2. Raven #2
My breath caught in my throat, and I darted my gaze over his shoulder to the view of the hall. Valen still stood there, observing, as if waiting for me to push Winter away like the queen desired.
To do so now was not the way to handle the situation. Not if the intention was to make the results stick.
I would need to mold my actions into a natural distancing of our newly found friendship. Find a way to make him see me as a mistake and pull away.
As if sensing my train of thought, Valen grinned, spun on his heels, and promptly disappeared down one of the many long hallways. No doubt marching straight to the queen with the signed…or marked…agreement.
“Come.” Winter linked his arm through mine. “Let me show you where you will be living while you’re here.”
We glided through corridors and grand gathering halls dripping with rich elegance and grandeur.
White marble floors, silky white walls, trimmed with gold.
Sparkling chandeliers, each with more hanging crystals than stars in the sky.
Oversized picturesque windows bordered by red velvet curtains.
Chairs and settees wrapped in similar luxurious fabric.
Mirrored and glassed tables set with obscenely huge floral arrangements.
In less than twenty-four hours, I had gone from cozy, common-man surroundings to gaudy, dripping-wealth accommodations. The experience carried a degree of culture shock with an accompanying punch of anxiety to my chest.
As lovely as everything looked, I did not belong in this lap of luxury. Too easily I could get comfortable, and that was something I couldn’t afford. I needed to keep my head straight and my sights focused on the task.
I tracked our steps, noting our movement took us away from the castle’s city view and toward the east wing.
Each proceeding step became more and more of a physical challenge.
When we passed into a semi-large sitting hall adorned in blue, rather than the red I had observed everywhere else, Winter paused.
The space wasn’t as large as some of the other gathering halls we’d traversed, but it was more than large enough.
Of the four surrounding walls, one opened to the corridor from whence we had just come, and opposite, a floor-to-ceiling window at least two stories high.
The other two opposing walls offered a collection of closed doors, set twelve or more feet apart.
I suspected the two guards flanking a door at the far end of the room marked my new accommodations. Despite the males’ expressions of indifference, possibly boredom, I knew they tracked my every action. As did the two guards hovering at Winter’s back.
No doubt a guard would always be glued to me when I moved through the palace. Double the guards when I was anywhere near the prince.
“This wing is reserved for my personal guests. Unfortunately, there have been few.” He scratched his temple and frowned. “Or honestly none in quite a long time.”
As in a hundred years?
I didn’t vocalize the question. Instead, I opted to lead the conversation in a different direction. “I take it that the change in decor is representative of your colors?”
He huffed a laugh. “Yes. The red is rather dominant throughout the house. The color represents my brother, the rightful heir.”
The missing heir, if I recalled correctly.
I nodded. Winter lived in a palace larger than many villages, and he referred to the place as a house. I shook my head and laughed softly.
Winter tilted his head closer, his breath warming the ridge of my ear. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” I wet my lips. “I’m merely thunderstruck that I’ll be staying here.”
He studied me closely, his eyes warm as a clear summer sky.
“Then I hope you find your accommodations everything you could possibly desire and more.” He stepped aside, between the stationed guards, and pushed open the door.
“I have already sent for your things. They should be waiting for you come morning.”
My back jerked ramrod straight. He sent someone to retrieve my possessions? I didn’t care so much about my clothing, but…my reaper’s handbook, the crow clicker, the soul extract—
The soul extractor! I’d left it at the pub, in a room that wasn’t mine, on the floor. I’d allowed it to slip from my hand and fall under the bed when the palace guards showed up to collect Winter.
Merciful reaping death god.
My muscles seized, my heart struggling to beat.
What had I done? What had become of the soul-extracting tool?
“No. No.” I shook my head, spun into him, and pressed my palms to his chest.
The surrounding guards snapped into action, slicing their swords into the space between me and the prince. One of the guards leveled his weapon at my neck, a mere inch from my skin.
With graceful fluidity, Winter casually shifted the weapons from our personal space.
“She will not hurt me,” he said, not shifting his gaze from scrutinizing my every flicker of emotion. “She could have left me to my fate had she wanted me dead.”
He was referring to the protective magical barrier, or coma, he’d found himself in because of my actions. My need to investigate the tunnels that led to his attack by the specters. In the past, they had run from him. I had witnessed that myself.
But something was different in the tunnels.
Possibly my closeness to him, my overheated skin, somehow negated his effect.
And because of that something different, the specters had attacked.
He’d ended up in that magical coma state.
Had I not used the soul extractor, he might have still been in that unresponsive condition.
I swept my gaze over the guards then back to Winter as I pulled my chilled hands from his chest and curled them into fists. “I need to be the one to gather my belongings. Only me and no other.”
He grimaced. “It’s too late. The men were dispatched close to an hour ago.”
An hour ago? Was my cover…the one the queen insisted I keep secret…already blown?