Chapter 2
“I thought you’d missed the ceremony,” he says.
Kai sets a tankard of ale before me. I’ve tasted wine on occasion, mostly the cheap stuff that’s just shy of vinegar. Nana uses it for cooking, which is all it’s good for.
I sniff the beer cautiously.
“Go on. Try it.” The dare glinting in Kai’s blue eyes prompts me to lift the tankard to my lips and drink deeply. It is nothing like the cooking wine. Beer tastes like liquid wheat and grass. Not bad, but I’m not used to it. I thrust the tankard away, coughing.
His mates slap the table.
“Told you Gwen could handle it,” Kai says triumphantly, like I’m one of his soldier friends. A discordant note of unease sounds within me. I don’t want to be a girl who’s just another one of his fellow knights. I want to be special to him.
“Aye, I hear the lass is up for anything.” One soldier winks.
I don’t wink back. I’m too busy trying to stay upright against the thumping of Kai’s open hand between my shoulder blades.
Eyes watering, coughing, and choking, I can’t figure out what the winking soldier meant by that comment, but I know it wasn’t good.
Kai scowls. “Gwen doesn’t understand what you’re implying, and I don’t like it.”
The soldier raises both hands, palms out. He’s clearly more brawn than brains. “Didn’t mean nothing by it. She’s a pretty little lass. No man could blame you, Highness. I mean, Captain. Are you Captain, Commander, or Highness, now?”
“Just call me Kai.” Music, a lute, pipes, and a drum, carries over the din of conversation. He takes my hand. “Let’s dance.”
I’m torn between confusion over what the man said, and giddy glee over the unexpected honor of being asked to be Kai’s first partner. Before he drags me away, I snatch the tankard and down the rest of its contents. The men use strong drink as liquid courage. Why can’t I?
Within seconds the world is spinning ever so slightly off-center. I swat his arm. “Don’t be so serious. Want me to fight them? I’m not going to let a couple of gossipy soldiers ruin your day.”
“I don’t like it when they imply things about you. I know you aren’t like that.”
“Like what?” Maybe I am and he doesn’t suspect.
“Grasping, like Lady Ashburn. She’s ambitious and unfaithful.”
“Oh.” I am definitely not like that. If anything, I wish Kai wasn’t a prince at all.
“No matter what anyone says about your family, I know the truth. You’re the sweetest and most honest person I’ve ever met. You’re loyal to people you—”
He stops abruptly, to my great disappointment. Mentally, I fill in the blank with the word love. Does he know how much I love him? What lowly scullery maid wouldn’t swoon to hear a prince sing her praises? I would follow him to the ends of the earth.
Kai scowls. “I trust you more than anyone outside my own family. They can’t say those things about you. Or me, for that matter. I would never behave inappropriately with you, Gwen. I honor you in every way.”
Well that’s too bad, I barely manage to not say. I could do with a little less honoring and a lot more kissing. I yearn for the taste of his lips. Instead, all I have is the lingering grassy-wheat flavor of beer.
His hand envelops mine, warm and tough-skinned from many hours of battle practice.
“I honor you, too,” I belatedly respond. If by honoring, one means, I used to sneak down to the training yard to watch you practice without a shirt. I imagine what your lips would feel like on mine. I think about us being married, having children—
“I would never do anything to damage your reputation,” he says. Yet that appears to be one thing beyond a prince’s control. He can’t stop people from gossiping about us.
“I know.” I hiccup. “Choosing me as your first dance partner won’t stop tongues from wagging, though.”
“We can stop if you want to.”
“The damage is done.” I’ll deal with Nana’s wrath later, and savor this moment for as long as it lasts. “You should choose a more illustrious partner than a scullery maid for your next dance.”
“Why would I want to dance with anyone but you?” He spins me. I twirl, laughing, as the world spins dizzyingly. When he says things like that, my heart soars with hope.
“Gwen?” The amusement in his voice showers sparks on my skin. That low rumble reverberates in every part of me as I fall against him. Another hiccup takes me by surprise. His lips brush the rim of my ear when he says, “You’re drunk.”
“I am not.”
“Are too.”
“It was only one beer.”
“You’re small for a girl your age and you drank that beer impressively fast. If I let go of you, you’d fall down.”
“Then you’d better not let me go.”
I lean into him. My breasts are heavy and aching inside my bodice, and the tips are so hard and sensitive that they actually hurt when I brush against his chest. Kai stiffens.
With a rush of panic, I realize that I’ve crossed a line I shouldn’t have. I flirted with him. He’s right about me being intoxicated. I trip over his feet, then my own. Kai manacles my arms to keep me upright. His hands are so big the tips of his fingers touch around my bicep.
“Steady on, Gwen. We have an audience.”
He bypassed every highborn lady present to have his first dance with me, all because his friend may or may not have insulted my honor, and now I’m embarrassing him. Giving everyone a reason to believe the worst things said about me.
Nana will be furious. This is precisely the situation she was worried about.
