Chapter 14 #2
In the end, Semphrys’s lust for power had gotten Kaden’s mother killed.
As if I’d summoned the Dark Prince with my thoughts, I felt the hum of that seductive power race across my skin. I spared a glance over Sorsha’s shoulder and saw him ambling toward us, heedless of the clash of blades around him.
Though this was technically Alfrigg’s army, the soldiers parted for Kaden as if he commanded by his presence alone.
It was no mystery why. He towered over the other males, his talon-tipped wings dwarfing each of theirs. His dark hair was almost black from the rain and swept to one side to reveal a mask of cold cunning that sent a chill racing down my spine.
Following my gaze, Sorsha rolled her eyes when she saw her brother striding across the tower. The clang of steel rang in my ears, and yet I could have sworn I heard her say, “He just can’t resist throwing his dick around when he comes here.”
But if that was indeed what she’d said, Kaden appeared not to have heard her. “May I cut in?” he asked, his voice low and seductive. As if we were in a ballroom surrounded by suitors, not trading blows on the rain-soaked tower.
“I’m not finished with her yet,” Sorsha pouted, slashing with her blade. “It’s been ages since I sparred with someone who didn’t hold back. The males here all treat me as though I’m made of glass.”
“I’ll have a word with Siran,” Kaden promised. “Make sure his soldiers are challenging you.”
“You think I haven’t done that already?” Sorsha snapped. “They all refuse my orders to try to kill me. I’d send them to the dungeons if that wouldn’t make things worse.”
“Bit high-handed of you.”
“Says the kettle,” Sorsha quipped, stepping back and lowering her blade with a flourish. “On second thought, I’ll let you two carry on. It’s been too long since someone has handed my brother his ass, and it does make my heart sing to watch it.”
“Do you have so little faith in me?”
The princess smirked. “I’ve just seen what she can do.”
Kaden cut his sister a sidelong look and drew both his swords.
“You need two blades to beat me?” I asked, sliding my other sword from its sheath.
“No,” said Kaden, twirling his blades. “I merely think it’s safer if we have both hands occupied while we’re in such close quarters.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, and an unwelcome heat bloomed in my core.
I rushed him before he could utter another word, going high with one blade and low with the other. Kaden deflected my strikes with effortless grace, snapping the heavy steel weapons as though they were mere toys.
I lunged again, feigning as I took an angled jab with the other sword. Kaden spun, forcing me to change my stance.
And then I felt it — shadows and mist billowing around my mental defenses, gently caressing that imaginary wall and sliding between the cracks.
I cursed aloud, aiming a ferocious swipe at Kaden’s neck as I fought to shove him out.
What’s the matter? he purred inside my mind. Can’t do two things at once?
I let out a cry of frustration as I wrestled with that infernal mist, fighting him outwardly with steel and aggression.
But it was too late.
As Kaden advanced with his own lethal combination, I felt the hum of dark power within the inner sanctum of my mind. Surrounding me. Seducing me. Wrapping me in his own essence.
Kaden rifled through my thoughts with impunity, heedless of how I thrashed against his invasion.
I sensed it when he found what he’d been looking for — a memory I’d worked hard to bury deep within the recesses of my mind.
We were in his bedroom back at the House of Guile, and I was straddling his lap.
Naked.
Kaden’s hands were everywhere as his tongue plunged into my mouth, coaxing me open with dangerous, delicious strokes that had desire pooling between my thighs.
Though it was my memory, the event was laced with something heavier as it played within my mind. Something heady, masculine, feral, and possessive.
I could feel the manic pulse of need deep within my core. It hit me with the force of a battering ram, spiking my own desire before eclipsing it entirely.
I was feeling Kaden’s need. His lust.
Whether he’d meant to or not, he seemed to have infused my memory with the echo of his own longing. Or maybe I was feeling him now as he replayed the scene for us both.
I didn't care.
White-hot, grounding rage coursed through me, annihilating the heat of desire and ripping through the memory with razor-sharp claws. It filled every void within my mind, surging over the intruding desire like a rogue wave.
Sucking in a breath, I focused on that rage, summoning as much of myself as I could muster before shoving Kaden out of my mind.
The second he was out, I felt my mind clear, and I hurriedly shored up my defenses — stuffing every crack with my own furious essence. I could still sense his smoky magic drifting around the perimeter of my mind, but he was locked out.
