24
Alarie
The Prince landed next to me on the balcony of my bedroom. I was leaning with my forearms on the railing, looking down at the High Court gardens. I could see the busy traffic circle where I had first arrived at the High Court. The same place where I’d first met Luke, when he had bowled into me and shielded us from the debris of the offensive marble statue as it collapsed. The same statue Cass had caused to explode, although I didn’t know that at the time. So much had changed in my life since then, but Luke was my one constant.
“Not punctual, but at least you’re dressed appropriately this time,” he noted.
Apparently, the Prince didn’t think I was capable of showing up to training properly dressed so he had taken care of it for me. The previous day, I’d received a delivery of pants and tops and sports bras, mostly of various shades of green, with a brief note from the Prince. “Wear these,” he’d ordered, like I couldn’t even figure out that part myself.
I wore a pair of tight shorts that barely covered my ass. They were black, and the waistband nearly met my sports bra, which was so deeply green it almost appeared black as well. My long brown hair wasn’t pulled back into a ponytail yet.
The Prince’s outfit was in stark contrast to mine. He was dressed for the High Court. He wore a black tailored suit with a collared shirt that was the same color green as my bra. His cufflinks gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. They were small, dark hexagonal emeralds. He looked dark, broody, and predictably extraordinary.
I knew he was trying to get a rise out of me, like that would help invoke my dormant magic somehow. I was supposed to meet him in front of House Rein at two-thirty p.m. It was two-thirty p.m. on the dot.
“You’ve been at Court?” I asked, pulling myself from the railing.
“Unfortunately,” he responded. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” he teased, his head inclining toward my bedroom. “You’ve seen mine, after all.”
His black, four-poster bed sprung into my mind. The one he had threatened to tie me to.
I looked at him skeptically, like he really cared what my bedroom looked like. But I needed to put on my sneakers, anyway. I extended an inviting arm toward my bedroom and then walked over to the gray bench at the end of my bed and plunked myself down. I brought my knee to my chest and slipped on my first shoe, a pair the same green color as my bra.
The Prince stood somewhere behind me. From the corner of my eye, I saw him put his hands behind his head and then, stiff as a board, fall back onto my bed. The frame shifted with his weight and made a creaking noise. I peered over my shoulder and gave him an is that really necessary look.
“Not that sturdy,” he judged. He propped himself up on his elbow, his entire body minus his shoes lying across my white bedspread.
I rolled my eyes.
“Maybe not for someone your size,” I retorted. “And it’s not meant for that, anyway.”
“My size? Your boyfriend’s the size of a mountain,” he quipped. “And I know exactly what a bed is meant for,” he said, the timbre of his voice low and rumbling.
He traveled to the bench in front of me, offering his hand to help me stand. I glanced up at the Prince, who enjoyed toying with me so much, and then looked pointedly at his extended hand.
“I know you don’t have to touch me in order for me to travel with you,” I said.
“I know I don’t have to. Did I ever say that you have to let me touch you?” he asked calmly.
“Well…” I stammered. No. He had not. But it was implied.
“Would you like to see what it is like when I don’t?” he asked.
“How does it make a difference?” I questioned.
“Let’s just say I’ve been told that it’s much more enjoyable for most people when I am touching them, and the closer, the better,” he said, the usual glint of amusement sparkling in his dark green eyes.
“I think I’ll take my chances,” I shot back.
He withdrew his hand, raising his eyebrows as if to say, suit yourself.
I got to my feet, feeling buoyant in my sneakers, and then the shadows of his darkness enveloped me. But unlike the other times I had traveled with the Prince and the darkness had almost seemed welcoming, now the endless black air whipped around me violently, making me feel as though I were being thrown ass over teakettle to my final destination. In the Prince’s arms, I had always felt like I simply disappeared one minute and reappeared the next. We reappeared on the training platform on the rooftop at the M. I bent over, thinking I might be sick.
“It hits everyone differently,” he said, standing over me. “I’m told some people get used to it. Or else they have a way to combat the ill effects. My father, for instance. He can weave a magical tether to me, and he says that helps.”
I looked up at him, both of my hands resting on my knees. He held his hand out to me again, the same as he had done when I had sat at the end of my bed. But there was a glimmer of satisfaction in his devilish dark eyes.
“Bastard,” I spat.
I took his hand and tried to jerk him off balance using one of the defensive moves he taught me. When that failed, I gave up on any respectful maneuver and simply tried to give him a swift kick to the shin.
“You can do better than that, princess,” he teased, easily dodging my kick.
Then he was behind me. I spun in the direction of the sound of his voice.
“Easy for you to say. You never stay in one place long enough for anyone to get their hands on you,” I complained.
“I wouldn’t say never. If you promised to be sweet, I might let you get close enough to touch me,” he teased.
