11. A Walking Sexual Innuendo
Chapter 11
A Walking Sexual Innuendo
CINDER
I wake up feeling the full force of how my life turned upside down when Prince Too-Handsy paraded me about in front of the Midnight court.
I was received by barely tolerant fairies who would rather swallow their tongues than acknowledge me as the future Princess of Midnight.
If only they knew I share the sentiment.
After hours of enduring half-hearted congratulations and waiting for someone to rip my throat out, I was finally led to my new jail cell.
I mean my bed chambers.
Exhausted, I shimmied out of the massive ballgown and cracked into the bottle of iron supplements I brought. Leaving my clutch on the side table next to my phone, a useless brick without cell service, I slipped between the impossibly soft sheets in only my panties and fell into an uneasy sleep.
My room in the castle is something I always dreamed of having as a little girl. Of course, in my fantasy, I wasn’t a pseudo prisoner.
The soft flickering light of the candles casts a warm glow over the elegant furnishings and rich tapestries lining the walls. The plush canopy bed is fit for a Queen, with its luxurious velvet drapes and soft down pillows. The huge windows offer a stunning view of the rolling hills bathed in silver moonlight. In the distance, I spot a group of riders on sleek, midnight-black steeds, their coats gleaming under the perpetual full moon. The stars twinkle above, winking at me with assurance.
A fist closes around my heart with an unwelcome feeling. Nostalgia.
While I spent the worst years of my life here, I also spent some of the best. Though never socially accepted, I found solace in the stars and moonlight. I had loved the dark embrace of the Midnight Kingdom.
I remember sneaking out when everyone was asleep to explore, like an adventurer on a secret mission. The moon was always my guide as I roamed through the gardens and stumbled upon hidden nooks and crannies that only seemed to reveal themselves in the darkness.
I often found myself sitting by the edge of the cliff that overlooked the sea, watching as the waves crashed against the rocks below. The wind would whisper secrets to me, and it was like I became part of something bigger than myself.
Then there were the endless hours creating, painting, and sculpting with my father. A cigarillo always hung from his lips, though he often forgot to keep it burning. Too busy squinting at his canvas, willing it to open up its potential to him. I learned to love the smokiness ingrained in his skin and clothes.
Without the rise and fall of the sun, there was nothing to interrupt our time of creation. We’d only pause to hastily make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to stop our stomachs from complaining.
The food for humans in Midnight is limited—canned or usually on the cusp of expiration, but I remember those stale sandwiches tasting better than almost anything else I’ve known.
Not willing to pull the massive dress back over my body, I open the closet and find a plethora of clothes, including a silk robe. Pulling the cold material around my too-hot body—must be the stress—I remember the stretches of my childhood filled with fear and loneliness. In this kingdom where darkness reigns supreme, it's easy to feel lost and forgotten.
Once my father became engaged in one of his pieces, he barely came up for air. Without any friends or other humans, it was often just me and my thoughts.
When I learned he would marry, which meant a new mom and not one but two new sisters, I thought my solitude would come to an end.
Boy, was I fucking wrong.
Flinging the nostalgia off like a tattered blanket, I remind myself this place lacks the greatest things of all—my friends, autumn, and pumpkin spice.
I rummage through my small clutch, fishing out the bottle of iron pills I never leave home without. Swallowing them dry, I hope they'll give me enough energy to make it through the day without collapsing. The constant battle against fatigue is exhausting in itself.
I still mean to get my hands on the Ember of Midnight, but right now, I was cutting it close to getting back to the Common World. Yesterday was my night off, but I had work tonight. Royal engagement or not, I wasn’t going to miss my shift.
A metal jangling precedes the creak of a door that was locked a minute ago. I instinctively tense, my nerves spiking with alertness as I ready myself for anything.
Prince Charming leans against the doorjamb in a tight black T-shirt and jeans. With a black eye and a split lip.
My brows knit. “Holy fae fucks, what happened to you?”
He brushes a thumb along the red line on his lower lip, his eyes turning unfocused. “A little run-in with a lover’s significant other.”
How terribly predictable. It thankfully reinforces my ideas about him that he can’t take anything seriously or keep it in his pants. My Iron Maiden needs the reminder to keep cool. Even with a busted face, he trains that unerring gaze on me which threatens to suck me under his fuck boy spell. Not today, Satan .
“Don’t worry, it’ll heal soon enough. I just need a little breakfast,” he adds.
I suppress a shiver. He means a little blood.
There is something absent-minded about his words that makes me doubt what he’s telling me, but why would he lie?
“That’s what you get for being a slut,” I give him a pointed look.
Despite what I said, I can’t ignore the fact that my dark clam of seduction tingles whenever he’s near. I might even fuck him if it weren’t for the one big thing that has me wary to keep my distance.
Those flesh piercing fangs.
My gaze drifts over his carved triceps, admiring the intricate tattoos that wind their way out from beneath his shirt and over the backs of his hands. Elegant lines of detailed snakes, dragons, and lotus flowers adorn his skin. It’s a maze of patterns that I want to follow to their conclusion.
The ones creeping up from his collar are like a living work of art, swirling gracefully around a larger lotus flower at the base of his throat. Some people get tattooed to remember something significant in their lives, but for Prince Kaison, it seems like every inch of his body is a canvas for personal expression. He is a masterpiece in motion, and I can't help but admire that.
