33
Alarie
My days with Cass at the High Court were some of the happiest times of my entire life. Leaving Cass, with a smile on my face, I came home to find a gorgeous strapless white dress hanging on the front of my stained oak armoire. I traced my eyes down the long silken skirt of the gown, noticing a pair of silver stilettos just my size. I grabbed the small slip of paper resting on top of the heels.
I get to choose what you wear this evening. — N.
I’d been back from the Golden Court for a month, and I’d still failed to go shopping for a gown for the Prince’s Choosing. I’d kept thinking that maybe there wouldn’t be a Choosing this year. Normally, it would have occurred closer to the Winter Ball. But then the announcement was made, and I still didn’t make myself go shopping.
I was thinking of wearing one of the gowns Jay had bought me. I had plenty that I’d still never worn, but they were almost all blue. Traditionally, women who were part of the Prince’s Choosing shed their House colors for the night, if they had any, and opted for the emerald green of House Heroux.
I looked down at the beautiful yet simple gown. White was a puzzling choice, but I thought it would look nice. Despite it being the middle of winter, my skin still held a slight tanned glow, perhaps from my days of training with Nik outside at the M.
There were maybe only thirty of us who had come to the age of twenty-four that year. It seemed like a lower number than past years. But, then again, that made sense, considering that birth rates continued to decline with the dying magic until dropping to zero shortly after I was born. There couldn’t be more than a year, maybe two, left for the Prince’s Choosing if they stuck with the twenty-four-year-old criteria.
Everyone gathered in the King’s great hall. They neatly lined us up, one by one, in the center of the hall. I didn’t know why twenty-four was the magic number, anyway. I was placed a little to the right of the center of the line, perhaps twentieth in line. Dressed in my white gown, I stood out like a white lily in a field of green clovers.
The crowd hushed as the High Council took their seats at the elevated table at the front of the room. High Lord Dumont and High Lord Preston filed in first. As the newest members of the High Council, their seats were on opposite ends of the table, the seats were farthest away from the King. They moved and stood behind their chairs, not taking a seat just yet.
Next in line was Luke. He was as handsome as ever. His blue eyes scanned the line of women standing below him, his gaze first finding Karina, who stood toward the front of the line to my left. He gave her a nod, then continued his search until he found me. He gave me a charming sideways smirk. I raised my eyebrows at him as if to say, here we go. Luke’s stare broke from mine as High Lord Rein appeared at his side.
Next was Jay, wearing a deeply blue tux that made me glad I had not worn one of my blue gowns after all. We would have been nearly matching. The High Council took their seats as the King arrived at his chair in the center of the long table. The King turned to the squire, who had helped us all line up in the middle of the room.
“Squire Daniels, is everyone accounted for?” the King asked.
“Yes, my King.”
“Any absences?” the King inquired.
“None, my King.”
“Very well then,” the King said.
The King scanned the room, and we all looked around with him, looking for the same thing. No one had seen the star of the evening, the Prince of Darkness himself. Nik stepped through the parting crowd as if he had planned the timing. Knowing him, he probably had.
Shit, I thought, pursing my lips. I was matching the Prince. He wore an all-white suit with a plain white shirt underneath. His lapels were the same silken fabric as my dress. I already stuck out like a sore thumb, since I was the only woman not wearing a shade of green. I saw a few heads swivel on each side of me, eyeing me down. Some murmuring started in the crowd again.
“Let’s begin then,” the King declared over the murmuring, taking his seat.
Nik began at my far left, giving the occasional nod but remaining silent. He stopped in front of Karina Dempsey. My gaze immediately shot to Luke, and I saw a tightness around his eyes. It sounded like the Prince said something to Karina, but I was too far away to make out the words. Nik moved on to examining the next few women. I had no doubt that Nik had stopped to speak to Karina purely to fuck with Luke. Ass.
Nik stopped in front of a gorgeous high fae blonde with bright blue eyes. She looked so similar to the woman who had been Nik’s date to the Winter Gala that she could have been a sister or a cousin. Nik twirled a piece of her long blonde hair around his finger before moving on.
He continued to make his way down the line of young women without stopping until he reached me. I stared straight ahead, shoulders back, not looking away from his piercing green eyes.
He stepped into me and whispered so only I could hear, “Princess, you look absolutely stunning tonight.”
