Fifty-One #2
“Ah. The silver-haired beauty.” Vittoria looked Camilla over with appreciation. “No wonder he’s distracted.”
The goddess toyed with a lock of Envy’s hair, then raked her nails down his chest, dropping dangerously low.
Camilla’s jealousy reared its head, a territorial snarl close to ripping from her chest.
Vittoria watched her with slitted eyes, her hands now drifting to Envy’s belt.
“Should we take turns, now that he’s… up for the challenge?” she asked.
Camilla’s jealousy was spinning wildly out of control.
Vittoria kept her attention on Camilla as she dragged her tongue along the prince’s neck, then slowly drew back, lips quirked.
She knew what she was doing, was getting a perverse pleasure from it.
Envy hadn’t moved, hadn’t stopped her. But his gaze was flaring with some emotion…
something that burned ice-cold, not hot.
Seeming to tire of her toy, the goddess descended the stairs of the dais, walking a slow circle around Camilla.
“Perhaps we should pleasure each other.” She gave Camilla a secretive smile. “See if we can tempt him to join. Or maybe we’ll decide against it. Play with his sin a little.” She looked at Envy. “Would you like that, Your Highness? Seeing her come for me?”
Camilla’s attention drifted past the goddess, coming to rest on the prince.
Envy’s expression was hard now, his chest barely rising. He was no longer lounging across his throne, his hands gripped the arms of it, knuckles white.
Like he was trying not to launch himself off it.
“Do you think he’ll stroke himself?” Vittoria asked, shooting him a dark look. “Make himself come all over that pretty throne? Or do you think he’ll envy me as I make you writhe?”
She moved a step closer. Camilla didn’t retreat.
“What is it about you?” Vittoria muttered. “Your very presence seems to incite passion.”
That was an effect of Camilla’s true nature. And the goddess was entirely too observant. Or maybe Camilla was tired of chaining herself, dimming her light as Wolf had accused.
Perhaps she should seduce the goddess in front of Envy, give him a taste of his own game.
Envy suddenly rose from his throne, all demon. He took one fierce step at a time, closing the distance between them in an excruciatingly slow procession.
Camilla held his stare the whole time.
This battle of wills was one she could not lose; it would give him too much power, alter their dynamic in a way she’d never regain ground from. Camilla was an equal here, not a pet.
It was high time he realized that.
The prince stopped close enough for her to feel the heat of him, so close she had to tilt back her chin to hold that glittering, dangerous stare. Sometimes she forgot how large he was, how tall and commanding. He used every bit of his size now, crowding her space.
Camilla’s chin notched a degree higher; she was not cowed.
He moved so fast she didn’t register what had happened until her cloak hit the floor.
“You smell like Unseelie, Camilla.”
Vittoria laughed quietly. He tensed.
“Alexei. See the goddess out. We’re through.”
“No, we’re not,” Vittoria challenged. “Things are just getting fun.”
Jealousy had Camilla feeling downright murderous. No matter if the goddess ruled over Death, Camilla would find a way to end her if she touched Envy before Camilla did.
“Alexei.” Envy was pushed to his limit too. “Now.”
Camilla hadn’t known the vampire was there, she’d kept her attention only on Envy. But now he swooped in, ushering Vittoria out with a bitter curse and a foreboding thud of the throne room doors. Camilla heard a bolt sliding home, locking them in.
Envy was still.
It was the stillness of a predator. Of a being who wasn’t human and never had been. The sort of stillness that unnerved.
And it would have, if Camilla hadn’t been as still, mind whirling as the puzzle slowly came together.
All at once, she understood. She thought Envy had been reacting to her jealousy, his sin surging, being stoked by her strong emotion, but the stillness, the tension…
He was jealous. Of more than the goddess’s taunts. Those had been a mere distraction, a way for him to try to get his true envy under control.
And he’d failed to do so.
Wolf had touched her cloak.
Her locket.
He’d danced with her across the snow.
He’d hugged her, run those big hands along her spine, attempting a mortal’s embrace. And Camilla had sunk into it, allowing Wolf to envelop her for a moment, brief though it had been.
But Envy wasn’t human, his senses weren’t dulled.
From the second she walked in, he would have scented Wolf all over her. Had probably assumed that the Fae had sought her out once Envy went to meet the goddess.
And there was only one thing Wolf was legendary for.
A puzzle that wouldn’t have taken Envy long to solve.
