22
Alarie
I jerked my arm away from the Prince the second we popped back into existence. He had called me princess in front of all of them. He’d call me anything but my name.
“I don’t recall my father’s best friend being on the list we already discussed,” the Prince said coolly.
I stood next to him, fuming. We were on the rooftop at the Emerald Court. Not even the beachy sounds of the Emerald Isle could cool my frustration.
“You should have let me handle that,” I protested.
I had a few choice words brewing for Jay. That man had always had an issue with containing his jealousy. But if I was being honest with myself, I was relieved not to have to answer to Cass just yet. The Prince ignored my protest.
“A simple ‘thank you’ would suffice. Maybe even a ‘thank you, my tall, dark, handsome Prince for saving my sweet ass,’” he suggested.
I stared daggers at him.
“No? I didn’t think so,” he said, amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Let me see this lip of yours that is causing so much trouble then,” he said, pulling me back toward him.
He grabbed my face, tilting it up to his, then he ran his thumb across my lip, pulling it down so he could see the small lump on the inside of my bottom lip. He ran his thumb across it, looking into my eyes. I don’t know why I let him. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t look away.
He was so close I could smell him. He smelled like leather and trees and a slight musk that might have been intoxicating if it was anyone but him. He moved his thumb back to the outside of my mouth, pushing my bottom lip back in place like it was a button he could press.
“A scar?” he asked.
I had been holding my breath. I exhaled, running the flat of my tongue over where his thumb had been, and nodded.
“You know, you really should have told me about Jay,” he said.
“And why should I have done that? Do I have to tell you about every man I have ever slept with?” I objected.
The Prince raised his eyebrows.
“Given your track record, yeah, I think you do,” he said.
I glared at him.
“Well, now, you pretty much know them all, anyway,” I admitted. “There is one more, a guy from back home, but I don’t think you’re interested in anything I did before the High Court,” I said.
“Then you’d be wrong. There’s nothing I don’t want to know about you. But, for now, Jay—”
I knew he was asking about the specific circumstances under which Jay’s power had appeared again.
“In the back of a carriage on the way to the Azure Court,” I said.
I didn’t feel the need to explain that we had been having sex. After the other stories, the Prince understood the context. The next part in my story with Jay felt too intimate to share. But the Prince continued to pierce me with his dark green eyes, expecting more.
“It was the first time he told me he loved me,” I admitted quietly. And the first time I had ever told any man I loved him.
Normally so reserved, this got a reaction from the annoyingly handsome Prince. He raised his eyebrows as if impressed. But then his surprise was gone, replaced by his usual devilish glint of mirth.
“You know, princess, I’m beginning to think that the future of the entire Kingdom rests right between your…” He allowed his gaze to grow sultry and heavy as he purposefully directed his gaze between my legs, his tongue rolling over the inside of his bottom lip.
Pinned under those penetrating green eyes, I felt an involuntary flush of excitement.
“Shoulders,” he finished, drawing his eyes to my face.
I squared my jaw at him, crossing my arms over my chest, which did not help my cause because my arms squeezed my breasts together and up toward the V neck of my dress. The Prince pretended not to notice; his gaze locked onto mine.
“I see that you are not dressed for training again,” he said.
It was Monday, and he had said in his note to me that we would resume training on Monday. But I still wore the white sundress I had traveled in from Harborview. It was far more casual than anything I would ever wear at the High Court, but its neckline was plunging, and its fabric was clingy.
“You can’t be serious,” I replied. The glint in his eyes told me he was. “I haven’t had a chance to change since I left Harborview. You still want to train today after the day we’ve had?” I asked in disbelief.
He patted himself down theatrically. “I just fought in a battle, and I’m ready to go. And you don’t look like you have so much as a wrinkle in your little dress,” he noted. “So, yes, we are going to train today. And lucky for you, princess, I was prepared for you to show up unprepared. Follow me,” he ordered.
He didn’t travel us to our next location. Apparently, he was capable of walking. He led me to a wall made entirely of tinted glass. The wall split in half, invisible doors sliding back and making room for us to walk through. I had heard that houses responded to the magic of their masters. But that was one of the magical abilities that had been lost over the years. Not even Jay had commanded House Vitruvian, at least not when I had lived there.