I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. He was probably doing this to fuck with Jay, or even Luke. The truth was that the Prince also looked ravishing in his all-white ensemble. His olive skin popped against the white almost as much as his muscles popped against the pull of the fabric over his shoulders and biceps. He waited confidently for my retort, no doubt expecting something snarky.
“Your suit…suits you, my Prince,” I said through a tight-lipped smile. It felt weird calling him by his title. I’d gotten so used to calling him by his first name during our training sessions.
He gave me a feline smile then stepped from me, indicating that playtime was over. I was already beginning to look to my right at who was next in line when I noticed the Prince’s hand extend out to me.
“Alarie Armand,” he spoke my full name solemnly. “You are my chosen,” he declared in a booming voice that echoed through the expansive room.
Gasps and murmurs pierced the silence of the crowd. The women on either side of me craned their necks to get a better view of me. My heart beat so hard it felt like it might just punch a hole right through my chest. I stared down at Nik’s waiting hand in shock. Then I trailed my gaze up to meet his incredibly gorgeous face. There was no sign that he was teasing me. He arched his left eyebrow at me, intimating for me to take his hand.
This was the Prince’s Choosing. I didn’t have a choice here. I slid my hand into his, and his calloused palm enclosed around my hand. He immediately raised our hands above my head, prompting me into a single, luckily graceful, twirl. My dress circled my feet, and when I came to a stop, we were standing hand-in-hand facing the High Council table.
The King rose and began to clap. And then everyone else joined in. Jay’s gaze was icy, bordering on glacial, but that wasn’t far from the Lord of Whispers’s usual demeanor. Luke was the last to rise from the High Council table. It seemingly took him great effort to stand. He had to push off the table in front of him with both hands, like he had to heft his considerable mass out of his chair. His square jaw was clenched. He reluctantly raised his hands to join in the clapping, but before his two hands came together, Nik and I were gone.
Nik’s cool, comforting darkness surrounded us and then we were on the balcony to his room at the M. I felt so numb with shock that I didn’t even notice my hand was still enclosed by his. We stood looking out at the ocean, the silence between us filled with the sound of waves crashing onto the shore. He was the first to pull away, breaking me from my daze.
“Congratulations, princess,” he said sarcastically, no doubt picking up on the fact that I was less than thrilled.
“Nik…” I tore my eyes away from the whitecaps of the crashing waves. I hesitated, trying to carefully choose words I’d never imagined I’d have to say to the Prince of Valencia. “I can’t marry you.”
I thought of Cass. How was he going to handle all of this? I didn’t even have a chance to spot him in the crowd before we disappeared.
Nik raised his thick eyebrows at me.
“You’re awfully quick to turn down something almost any woman in this Kingdom would kill for,” he said.
“And you’re awfully full of yourself,” I retorted.
He sighed. “Who said anything about marriage, Alarie?”
“Well, isn’t the whole point of the Choosing? For you to find your betrothed?” I asked.
“That is what people have assumed all of these years,” he said, sounding resigned.
“But it’s not true?” I asked.
“No,” he replied simply.
“Then why do you do the Choosing?” I asked.
“Well, this year, it was just for show,” he said.
“So, I’m not your Chosen then?” I asked, hope filling my words.
If I didn’t know better, I would have thought I saw a flicker of hurt cross the handsome Prince’s face.
“Oh no, you are,” he said with a grim grin. “It’s just that I didn’t need to go through the Choosing today to know that. I’ve known for months now.”
“All of this time you’ve been training me?”
“Almost since the first moment I laid eyes on you,” he confirmed.
I thought of the first night we met. How he’d saved me from being kidnapped. And that look I’d seen in his eyes that night for just a fleeting moment.
I stared at him analytically, the wheels churning in my head. “Why put on a show tonight, then?”
“To send a message,” he replied succinctly.
Was he going to make me drag every last little detail out of him, question by question?
I breathed a huff of air out of my nose. “Send a message to who?” I asked.
“Vandros,” he said, again with a clipped answer.
I had no idea what I had gotten myself in the middle of. Now I was being used as some kind of message to the ruthless King of Alancia?
“Nik,” I said, letting my exasperation show. “Will you please just tell me what is going on instead of making me drag it out of you? If being your Chosen doesn’t mean marriage, then what does it mean?”
“It means you’re the one I’ve been looking for all this time, Alarie. You’re the girl from the prophecy,” he breathed out.