Camilla imagined that Envy was vividly picturing all the things the Fae had done to her, the same way she’d just pictured what Envy was doing here. On the throne. With the goddess .
Camilla wasn’t jealous of Vittoria; she was envious that he’d dare to touch another the way she wanted him to touch her . Only her.
“I spoke with Wolf,” she said.
“I know.”
His sin chilled the chamber, frost lightly coating the walls. If she’d possessed that ability, Camilla would have iced over the chamber with her envy too.
Finally, his gaze flicked down to her locket. Or maybe he was staring at her breasts. An eternity passed in a handful of moments before he looked up, face impassive.
“Did you fuck him?”
His voice was low, but his words carried a punch.
If he expected Camilla to flinch, she refused to do so. Clarity came without warning. This wasn’t about her. Or whether she’d allowed Wolf into her bed again.
It wasn’t even about Envy’s sin, about his inability to be satisfied, like his brothers all thought. His one-night rule was about Envy punishing himself . Repeatedly.
Brick by brick he’d built a wall around his heart.
His refusal to spend more than one night with a lover meant he never had to risk that wall crumbling.
Never had to risk getting hurt, or falling in love, never had to risk losing.
Because he had been hurt before, he’d played the game of romance and had lost; the scar ran deep, the fracture never quite mending.
And he blamed himself for a choice that was never his to make.
His mortal had gone to the Wild Court of her own free will. What had happened was tragic, but he was not to blame.
“Once.” Camilla gave him the truth, knowing he’d sense a lie. Knowing, too, she wanted to offer an olive branch. “A long time ago.”
His gaze traveled to her lips.
“Was he the male in your memory?”
“Yes.”
“How long.” His voice held no trace of anger. It wasn’t a question, either. “A year? A decade?”
Camilla’s throat tightened. He was asking so much more than he appeared to be.
“Two mortal years.”
There was a flicker of understanding in his face. Perhaps relief. Even if he didn’t know what she was, it was an admission that Camilla wasn’t human.
Moonlight streamed in from high-set windows, pooling around them.
For the first time, Camilla noticed how the light bathed him in silver, giving him a celestial glow; a star fallen to grace mortals with its splendor.
As if he needed any heavenly assistance to make him more alluring.
Looking at him now, Camilla wondered how she’d ever believed he was human.
“Is that why you wear the locket?” he asked. “A charm to ward him off? Or is it an enchantment to hide your true nature?”
“Did you love her?”
Camilla didn’t clarify who she meant, and he didn’t ask. They both knew she was asking about the mortal, not the goddess.
He’d gone still again; this time a storm was quietly brewing behind his gaze as it turned inward.
“Infatuation. Intrigue. Deep admiration. But never love.”
He bared his teeth, like he expected her to think him monstrous for that admission of truth and played the role to own it. Masks upon masks.
Deception would be their undoing.
When she didn’t react, he filled the silence.
“I brought her to the Wild Court. Introduced her to her death. Made a selfish mistake that has impacted my entire court. That responsibility weighs.”
And then she’d wager his one-night rule was born.
Camilla knew what it was like to make a single mistake that continued to ravage.
Some mistakes grew fangs and claws, always hungry for more wickedness, more regret.
She wanted to ask what he’d done but sensed that was a door he’d keep firmly closed for now.
She’d just walked the halls of his House, knew his mistake had grown more than proverbial fangs.
“Your turn,” he said. “Tell me about the locket.”
She expelled a breath.
“It was a gift from my mother. It wards against Unseelie males.”
It did more, but that was all she’d reveal now.
His gaze sharpened on her admission, the wheels of his mind spinning. She saw the exact moment he’d added all his clues together. “You’re Seelie. How old are you truthfully?”
Far older than twenty-eight human years. “We left Faerie when I was six.”
Envy blinked, calculating. Time in Faerie was much different. But Fae children aged slowly there even by those standards. She’d been born more than a century before.
Camilla hadn’t truly started to age until she’d left her realm and come to Waverly Green, where human time had quickly ushered her to full adulthood.
It was one of the many reasons she’d refused to marry. Camilla wouldn’t age another day in her life, would have to leave Waverly Green eventually, before anyone grew suspicious. She wondered sometimes if that had been one of the reasons her mother had left.
“Were you going to bed the goddess?” she countered.
He considered her question.
“That was the plan, if it came down to it.”
This time Camilla did flinch. Truth was more hurtful than a blade. But he’d given it to her as she’d done for him, and for that she was grateful.
Envy moved in, like a shark scenting blood in the water.