We walked through a training facility that appeared to encompass the entire floor. Weights and weapons were interspersed throughout, and there were more doors, behind which there were probably more and different weights and weapons. The Prince passed down a flight of stairs quickly. I was wearing wedges and had to slow down so as to not twist my ankle.
At the bottom of the staircase, I was surprised to find a bedroom. There was another wall of tinted glass to my right. I could hear the waves of the beach crashing behind it. There wasn’t much in the room despite its size. The centerpiece of the bedroom was a large fourposter bed. It was black with a thick wooden charcoal-gray headboard. Pieces of wood connected the four posts together like a cube… or a cage.
The Prince approached me where I stood, feet from the bed. He got close to me, so close that our feet were touching.
“See something you like?” he teased.
He wrapped his hand around one of the posts and jerked it like he was trying to shake the bed. Despite his strength, the bed didn’t move. It had clearly been built to withstand his forces.
I rolled my eyes.
“Is this what you wanted to show me?”
He dropped his playful teasing.
“No,” he barked.
But his eyes were on my feet now.
“It’s going to take you forever to walk through these halls in those,” he complained and then, without waiting for a response, he wrapped his arm around my waist and traveled us away from his bedroom.
We reappeared in another bedroom. This one also faced the water, but the tint of the glass was lighter, and I could see the veranda overlooking the beach. The water was emerald green, and the sand was sugar white. There was a wooden armoire on each side of the big bed in the center of the room. I liked the feel of this bedroom better. It felt like the kind of place I wouldn’t mind waking up to.
“Pick something from the one on the right. Pants,” he emphasized. “And no heels.”
He turned and left the bedroom, closing the door so quickly that I had to peek over my shoulder to make sure he was gone.
I opened the doors of the armoire to find an entire wardrobe of clothes that looked like the female version of the clothes I’d seen the Prince wear for training. I decided on a dark emerald-green matching set. The leggings were tight but made of a stretchy material that would allow me to move easily. The matching sports bra had a cute, stringy pattern in the back, but the front was high-cut and supportive. I slipped on a pair of low-cut black sneakers that showed my ankles.
I looked in the full-length mirror that sat perched in a corner and didn’t recognize myself. I had so thoroughly adopted the style of the High Court, the silk and silts and plunging necklines, that I had forgotten that I once used to wear a different kind of clothes. Before, my style had been simple and maybe a little sexy. The green set I wore fit that bill—it was surprisingly comfortable despite its compression and just a little bit sexy with the stringy back of the bra and the sliver of my stomach that showed.
I stepped out of the room, feeling confident. The Prince was leaning against the wall, eating the last few bites of a sandwich. He popped the last bite into his mouth, pressing his lips together and running his tongue across his thumb.
“Hungry?” he asked.
I realized that I had been staring at his mouth.
“Umm, no. Thanks, though,” I said.
“If you want muscles, you have to feed them,” he said matter-of-factly.
“And who said I want muscles?” I asked.
He looked at me with an exaggerated, bemused expression on his handsome face.
“You’re here to train, princess. Your magic. Your mind. And your body,” he answered.
I didn’t bother to correct him and tell him I didn’t have any real magical abilities to train. His gaze purposefully focused on my arms, making me aware of their skinny, undefined shape.
“And I would have thought that you’d want to learn to defend yourself so that next time someone tries to kidnap you, you don’t need me to save you,” he said.
It was like he had slapped me in the face by pointing out how helpless I had been when that lesser fae mystery man had tried to steal me away. But no one had ever offered me the opportunity to learn how to defend myself.
“I do,” I replied fiercely. “But you’re talking like it is only a matter of time before someone tries something like that again,” I said.
He stepped into me, so close that the front of our bodies were almost touching. I had to crane my neck to look into his face, even more so than normal because I didn’t have my four-inch heels to bridge the gap in our height.
“Alarie.”
I felt like someone had knocked the breath out of me. It was the first time he had ever called me by my name. Not princess. It felt like the hallway got darker and that darkness pressed around us.