My awareness plunged back to the present, to the blade in my hand and my own sloppy strikes. It was no small miracle that I was still standing — that Kaden hadn’t cut me to ribbons while I’d been distracted.
Perhaps he’d been distracted, too.
“Cheater,” I huffed, my lungs aching as I fought for a breath between every vicious strike.
Sorsha was still watching from a safe distance, though she’d only been privy to the pitiful battle playing out before her eyes .
Kaden’s infuriating chuckle rumbled through me, reverberating in my bones. “It’s not cheating. You just got lazy and left openings in your mental shields.”
I cursed. As irritated as I was to have Kaden slip into my mind and drudge up that memory, I was angrier with myself.
My shields hadn’t been secure, and if I didn’t get good enough to keep them sealed at all times, any one of his father’s demons could invade my mind.
It was an unacceptable risk.
“You’ll do better next time,” Kaden said, abruptly sheathing his blades and turning on his heel.
Seething, I watched him go, cutting through the throng of soldiers heading toward the stairs.
“What was that about?” Sorsha asked with a suggestive lilt to her voice.
“Just His Royal Highness being a royal pain in my ass,” I grumbled.
Sorsha’s mouth twisted into a smirk, and we followed the horde of males down the spiral staircase. “It looked like a bit more than that.”
“He’s training me to fortify my mental shields.”
“And that's a bad thing?”
“No,” I admitted, not wanting to explain what Kaden had done when he’d been inside my head. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”
Sorsha didn’t reply.
I hadn’t planned on spilling my whole life story to the princess, but I felt it tumbling out nonetheless. “He killed my mother,” I said quietly. “Stole her from me when I was a child. Dragged her to the Otherworld to be tortured and used by Semphrys and then dumped her in the Quarter.”
Sorsha looked stricken .
“Now he wants to use me to end his father and take the throne.”
“I’m sorry about your mother,” Sorsha murmured.
And I could see in her expression that she meant it — knew from her history that she was one of the few who truly understood that pain.
“And I’m sorry for what my brother has put you through.
I would hate him too.” Sorsha paused, chewing on her bottom lip.
“But if you were him . . . if you had spent centuries watching a male who brutalized your mother destroy your homeland while forcing you to take part, wouldn’t you do anything to stop him? ”
“Yes, but —”
“But it’s not that simple,” she finished. “Not for you.”
The princess hesitated, looking torn. “My brother can be an ass, but he has his reasons. I know you weren’t given a choice in all of this, but neither was he. Kaden hates who he is. Who Semphrys forced him to become. But none of us gets to choose our parents.”
I swallowed. As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. Kaden hadn’t chosen to be Semphrys’s heir any more than I had chosen my lineage — or the father who’d left.
“It’s none of my business,” said Sorsha quickly, “but I don’t think you’d be so angry if you didn’t feel something for my brother.”
I tossed her a sharp glare. I liked Sorsha, but we’d only just met. I wasn’t discussing my feelings for Kaden. Not when I was still so mixed up myself.
“He’s the demon prince,” I said simply. “And I am his prisoner.”
“That’s one way to look at it. ”
“That’s the only way to look at it,” I snapped. “Kaden deceived me. He —”
“Would you have trusted him if he’d told you the truth from the beginning?”
I let out a frustrated hiss, but Sorsha merely looked entertained.
Perhaps focusing so hard on my mental shields had dulled my hunter instincts, because I’d allowed myself to be so distracted by our conversation that I hadn’t noticed her leading me past the mess hall and down a small corridor.
“Where are we going?” I asked, suspicious of my devious new friend.
“I figured we’d skip mess and take a little picnic instead.”
As much as I didn’t relish discussing my feelings toward Kaden, I couldn’t find it in me to object. Our dramatic arrival at Cragsmuir and earlier sparring session had piqued the interest of every soldier in the fortress, and I was tired of being gawked at.
I trailed the princess into the kitchen, where the deafening clang and scrape of pots melded with the hiss of steam and the pungent stench of cooked fish. An older fae female with stringy blond hair stood in the fray, barking orders at servants and brandishing her ladle like a weapon.
When she saw Sorsha, however, she broke into a broad grin that, nevertheless, looked menacing. “I made some of those biscuits you like,” said the cook, wiping her hands on a filthy apron.
“You shouldn’t have,” the princess sighed fondly, flashing a dazzling smile.
The cook nodded and abandoned her work to wrap a dozen or so scrumptious-looking biscuits in a linen tea towel.