Kai doesn’t mean anything by his attentions. I know that. But clearly, people already believe there is more to our relationship than mere friendship. I would like for that to be the truth, but I don’t want to be dishonored—and I know he would never do that to me.
Given his status, he can ruin me, but he cannot repair the damage by marrying me. Sobering thought. I try to collect myself but my feet won’t cooperate. “Can we sit down?”
Kai’s mouth ticks up in amusement. “I was right about the beer.”
“Yes, you were right about the beer. No need to be smug about the fact.”
He leads me off the dance floor as quickly as he dragged me onto it. I’m less woozy now that I’m not trying to remember the steps to a reel. I lean against the stone wall. Cold seeps into my back. Perspiration sheens my skin.
Kai braces one arm against the wall above my head. He brings his bare hand to my face. Air seizes inside my lungs. I want him to touch me so badly.
Gently, he tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. Affectionate. Fond. Sweet.
Not what I want.
My pulse kicks hard when his gaze drops to my mouth and lingers there.
“I need to get back to my family.” Regret laces his tone, and lances my heart. I force myself to nod. “You should go home. Do you want me to walk you there?” he asks. What a gentleman, looking out for my safety.
But this is Kai’s celebration. I’m not selfish enough to drag him away from it simply because I foolishly downed an entire tankard of ale.
“I’ll be fine. I know every stone of this castle, Kai. I won’t get lost.” I slip out from beneath his arm. He catches my hand and drags me back.
There’s an intriguing hint of darkness in the way he looks at me that melts my insides. I’m curious about that part of him, but he is always careful to conceal it from me.
“One kiss? For luck?”
He’s as breathless as I am. All I can do is dip my chin once, and then tip my face to his expectantly. He feathers his fingertips along my jaw. Should I keep my eyes open, or close them? Anticipation sizzles on my skin. Up the sides of my throat. Down my spine. Lifting the fine hairs on my arms.
He bends his head. Warm breath skims over my lips. My eyes flutter closed.
Before his lips touch mine, a cold breeze hurtles across the courtyard. It blows my skirts up all the way to my knees. Stings like a thousand tiny cuts dot my skin. The lust drains away in an instant.
“What the—”
Kai throws his arms up to protect his face. I cower against him as the freezing maelstrom whips around us, up my skirt, stinging my calves and thighs. He wraps me close, but the metal buckles are so cold it bites my cheek. I push away, bringing my hands to my stinging face.
The wind dies as quickly as it started, the cloud of snowflakes breezing across the courtyard like a demonic force. I stare after it, stunned. We’ve never had snow in Montrace before. I turn to Kai. He gapes at me, covering one eye but peeking through his fingers and blanching.
“What’s wrong with your eye?” I gasp. In the same instant, he says, “You’re bleeding.”
When I take my hands away from my face, they’re streaked with bright crimson. I stare at them in bewilderment. Sticky wetness drips down my legs.
“Got a snowflake in my eye. It smarts, but I’ll be fine.” Kai examines my face. “Those cuts aren’t deep, but there are so many of them. You should get them tended to. They’re all over your face and arms.”
He reaches for my chin. For a breathless beat I think he might finish our interrupted kiss, but instead, he swipes at my hairline. I flinch. When he draws his hand away, a tiny white speck is perched on his fingertip.
“Fascinating. A snowflake that doesn’t melt.” He stares at it intently. “Each one is unique, you know.”
“I was the one who taught you that fact.”
“From my own lesson books. The ones I didn’t want to read. I remember.”
As a boy, Kai never liked doing his lessons, but I was hungry for any scrap of information about the world I could get.
His books were as much a draw as his company was.
He liked the way I would help him with his schoolwork.
But there is no trace of the warmth that shone in his eyes only moments ago.
I shiver and try to rub my arms, but my hands stick to the drying streaks of blood. “I should go.”
Nana is going to kill me for not coming back to help with the feast sooner.
“Yes. You should.” Kai blows on the snowflake. It swirls up into the sky. The wind snatches it. “Goodbye, Gwen.”
Am I drunk and imagining things, or was the way he said goodbye strangely cold?
That’s when the screaming starts, jerking my attention to the elevated platform where the royal family’s table sits beneath an arbor decorated with flowers and strings of candles in glass.
Overhead, the strange winter storm sweeps away over the castle tower, shredding the fluttering banners into ribbons.
I gasp.
To either side of the petrified queen lie the bloodied bodies of the king and all three of Kai’s brothers.
Their skin is sliced by so many small cuts that their faces seem to be literally falling off the bones beneath, but each man bears a ragged hole in his artery as if an animal had torn out his throat.
My breath comes in panicked, shallow gasps. Unable to get enough air, I clutch Kai’s arm and point. A small smile steals over his face.
“I guess that makes me the new king.”
I stare at him in horror. He strides away and never looks back.
This is not the darkness I wanted from him. This is something so cold and callous that I cannot name it.