“I’m only going to say this once, so listen to my words. You have something that other people want very badly,” he said, a dark shadow rising around his feet.
“I—”
“I don’t want to hear that you don’t have magic. Don’t ever tell me that again. You do. And if we don’t figure out how you can use it, you’re going to get yourself kidnapped or killed,” he said.
He stepped back from me, and the pressing darkness receded with him. He looked angry. The muscle in his square jaw twitched. I exhaled a breath I’d been subconsciously holding in.
“Now, come on, princess. It’s time to train,” he ordered.
Eager to get started, I reached my hand out to him. A flicker of surprise crossed his face at my willingness. He took my outstretched hand and suddenly jerked me into his body. If I had been wearing heels, I probably would have broken my ankles trying to stay upright. But in my sneakers, I was able to skid to a halt, slamming into the hard wall of his body. I grunted at the impact.
In the second before we disappeared into the darkness, I saw him genuinely smile for the first time. It was a feline smirk that disappeared into the black until all I could see was the glow of his green pupils.
We dropped back onto the training area on the rooftop, and for once, he pulled away from me before I could pull away from him. I had been subconsciously leaning into his body, so that when he disappeared so suddenly, it was like a wall I was leaning against disappeared. I caught myself before I fell on my face.
“What the hell, Nik?” I barked, righting myself.
But any further words of chastisement died in my throat. He was several paces away from me, across the rooftop, but I saw the hard, predatory look in his eyes.
“Try to stop me with your magic,” he ordered.
He took menacing steps toward me. The floor beneath us quaked under his steps. When he reached me, he tsked in disappointment.
“Did you even try to stop me from getting this far?” he chastised.
“I don’t know how!” I replied in frustration. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to be teaching me?”
“Helpless little princess, aren’t you?” he mocked.
His words stung, despite his seductive tone.
“You mean to tell me”—he purred darkly—“that there is nothing you can do to stop me from doing this,” he said. He ran the calloused palms of his hands down my arms. I stiffened, but the sensation caused a tingling at the nape of my neck and my hair to stand on end.
“What else can I do to you, princess? Maybe I’ll take you back down to my bedroom. Tie your hands over your head so high and tight that you have to stand on your toes,” he purred.
His mouth was hovering over the top of my shoulder, at the hollow where my shoulders met my neck.
“Nik, what the fuck?” I said, exasperated, pushing at him.
But he didn’t budge. He stood over me, his breath warm on my neck.
“Stop me, Alarie. Damn it!” he barked. “Fight me before you find yourself opposite someone who isn’t me. Or are you just going to spend your whole life waiting around for a Prince to save your ass?” he ridiculed.
There was anger in his words. And I felt the blood rushing to my veins, thudding to meet his anger. I wasn’t helpless. When Stefan had reached out for me, I had knocked him back so hard that he’d fallen on his ass halfway across the room. I’d like to see tough, gorgeous Nik sprawled on his ass.
He pulled at the ponytail I wore high on my head, forcing my eyes to his. His grip was firm.
“Push me away, princess.”
His hand in my hair tightened, the length of my ponytail now wrapped around his hand. The angry blaze in his eyes began to fade into disappointment as nothing happened. I didn’t want his pity.
I thought of being cornered by Cole in the hallway of the High Court and how I had to be saved by Jay. I thought of the lesser fae man’s hands wrapped around my mouth and how Nik had saved me. But then I thought of how I had felt when Stefan was cornering me, helpless, desperate to escape. And then the burst of satisfaction that I had felt to see him thrown against the wall, away from me.
Nik began to loosen his hand in my hair. He was giving up on me. But I could do this. I pictured Nik thrown on his ass, across the roof where he had started this exercise. I’d wipe that glint of amusement off his stupid face.
Before Nik’s hand had left my hair, he took a couple of steps away from me, stumbling as if someone had pushed him hard on the chest. I hadn’t managed to throw him across the rooftop like I had wanted, but I had done it. Somehow, I had shielded myself.
“Good girl,” he growled.
My body hummed with satisfaction.