Chapter 1 #2
That’s really all I know about him—other than he’s as dark as Dorian is light and much taller.
Not to mention a lot more frightening. He’s so huge he has to turn sideways so that his broad shoulders will fit in the narrow stairway.
His black hair falls over the left side of his face, but it can’t hide the source of the golden light.
It’s his eye. His left eye. It glows with Dragon Fire, as though the Drake inside him is trying to escape.
I haven’t noticed that before—this is the first time I’ve been anywhere near “the Dark Prince,” as I’ve heard the denizens of the Citadel call him. He’s a shadowy figure who seems to be the black sheep of the Royal Family…
And now I’m trapped in a narrow, spiral staircase with him.
“I…you…” I’m not sure what to say.
“What’s the matter, little dove. Can’t speak?” He comes closer, looming over me in the dimness lit only by his one, fiery eye.
I stare up at him, heart pounding, frozen in place.
This close I can smell him—a sharp, spicy scent unlike the sickly-sweet, musky perfumes the Nobles wear.
He smells of fire and leather and some dark spice that must be the scent of his Drake.
Is it close to coming out? Is that why his eye is glowing, or does it always glow?
I don’t know—I’ve only seen him from afar and because he covers the left side of his face with his hair, I’ve never seen his glowing eye before. Maybe because I’ve only seen him in the daylight. It’s much more obvious in the dark of the stairwell.
“Well?” he rumbles.
Fear grips me as he looms over me. We’re alone in this stairwell—he could do anything he wanted to me. Hasn’t my mother always warned me about never being alone with a strange man? And the Dark Prince is by far the strangest man I’ve ever seen.
“You…I…” The words are stuck in my throat. “Please let me pass, sir,” I finally get out. “I must get to my rooms to prepare for the banquet.”
“Ah yes—the banquet. We’ll all be celebrating your marriage to my useless brother,” he remarks, and I hear bitterness in his deep voice.
“Do you dislike him then? Your brother?” I don’t know what makes the words come out of my mouth, but my foolish lips keep moving. “You are perhaps…jealous? That he is Crown Prince and not you?”
“Am I jealous of him?” He sounds genuinely surprised. “No. Or at least, not for the reason you think, little dove.” He laughs harshly.
“Why do you keep calling me that?” I demand. Since we seem to have fallen into conversation, I find that my courage has returned. I’m even getting used to his glowing, fiery eye. “I look nothing like a dove,” I point out. It’s not like I’m fragile or delicate or anything.
“Your hair.” He reaches out and takes a lock of my hair, letting it slide through his fingers. “The silver-white color reminds of a dove’s feathers. And your skin.” He brushes my cheek with his knuckles, and I feel a flush of heat go through me. “So pale…so fine and smooth and perfect.”
I can feel my cheeks heating with a blush.
“That is not a very proper thing to say to a woman who is soon to be your sister-in-law, Sir,” I say formally.
“Fuck propriety,” he growls softly. “I care nothing for Court manners—they’re nothing but simpering coquetry and bullshit. I think less of anyone who lives their life by such false standards.”
Now I truly have no idea what to say. But I have to admit…
I kind of agree with him. Ever since I got to the Citadel, I’ve been dealing with people who are elaborately polite to my face and poisonously hateful behind my back.
I know because I’ve heard the Nobles murmuring about me—about what a “country bumpkin” I am and how I’m good for nothing but breeding the next Drake heir.
It seems that everyone here is two-faced.
But not Xaren—the Dark Prince has but one face, only he hides it. I wonder what is behind that curtain of long, black hair besides his glowing left eye.
“I must move past you, Sir,” I say formally, since I don’t know what else to do. “I must get to my rooms.”
“Very well, little dove. I’ll stand aside.”
He’s as good as his word, turning so that his back is flush against the curving wall of the spiral staircase. But the way is so narrow he’s still taking up most of the passage upwards.
I take a step towards him…and hesitate. I’ll have to turn to my side as well to pass him.
Should I face him? But then my breasts will doubtless brush his chest. Then should I turn the other way so that I pass him with my back to his front?
But I have a rather large behind—I’m sure it will rub against his crotch which is unthinkable.
Either way I go, I’m going to be pressed against him in a way that is most improper and unladylike.
“Sir,” I say hesitantly. “Would you…could you not just go back up the stairs and I will follow? You could go back down once I reach the top.”
He smirks at me, his dark face sardonic.
“Afraid to touch me, little dove? Do you fear my ugliness will rub off and ruin your perfect beauty?”
His words sting me. I am no coward!
I lift my chin and stare at him.
“Fine. If you’re not going to be a gentleman, I’ll get by the best way I can,” I snap.
Keeping my eyes on his face, I shove past him, trying not to notice when my breasts, still bare under my robe, rub against the broad, muscular planes of his chest. Goddess of Mercy—how did he get all that muscle?
His brother, Dorian, is as slender as a birch, as are almost all the Nobles here in the Citadel.
Everyone is “skinny as sin” here, as my Granny would say. Everyone but me…and apparently Xaren.
My nipples tingle as my breasts press against him.
I wonder if he can feel the sharp little points as I squeeze past. I hope not—this really is most improper.
But for some reason, it makes me tingle.
Maybe it’s his sharp, spicy scent in my nose.
Or the fact that even when I’m two steps above the one he’s standing on, he’s still taller than me.
He stands there even after I pass him, looking up at me. And for my part, I can’t help looking over my shoulder. At last, he speaks.
“I’ll see you at the banquet, little dove,” he rumbles.
Then he turns and continues down the staircase. In half a moment, his broad back has disappeared into the gloom.
I stand there for a moment, feeling shaken and weak in the knees…though I cannot say exactly why. It’s not like he grabbed me or tried to kiss me. But I can still feel the heat of his big body against my chest and my nipples feel tender and sensitive.
I don’t understand why the brief meeting—and the even briefer contact—with Xaren has affected me so much.
But I have no time to wonder. I must get back to my rooms and dress for the banquet, I remind myself.
Tonight the whole Court will see me seated by the side of my husband-to-be for the first time and tomorrow we are to be married.
But when I picture myself in the bridal gown and the groom lifting my veil, it is not the golden beauty of Prince Dorian I see in my mind’s eye. Instead, I see the Dark Prince towering over me, an unreadable expression on the right side of his face—the only side I can see.
And though I try to push the vision away, it will not leave me.