Chapter 4 Dining with the Devil #2
“How do you know they’re still safe?” I asked, intensely interested. “How do you know the Earthwives haven’t found them already and taken one of my sisters?”
“I have my ways,” Pharis assured me. “I’ve been keeping an eye on them. They’re safe. And they’ll remain that way as long as you stay put and accept the help you’ve been so generously offered. I know you have a hard time with that.”
Back in Havendor, back when I’d trusted Pharis, I’d revealed to him my mother’s last words to me. She’d told me I was stronger than I knew, and that I didn’t need anyone.
In the years that followed her death in battle, I’d taken that to heart. I’d done my best to fill her place and take care of my blind father and much younger sisters. I’d become almost too independent, afraid to rest or accept any help at all.
Now I regretted sharing that private memory with Pharis and baring my soul to him.
“Please don’t act like we’re friends,” I said.
“Fine. We’re not friends,” he said. “But you will accept the protection of my home until I say you can leave. And while you’re here, you’ll work to develop your glamour gift and your other Elven abilities, like mind-to-mind communication. You’re terrible at it.”
“You’ve tried speaking to me that way?” I asked, surprised. “When?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. You need to learn to use it. And your glamour. It’s too valuable to go unutilized.”
“So that’s why you saved me and brought me here.”
It was all starting to make sense now. “You want to use my glamour gift in forming your own court and enriching your own power.”
Pharis smirked. “That’s right. That’s the only reason. The King and I are rather on the outs, you see. Once he finally does realize I’m alive and what I did in that arena, I’ll need all the weapons I can get.”
“I have no interest in being one of your ‘weapons’—or in helping you form a rival court. I’ll refuse to participate in any sort of ‘training’ you have in mind.”
“Suit yourself, Wildcat,” he said. “But you’re still not leaving. Not until I say so.”
“What am I supposed to do with only a handful of books and a houseful of mute servants for company?” I demanded, frustrated by his blase demeanor—and his complete and total control over me.
“You and I got along quite well in the past,” he reminded me. “I’m sure we’ll do fine here together.”
His flirty tone and suggestive expression made my cheeks burn with heat and lit a fresh fire under my temper.
“If you’re entertaining any notion of revisiting our… our… ill-advised romantic interludes… you’d better drop it right now.”
He chuckled. “Oh I have no illusions about your feelings for me.”
I gestured to my beautiful dress. “Then why the fancy gown and delicious food and bouquets of exotic flowers in my room?”
“You prefer rags and weeds and starvation?” he asked in a droll tone.
He shrugged. “I like to be surrounded by beautiful things.”
His eyes stayed on me a beat too long for my comfort.
Pinned by that intense cerulean gaze, I felt heat gather beneath the folds of the evening gown and squirmed in my chair, longing to return to the relative loneliness of my room.
“Suit yourself,” I said. “As long as you understand I’ll never want to be with a man like you.”
“A man like me,” he repeated. “Is my brother really that much more attractive?”
His tone sounded a bit bruised, as if I’d hit a tender spot.
“Or did you want to be Queen of the Sixlands and all Avrandar like all the other unbonded women in the land?” he asked.
What a ludicrous question.
“Of course not. I have no interest in that. I never did. As far as attractiveness goes, you already know how—”
I stopped myself abruptly, and Pharis’ greedy questions jumped into the gap.
“What? I already know how what?”
Picking up my wine glass, I took a swallow to gather my wits and my nerve. I’d almost revisited our old relationship dynamic myself.
“If you’re waiting for me to tell you how handsome and alluring you are, you’re going to be waiting a long time, Prince of Tears.”
He chuckled and took a drink from his own glass, keeping his eyes on me over the rim.
“So what is it then?” he asked. “What’s so wrong with a ‘man like me?’”
I held up a hand and started ticking off his flaws with my fingers.
“For starters, you lie and scheme and wield your power to control those weaker than yourself.”
I put up another finger. “You hold women prisoner.”
He grinned. “Just one.”
That expression was wiped off his beautiful face by my next words.
“You’re incapable of real closeness and love… so you steal someone else’s true love instead.”
Back in Havendor, Pharis had told me he’d never let anyone close before because he doubted anyone could love him if they got to really know him.
After all that had occurred since then, I’d be inclined to believe the confession was only an attempt to manipulate me with false vulnerability. But my intuitive gift—my glamour, if indeed I had one—had confirmed it.
I’d read his fear, loud and clear, and it hadn’t changed since then.
In his deepest soul, Pharis was afraid he’d always be alone, that no one would ever truly love him. And in my opinion there was good reason for that.
He’d proved himself to be a villain.
I’d chosen throw his vulnerable words back at him now because I’d known it would hurt. Apparently my poison arrow had hit its mark.
Pharis stiffened in his chair, his hands clenching into fists on the tabletop.
“You really think you’re still in love with my brother,” he said.
“Of course I love him. Why wouldn’t I? Stellon is good and noble and gentle and kind.”
“Unlike me,” Pharis prompted.
“I used to think perhaps you could be, with some work and practice,” I said. “But I was wrong.”
Picking up his knife and fork, Pharis sawed vigorously at the tender meat on his plate. His motions were so violent I feared the china dish would break in half.
He looked back up at me, gesturing with the sharp knife.
“For your information, your noble and kind ‘good Prince’ has forgotten all about you and is this very night at a new bond-mate ball, choosing a noble Fae bride.”
The news hit me like a hard slap. Tears rushed to my eyes, causing me to blink rapidly.
“It’s only been a few months,” I whispered.
Pharis’ exceptional Elven hearing picked up the dismayed reaction.
“I told you—my brother’s heart is fickle.” He sneered. “I hope your happy memories and true love will keep you company as you pine away for him for eternity.”
Standing abruptly, he nodded to a footman. “I’m finished.”
Then Pharis turned and left the dining room without another word or a look back.