He was laying it on thicker than normal. He usually teased me, trying to see if he could goad me into using my untapped magical abilities. But it felt different today. Today, it felt like he almost needed the distraction.
“I’m not that sweet, remember,” I retorted, throwing his words from before back at him.
“That’s okay. I don’t like ‘em that sweet, anyway,” he crooned.
He had traveled directly behind me, whispering over my shoulder. And it had been exactly what I had been waiting for. Waiting for him to get close enough for me to push him back with the shielding power we had been working on. I seductively snaked my leg in between his, my bare skin rubbing against the silkiness of his suit pants. He didn’t move. He didn’t say anything.
And then I hooked my leg across his ankle at the same time that I pushed at him with my power. He tripped, landing on his ass, and I noted that even when I caught him off guard, he still managed to make it seem like it had been his idea to simply take a relaxing seat on the ground for a moment.
Before he hit the ground, he was laughing. It was the first time I had ever heard him laugh. His laugh was deep like his voice, and it felt like it was reverberating through me, breaking through my frustration. I looked down at him, the satisfaction on my face plain.
And then he swiped my legs from under me. I fell with much less grace than he had, directly on top of him. I grunted on impact. It was like falling into a solid brick wall.
The next thing I knew, I was under him, caged by his arms and legs. He wasn’t touching me, but I felt that familiar feeling of his darkness pressing against me. Black tendrils of shadows rolled off him. His tanned face hovered over mine. I licked my bottom lip.
“Gloating will get you killed,” he said, his tone indicating that playtime was over and my training for the day had begun.
He popped off me and then pulled me up after him. Then his hands began to work the buttons of his dress shirt. I stared at his bare chest. Not just his muscles, although his abs were so defined it looked as if they had been individually chiseled. But it was the tattoos that covered his body that caught my eye. He was covered in as much ink as Cass, maybe more.
He stood in front of me, his deep green shirt unbuttoned and exposing his entire torso. And then he reached for his belt, his large hand grasping the end of the leather and tugging it to the side. He pulled the belt through the loops of his pants in one solid motion and then threw it to his side like he was throwing it to the ground, but it disappeared into darkness instead.
“How do you do that?” I asked.
I had seen him put things away and bring them out from nowhere, but I didn’t know how.
“I don’t have to travel my entire body to a place,” he explained, taking off his shirt and suit coat together. He reached into the darkness, disposing of them. His tattoos continued down his left arm, all the way to his wrist. The tattoos on his right arm stopped around his sculpted biceps. He flipped open the button on his pants with a single hand, his hand going to the zipper. I should have looked away, but I didn’t. He stepped out of his pants one leg at a time. There was a large tattoo covering the top of his right thigh.
“It’s like folding these pants,” he continued, standing in nothing but his boxer briefs.
I noticed those, too, were a dark emerald green, like almost everything he wore. I tried not to notice the dip in his hips and how the muscles of his lower abs formed little channels leading straight into his waistband. But he was holding the pants he was using to demonstrate the concept of traveling right in front of himself.
“I can bring the two ends together and then I can just reach right in and take what I need. This is from my closet downstairs,” he said.
He turned around and reached into his closet again. Hopefully for some clothing to put on. He was out of items of clothing that could be taken off. His back was so muscular, he looked like an upside-down pear, his broad shoulders tapering down to a narrower waist. His back wasn’t as covered in tattoos as the front of his torso; instead, he had a tattoo that went down almost the entirety of his spine and then his tattoos from the front looped around his ribs and his sides.
He pulled a plain white t-shirt over his head and turned back to me, running his hand through his dark hair.
“I didn’t peg you for the type to be covered in ink,” I said.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, princess,” he retorted.
He worked me hard for the rest of the afternoon, running through hand-to-hand drills. He didn’t push me to try my magic again. I found myself dripping in sweat at the end of the day, the hair around my face wet and clinging to my skin. I was already dreaming about a shower when he called an end to our day.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked. He didn’t offer me his hand like he always did when we were about to travel.
I ran my thumb across my bottom lip, thinking. I was trying to resolve my internal conflict over having made an issue out of him touching me when we traveled and not wanting to feel sick again from traveling without his touch. I took a deep breath, steeling myself to ask him for his hand, or an arm, or anything to keep me tethered to him when we disappeared into the darkness once more.
He reached his hand out to me before I had to ask. He pulled me to his side, wrapping his arm around my lower back, his hand resting on my hip. His hand was so big that his thumb wrapped around my lower back, almost matching up with one of the dimples I had there, and his fingers curled around my side and to my front. We popped out of existence, and for the short time that we were consumed by the darkness, it was comforting and cool. It pressed at the edges of our interlocked bodies and then we were back in my room at House Rein.