and two sometimes-dependable men at your disposal.”
“Von Grym.” Without waiting for me, Von shoved his way toward us. “It is a pleasure to meet you at last, Princess. I was at the vows?—”
“And negotiations,” Skadi whispered. “You stood in the back behind the king and queen.”
Von looked delighted. “I was there, more out of curiosity than any real purpose.”
“He’s still finding his purpose in most things.” I nudged him back. “What do you need?”
“Oh, nothing. Never mind. I’ll manage fine.”
“Don’t do that.” I stepped closer, voice low.
“I am doing nothing.”
“You’re retreating, trying not to ask of me, trying to convince yourself I have no interest in your wellbeing.”
“I saw how you handled me in your bed, Husband.”
The corner of my mouth lifted. “Were you left unsatisfied?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“I will die of shame should I leave you in such a state again.”
She scoffed. “I doubt that very much.”
“Well, let me try now. I’ll ask again, what is it you need?”
Skadi dragged her bottom lip between her teeth, and all at once, I wanted to do the same. She leaned closer, the sugar scent of her hair under my nose. Her voice was low, rife in embarrassment. “I cannot fasten my gown.”
“I’d be honored to help.” Von lifted a hand, laughing when my fist struck his chest.
“Go clean yourself or Brunhild will avoid you all evening.”
Sander, the good brother he was, kept a hand on Von’s arm, guiding them past the door. “Lady Skadi.” He dipped his chin awkwardly. “I don’t hate you, you know.”
I groaned. “Gods, Sander. We just talked about this.”
“What?” He kept his pace, merely spoke over his shoulder. “I don’t. In fact, I’d love to spar again. You are better with a short blade.”
I stepped forward, guiding Skadi into her room, and slammed the door behind us. “Apologies for them. They are fools.”
Skadi held a touch of defiance, or perhaps fear, in her taut jaw. “Does he mock me?”
“Sander?” I glanced at the door for a breath. “No. Not at all. He was just spewing your accolades at the way you use a weapon, but is rather concerned you will never want to know him.”
“He . . . wants to know me?”
Did I desire her to be close with my brother? Did I want the folk I loved best stepping over boundaries I thought we’d keep?
Then again, the people in my life held no sense of boundaries.
I clasped my hands behind my back. “He does. But who you come to know here will be left to you. Now, let us see this dress.”
I opened my palms, dancing my fingers.
Skadi hesitated, then slowly turned in front of her mirror. She gathered her hair over one shoulder, exposing the flesh of her back to me. Lies of boundaries, peace treaties, and duty could spill over my tongue all damn day.
Nothing readied me for being dumbstruck by my unwitting wife.
“The buttons”—Skadi arched a hand over her shoulder, pawing at the top of the gown—“there are too many.”
“I see why you use ladies. Forgive us, we are made of more men here, and my mother finds more comfort in trousers.”
Once I aligned behind her, Skadi lifted her piercing blue eyes to mine in the glass. I was glad for the position; she wouldn’t see the tremble to my fingers.
What the hells was wrong with me? I had a fair bit of practice with women’s laces and buttons, now I could not steady my hands.
My knuckles brushed along the heat of her skin at the first three. Her breath was sharp, her skin rose like a cool breeze kissed her spine. A reaction of disgust . . . or something else?
“You have ink designs. I noticed them at the vows.”
All down her spine, tattoos made a coiling pattern of blossoms on vines.
“Yes.” Her voice was soft, a little breathless. “I noticed yours as well.” She looked at me again, less uncertain now, almost a smile on her full lips. “Any meaning behind them?”
“The two crossed blades on my back are made of black steel, symbols of our court. On my chest I keep the Kryv motto and emblems of those I love.”
“What is the motto?”
“Fight to the end.” I struggled with two more buttons, biting back a moan each time my fingers brushed over her skin. “It means to keep battling until victory or the Otherworld, but do not let enemies take you. No matter who or what it is.”