Then I see past him to another bedroom. His bedroom. “Wait, our rooms are adjoined?” A flood of dread shoots through me.
Charming begins to smile but after he winces in pain, he works harder to suppress the smirk. As his eyes flow over my body.
“Worried, my little spooky babe?”
“The hell did you call me?”
He pushes off from the door frame and saunters into my room. “Would you prefer goth girl? Gloom cookie? Shadow pup? Sparky?”
“Wh-what? Are you having a stroke?” Each nickname is worse than the last, so bad they make my teeth hurt.
“If we are to be engaged, we must present as a couple. Endearments are a must.” He attempts a stern look, but he can’t hide the sly smirk threatening to break through as well as split his lip again.
Crossing the space between us, his lithe muscle flexes under his shirt. Like a panther moving in on his prey.
“But if you don’t like those, how about my dark angel, my spooky darling, my ghost boo?”
How are these getting so much worse? And how is he making them still sound somewhat sexy?
“Gloomy goddess, Shadow Queen?”
If this jungle kitty gets any closer, he’ll find out I have no problems smacking him on the snout.
Still, my body instinctually wants to recoil at his approach. It knows exactly what he could do to me.
Yet there is another part that requests something else he could do to my body altogether.
No. No, we are not interested in the slutty playboy.
“Does that mean I get to call you slut muffin?” I bat my eyes at him.
He tilts his head as if considering it. “Perhaps best not to let that out in polite society, but in private? You can call me anything you want.” This time a real smirk blooms and his skin tears, causing red to stream over his bottom lip. He licks it up without even a wince. I suppress an involuntary shiver.
Because of how sensual he makes that one little gesture? Or because I’m reminded that he subsists on blood to live?
Fear and arousal mix inside of me. Fearousal.
If it hasn’t been a thing before, I’m making it a thing now.
“You know what I’d love to hear you call me?” His voice drops into a low confession.
I don’t trust myself to speak.
The way he says it, the way his scent of leather and icy pine surrounds me, it threatens to drown me.
“Kai.” It comes out in a rough husk.
Oh fuck. What is happening to my insides? Heat kicks up at the bottom of my gut, like a pile of burning coals.
I thank god this castle is so cold, as I break out into a sweat. Even so, I refuse to let him see he’s gotten to me.
“I think I’ll stick with Your Majesty,” I mock, just to get his goat. Because he’s got mine—by the throat.
His eyes bore into mine as if he sees through all my walls and into the depths of my being. It's a look he's given me since we were kids—an enigmatic gaze that always has me questioning what he sees in me.
My skin itches and shrinks under his focus.
“Why don’t you like my kind?” he asks, switching the topic so fast I almost get whiplash.
“Apart from the fact bloodsucking fairies have a superiority complex and old-fashioned racist sensibilities?”
“Of course, aside from that.” He easily concedes the point which only makes him more likeable—damn him.
I tap my teeth, my black nail clicking against my very human canine.
The humor halfway drains from his face. “I wouldn’t bite you, Cinder.”
“You’ll have to excuse my inability to trust or believe you.” The words are flat and cold. Though the memory of him telling the other kids how disgusting it would be to drink my blood returns to me in high definition.
I believed him then. Why won’t I believe him now?
Because my trust was shattered after my father, and it’s limped along like an animal with a broken leg ever since then. Only able to minimally function because of the life and the friends I made in the Common World after what happened.
He shakes his head. “We drink ethically sourced blood, donated by familiars.”
I knew that. My father had a never-ending supply of dedicated groupies who followed him in the Common World, and he’d persuaded hundreds to cross the border and take the vow to be a familiar. It was the reason my father had such a close relationship with the king. His artistic fame and notoriety brought in a lot of new blood to the Midnight Kingdom—literally.
In the Common World, it was often suggested that my father had been a cult leader. Not that I was cognizant of that as a child. Only much later in life did I realize he was a more complicated figure.
But regardless of Charming’s claim, he’s still dead wrong.
“Some people like to play with their food,” I say, though the words come out weak.
“Oh, I want to play with you, maybe eat you alive.” That cheeky tone is back in his voice as his tongue curls over his teeth, a wicked glint in his eye.
I flush as I feel my panties dampen. Prince Charming is everything the tabloids say. A walking sexual innuendo.
Despite knowing that, his words still have such an effect on me.
Though part of me really, really wants him to do what he says, vulnerability, danger, and primal fear braids in with my desire.
“But okay,” he shrugs and takes a step back. “I won’t touch you.”
A pang of disappointment shoots through me, almost causing my body to sway towards him.
Almost.
Then I narrow my eyes. There’s something about the way he says it that tells me that’s not all. He has something up his sleeve. The tension in the air thickens despite his retreat.
If I hadn’t been sure of a hidden agenda before, the half-smile that kicks up confirms it.
With a few long-legged strides, he falls splayed in one of the bedroom’s sitting chairs. He hooks a leg over the arm of the seat, as if he’s posing for a provocative painting.
“But what if I tell you how I would touch you?” A positively devilish grin curls up until he’s showing off his fangs.