23. Chapter 23 #2
“It feels like you are far too pleased with these chains,” he said as he took a step into the point of the key so it firmly pressed into his chin and drove it upwards.
“It’s a nice change to see you bound, not me.” His chest was a collection of taut muscles as he crowded me. My mind betrayed me as it conjured vivid images of him lying before me, straining against tight corded ropes, his chest bare … his …
My eyes snapped closed and then open as I tried to clear the heated thoughts.
I hoped he couldn’t detect the erratic beat that flickered through my veins. The panic I felt fluttering through me, licking over my skin until it dropped lower.
Much lower. Too low.
Focus.
“I let you point that blade at me that day, you know.”
That brought me back to reality. “And that’s what you’re doing now? Letting me?” I purred the challenge at him and pushed a little harder with the key.
He growled low and hungry at my words, and I felt him press into me until the hard shape of his body was crushing into me.
Heat flooded me, and my damn breath hitched, but I pulled back on the pressure of the key to let him speak more easily.
He didn’t shy away from our nearness. The sensation of him etched across my cheeks in burning red.
“I suppose you could leave me here, but …” He let the last word hang between us.
“But?” I tugged on the word.
“You want to negotiate.” He gripped the chains in his hands until they hissed as they burned, and he pulled me impossibly closer to him.
Gods … he felt … excruciatingly divine pressed up to me. In all the right places.
Focus.
I smiled triumphantly up at him.
Kaed dipped his head until the strands of his hair ghosted across my cheek, and said, “I’m at your mercy, Lady Imogen.”
“You want the faebane.” I looked up at him and tried to take a modicum of space from him, but he didn’t budge. “You need it. Your father needs it.” I paused for a beat. “The king.”
Kaed’s eyes flashed.
“It slipped your mind, I assume, to explain that my betrothed is a prince of the Four Corners?” I nearly tripped up on the words. A prince.
The chains that had been pressed to me fell loose around my hips as Kaed released the tension between us. I was still very much trapped though.
“It doesn’t matter what title I have.” His voice was hard, nothing in it but resentment.
“Not eager to wear the Crown of the Corners?”
How had I not noticed Kaed was royalty? It made sense now.
The Alabaster Palace not meeting his standards.
The way people stared or parted as he entered a crowd.
I had thought it was because they feared him.
Maybe it was both. Even the way Councillor Carron had been nervous the first night I’d arrived with Kaed.
“Is it your brother then that will—”
“The Crown will never be Hart’s.” Kaed’s words cut a path of ice between us.
“Well, then, as the prince of the Crown, the heir, you would perhaps like to get out of here? And you still want the faebane. And I’m currently the only source of it.
” Kaed’s shoulders relaxed a little, and the clink of the manacles rang in the room.
He let me continue. “You say I can’t leave, even with our original bargain. ”
“You can blame my father for that.” He grinned without humour.
“The council has placed you under city arrest.” Kaed’s jaw tightened at my words.
“But …” I started slowly. “They don’t know your father has closed trade yet.
Do they?” I assumed it would take a few days for the news to trickle from the North to Viverna.
Denora had only been able to warn Kaed as she’d heard firsthand from the king.
Kaed hesitated. “No,” he finally relented.
“So I could leave now, before the city gates close. Without letting you out. With my faebane source. With my freedom.”
Kaed’s wrists shifted against the restraints as he struggled to remain composed. “But?”
“But I owe you my life,” I conceded. His shoulders relaxed an inch. “If I can’t find an alternative source of faebane for you, say, before two moons pass, I’ll tell you where I found it.” His eyes widened. “On the promise of protection for my sister and her family.”
“A strong opener. For me. How is this negotiating?” He raised an angular brow at me as he regarded me, putting a little space between us but not fully releasing me.
I let the silence stretch for a second. “But.”
“I’d be disappointed if there wasn’t a caveat, I suppose.” His lips restrained a smile, and something wriggled low in me, seeing his lips do that.
“But you cannot keep me here longer. You cannot keep me. You will let me go at the end of my time here. Regardless of what the council keeps you for. Regardless of Hayden’s position.
And you will not threaten Audrie’s position here again.
” I tacked on that last one, knowing it wasn’t my place to demand her future as well as mine.
But while I held the winning hand and key, I felt emboldened.
Despite knowing who I was now talking to, I had not been able to rein in my demands.
Kaed sighed. “Anything else?”
“Yes, actually. I want to know about your family and your brother, Hart. If I’m to play a part in your game, in this charade, I want to know the players.”
I had heard so little about the heirs to the Northern Crown. Heirs weren’t something people regularly talked about. Fae Crowns tended to last centuries, so heirs were not important until they were called.
Kaed went silent. His grip loosened on me more, and a look came across him like suddenly this cage was actually more comfortable than leaving.
“I’ll just leave you to your thoughts if there’s no deal here. I might even go back up to the council and mention how I ended up here in the first place.”
Kaed chuckled. “You’re good, peach. Far better than I could have dreamt.”
“Dream about me a lot?” I threw back over my shoulder as I ducked out from under his arms.
In a flash, Kaed was crowding me again, his citrus and amber scent engulfing me in the heat of the room. “Wouldn’t you like to know what I dream?” he murmured.
Why did I feel like the one who was caged and bound when he leaned into me like that …
“I will tell you about my family. But not here. Not yet.”
I hadn’t actually expected him to concede on most of what I’d asked for.
“And Audrie?”
Kaed grumbled low in his throat.
Standing on my toes, I whispered into his ear. “Don’t like being beaten?”
A muscle in his jaw popped and flexed as I pulled away.
“She is safe. Her position is safe.”
That eased a knot that had been growing in my chest.
“But I need assurance that you will actually try your best to search for faebane. If no one has found sources of it in decades, there is little chance you will find any in two moons. Miss Stairlor will help you. And you will report to me on what you’ve found.”
“That’s a lot of demands for a male in such a position.” He made good points. How was I going to find any faebane? It had been sheer luck that I found it in the Banes. But I had two moons to find another way out of this. Out from under the Prince of Hayden’s grasp.
“It’s negotiating.” He pulled back, to allow me free him from the cage.
If Kaed—and by extension, me—were to be kept here in the city, which would be solidified by his father’s actions, I had just now secured a new exit plan.
I unlocked the manacles at Kaed’s wrists, and the ponderous metal clattered to the floor.