“Hmm.” Skadi smoothed her palms over the green satin of her gown.
Head down, I kept the mirror in the corner of one eye. “You disapprove of us?”
“No.”
Another button, another gasp when I intentionally traced the line of one of her stars. I leaned in, whispering, “Liar.”
For a moment, Skadi’s lashes fluttered. She swallowed and steeled her features. “I don’t disapprove. I’m merely curious how a kingdom thrives if its folk are constantly thieving.”
“Valid question.” I took a step closer. “Most people have quite honest trades and our days are rather dull. Thieving was simply once the only way to survive before House Eriksson was on the throne. Mesmer was hunted and used, forcing them into the underbelly.”
“Magic was hunted?”
“Fiercely, often by other alvers in power. They were tyrants and folk suffered. The only way to live was to fight for survival, which led to less reputable ways to make a living. But the guilds are family. They’re loyal to the end.”
My thumb brushed over the back of her neck. Skadi shuddered. Her steps shifted, and she leaned into me a little more.
I secured the final clasp between her shoulder blades but didn’t pull away. I rested my brow on the side of her head, slowly allowing my hands to slide over her shoulders, down her arms, falling to her waist.
“And . . .” She drew in a sharp breath when one of my palms slid across her middle. “And what of the king and queen?”
“The most crooked of us all.” Good hells, my voice was thick and rough, like sand lined my throat. My fingers ghosted across her ribs, drawing higher, higher. Blood heated, I looked back to the mirror.
Skadi’s eyes were blown wide. One hand was curled in a fist at her side the other reached back, holding my hip, as though she needed purchase to stand.
“Do we frighten you?” I brushed my lips over the slope of her neck.
“I . . . could ask the same of you.”
I paused over her pulse point, pressing a gentle kiss there, then looked back into the glass. “You terrify me, but I doubt it is in the way you think.”
“Then explain,” she whispered.
I would not survive this woman. Something had rotted out my resolve, something dangerous had overtaken my rational thoughts. She consumed me—actions, thoughts, fears, desire—they now belonged to her, and I did not think she understood how much stunning chaos she was causing in my life.
She was destroying me, moment by moment.
My palm glided between her rising breasts, resting over her heart. The beat was erratic, fierce, heavy. I pressed her into me. “Because this frenzy in your heart has made mine do the same.”
A soft gods fell over her tongue.
Skadi let her eyes close, but rested her palm over my wrist, then nimbly guided my hand to one side, until I covered her breast.
A rough, agonized sound tore from my chest. I let my forehead fall to her shoulder, tightening my grip, and kneaded the shape of her. I encircled her waist with my other arm and pressed a kiss to the sliver of flesh on her shoulder.
Skadi tilted her head, granting me access to her neck. “Jonas.”
Gods, to hear my name on her lips. My smile lifted against her skin. “I promised the next time would be breathless.”
Skadi’s heel stomped on my toe. I laughed, my teeth nipping at the silver ring pierced in her ear. She moaned and stumbled, one hand bracing on the edge of the vanity in front of her mirror. Gods, the desire to lift her skirt and keep her bent over like this made my cock twitch.
I spun her around. Her lips parted in stun. One breath, two, and I crashed my mouth to hers.
Skadi stuttered through the kiss at first. I demanded more, my tongue against the seam of her mouth. She tasted like fresh rain.
Another heartbeat, and Skadi ceased her stun and kissed me back.
I leveraged her onto the table of the vanity, stepping between her knees. Her body was lean and trembling, the layered skirt lifted over her smooth legs.
A new want and need filled my chest. One that was like sharp claws desperate to hook into her flesh and keep her tethered to me always. There was a thought for her freshly styled waves, but passion won out, and I tangled my fingers in her long hair, soft as silk.
Skadi hissed into my mouth when I tugged on her roots.
My mouth abandoned her lips. She let her head fall back, baring her throat, when I sucked and kissed my way down her neck.
