Chapter 16 #2
“I heard you, my love.” For interrupting me and not listening, his voice was tender. “I’m just incapable of following orders. I wish I could say I was working on it. I’m not.”
I finally looked up to find his expression unexpectedly compassionate. But that couldn’t be. They weren’t capable of compassion. They weren’t capable of anything that wasn’t selfish and cruel. For someone who’d survived by trusting his gut about them, this one was puzzling me.
“Here,” he said, presenting me a crystal glass filled with water. “It is not poisoned.”
I blinked at the water. Then up at him. “I didn’t think it was poisoned. Until now.”
He sucked his lower lip into his mouth. Then he chuckled, and, if I didn’t know better, I would almost say he looked a bit embarrassed. The faintest pink tinted his cheeks behind his freckles as he snickered, and bless me. It was cute.
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “I could see how, in an attempt to reassure you it wasn’t poisoned, I’ve created doubt. For that, I’m deeply regretful.”
My lips tried to twitch, but I refused to allow them.
“If it helps, I have no desire to poison you, darling. Not because you’re fun or mirthful or a breath of fresh air.” He chuckled. “Hardly. From what I can tell, you’re cynical and stiff-necked and you like to stab things without even asking their name first—”
“Is this supposed to be helpful?”
“But you are smart.” He grinned. “And I wish to play you in cards.”
I’d never had one of them call me smart. They didn’t often notice things that weren’t physical. Or inside us.
It was like my gut was nowhere to be found, unable to report. Did I even have a gut anymore? Because it had no helpful notes for him outside of, What are you? Why are you so intriguing?
“Well, I’ll leave it right here,” he said, placing the glass on the floor as he popped up to a stand.
He glanced once at the toilet, and the chain flushed with an invisible hand at the same time he cleansed the whole thing in a big flash of fire that was gone the instant it erupted from the gods only knew where.
Of course, it made me jump, and I could use a little warning, but what he could do was wondrous. Too wondrous to despise. It’d be like despising a shooting star.
“Might I ask you a question?” He dug into his pocket, and—to the shock of no one—fished out a cigarette.
I reached for the water. The crystal was cold and heavy in my hands. It was the grounding thing I didn’t know I needed. “So long as I can ask you one.”
“Well, just looky right here at us.” He smiled that gorgeous demonic smile of his. “I told you we were getting closer, but I hadn’t realized the extent. We’ll be the best of friends by the time this is over.”
Oh, sure. We’d go on walks around the courtyard. We’d go fishing. Just a dying virgin prince and his human concubine friend.
“What is your question?” He gestured a hand toward me. “Foxes first.”
Calling attention to details of his virginity felt inherently risky, but then again, it wasn’t like I was shielded by my ignorance. “When did you awaken?”
His blinking slowed, but his smirk didn’t waver. “Would it matter? Does the timeline keep you more or less safe?”
I held his gaze in challenge. “You tell me, Prince. It is your timeline.”
“Hmph.” He lit his cigarette, sucking a long drag and taking his time to blow the smoke between us in a fragrant fog. “I awoke six months ago.”
The expression fell from my face as my eyes grew wide. Weeks. I’d expected him to say four or five weeks. “You haven’t eaten anything in six months?”
“It’s not that long for us. Our bodies are different from yours. The ones that feed every day are doing it out of desire, not necessity.”
Yes, but desire and necessity were one and the same for them. And yet, other than his appearance, there was zero indication that he was even hungry. I’d never seen someone treat starvation like it was just a petty inconvenience. Perhaps he was fully broken.
“My turn,” he said.
No, I wasn’t ready to move on. I had so many questions still. What happens if you don’t find the perfect person? What happens if you get too sick to carry on? What did you mean when you said we needed a fucking revolution!
“What is your favorite color, Snow Fox?”
I blinked. I didn’t know if I was waiting for him to correct himself or laugh it off as a joke, but he did neither. He cocked his head, expecting. After a few moments, it became clear he meant to ask that.
“I’m sorry,” I said, squinting. “But what the hell are you talking about?”
He cut his eyes to the side. “I’m talking about color? Can you not see color, beloved?”
“No, I can, but why does that matter? Why would you need to know that?”
“I would argue that it’s not a need so much as a want.”
I parted my lips to speak and realized I didn’t have anything to say. “I don’t have a favorite color, Prince. As I’m not five.”
“You know, I take back all that stuff I said about your lack of mirth. What a ball of joy you are.”
I rolled my eyes.
“So, what was it when you were five, then? Humor me, Snow Fox.”
This was what the prince of Novithia wanted to ask of me. What my favorite color was as a child. It didn’t appear he needed to be humored. He stayed humored.
My head fell back against the wall with a thud.
When I thought about my childhood, the brutal memories were the bedrock.
My parents’ death. The hell of the orphanage.
I didn’t think about the pleasant ones often, like how I used to feed that one carp fish in the stream by my home.
How it would circle my bare feet, its fins the most radiant color I’d ever seen beneath the fresh mountain water.
That was it. My favorite color. I would wake up early just to see it.
“Red,” I said. “When I was a child, it was red.”
He made a low humming noise. “And is it still red?”
I pictured the walls in the Tasting Room of the brothel and the flowers my mother used to paint over our door every Spring. “It is.”
His smile was a little wistful. “Well, look at that, Snow Fox.”
I slitted my eyes. Look at what, you fucking puzzle?
“We both learned something new about you today.”
Maybe this was his game. To puzzle me with charm. To position himself as someone who was safe—the safest vultus in the kingdom. The only one to ever exist.
How fucking foolish. He wasn’t safe any more than he was healthy. And just because he hadn’t killed someone yet, didn’t mean he wouldn’t the second he found the perfect human.
“Come play cards with me,” he said, his voice low and smooth like silk. “I insist.”
There was nothing safe about him, no matter how fucking charming he was. And I had to make damn sure that he never thought I might be the perfect human. Or at least a human who would suffice to save his life.
“Actually, if it’s no bother,” I said, trying for nonchalance, missing it by a long shot, “I’d like some time to myself.”
His face fell a little. He was disappointed. He’d wanted me to say yes.
“To take a bath, you know.” I shrugged a shoulder. “Relax for a bit.”
He studied me for a tick but didn’t protest. He just plastered on an easy smile and said, “By all means. Take all the time you need.”
My head swiveled to the faucet of the bathtub when it twisted on without anyone touching it.
“There is always tomorrow. Maybe you’ll play with me then.”
I pinched my lips together, tapping my fingers on the crystal of the glass. See, that was the problem. I didn’t need to be playing with him at all.
“If I’m needed, you know where to find me.” He slipped his hands into his pockets as he meandered toward the door. “Out here cleaning up this torrential mess you’ve made of my desk with your violent eating.”
I cocked my head. “So, you’ll be burning things.”
“I will—” He interrupted himself with a genuine chuckle, and his teeth were brilliant. “Be burning things, yes. I don’t know how to clean, nor do I give shit about learning.”
It was getting harder and harder not to…smile. Which was exactly why he needed to go. Dangerous. This whole thing was so very fucking dangerous.
“No surprise there,” I said. “You are a prince.”
He winked. “And I will be your king, too, Snow Fox.”