Behind my thighs, Skadi hooked her ankles and yanked me closer.
“You are wicked, Wife.” I tugged her sleeve over her shoulder.
“And you’re horrid.” She held the back of my head.
With her sleeve askew, more of her breast swelled free. On the underside, a bit of the ink she promised was there peeked through, but that wasn’t all.
I pulled back, the tip of my thumb ran over the raised flesh, gnarled and taut beneath a piece of her tattooed skin.
Upon my touch, Skadi went stiff as stone. She pulled away, her arms abandoning me, and covered her body. In haste, she fixed her sleeve, avoiding my gaze. “That went too far. We . . . we don’t want to be late.”
“You have scars.”
“Many people do.” She slipped on a black pair of leather ankle boots.
My teeth ground together. “I know what knife scars look like, Skadi.”
“How happy for you.”
Damn woman. I turned her around. “You flinch. You hide scars beneath ink. Who has harmed you?”
“It is of no consequence to you.” She ran her fingers through her hair, desperately trying to smooth out the waves.
“No consequence?” Heat of anger burned behind my eyes. I fought to keep the rage of mesmer from dimming the color.
“It is nothing,” she repeated, “and not anything so horrible like I’m sure you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking you have scars you’ve intentionally covered because you do not wish to see them. Scars like that usually come with some sort of pain. Who. Did. It?”
She straightened, eyes ablaze. “Why would I tell you anything? It does not matter.”
In three strides I had her pressed against me again. “You are my wife.”
“And you do not want me!” Skadi shirked me off. “Not me. Yes, we are vowed. Yes, I have a woman’s body. Yes, I am here with the title of your wife. But do not pretend all that automatically brings true affection for the heart. You said so yourself, hearts are not part of the alliance. So do not pretend there is any care to know the tale behind a scar.”
“You don’t?—”
“No!” Tears glazed her eyes. “I don’t want this.”
“Don’t want what?”
“Whatever happened here.” Her hand gestured between us. “I won’t.”
“Why? What if this doesn’t need to be nothing?”
“It must. I have no desire to draw close to you.” Her voice cracked. “Don’t pretend you do. I beg of you to respect me enough not to play games.”
“I am not playing.”
“You are born of thieves; tricks and games make up your people by your own word.” She retreated again, eyes dull, intentionally shutting me out. “All I am to you is a dark, dangerous elf you were forced to muzzle for the sake of all fae folk.”
Her voice was raised, almost frantic, but there was a brokenness to it.
“That’s all you see with me? That’s all you want?” I asked, voice sharp. “To be indifferent strangers who are vowed?”
Skadi sighed. “It is always the same, Prince. Intrigue, maybe a bit of attraction, until the truth of the brutality within is seen and cannot be unseen. Save yourself some time and live your life as if I were not here. That is how I will live mine. We should do our duty, nothing more.”
It stung, more than I anticipated. What she meant was she did not want to grow closer with me. Odd how positions had shifted. I went into these vows without much thought on connection or emotions. Now, she rejected mine, and I felt the scar of it in my chest.
I flourished my hand in a mock sort of bow, and stepped for the door. “As you wish, Wife. Should I return to take you to the hall, or would my presence be too disconcerting?”
Her face pinched, her voice softened. “If it is all right, perhaps I should not attend tonight. Unless you command it.”
“I think I’ll put my tyranny to rest for the night. Do as you please.” I wrenched the door open in time to catch sight of Frigg’s long braid and Sander’s messy hair fade around the corner, their voices hissing and screeching like two hogs caught out of their pen.
How much had they heard? Asses.
I slammed the door to Skadi’s room the same moment Dorsan emerged in his finely spun elven tunic and blade. The only hint of emotion came when he lifted his brows.
“Your lady has chosen not to attend the feast. Remain here should she need you.” I said nothing more before storming into my own chamber, locking the door at my back.