Chapter 24
Maddox
The cursed prince leans against the grand piano, where I sit watching the keys play a melody all on their own now that my control of them has been revoked.
The dryad men seated around card tables, drinking brandy and talking with noses in the air, are growing drunker and drunker.
Their voices begin to rise, conversations becoming more passionate and nonsensical.
Light emanating from the candles and fireplace—which seems like a hazard in the middle of a tree kingdom—has dimmed considerably, bathing everyone in a dull amber glow.
Aside from the bizarre conversation with the king and his brother, I’ve spent much of the evening scanning the room for an exit strategy.
Beneath the mismatched furniture that’s clearly been stolen from wealthy mortals is a floor of solid oak covered by claret rugs woven with threads of gold.
Could be trapdoors beneath those, but it would be a bit obvious for me to peek under them.
There is a pair of double doors, guarded on both sides, and a multicolored stained-glass window I’d have to shatter and likely fall to my death from.
My hope of escape was just about gone until I sat on the piano bench and my eyes caught on a painting spanning the wall behind the king’s head.
The scene depicts a beautiful woman plucking the strings of a harp upon a rock surrounded by a tempestuous sea.
A dolphin’s head can be seen peeking out of the waves, suggesting it is listening to her play.
The harpist’s gaze is on me—and likely anyone else in the room who is looking her way, as paintings are wont to do.
Funny how life circles back around. If I had not had foster parents from hell in eighth grade, I wouldn’t have spent so much time studying all of the Greek gods and goddesses after school and during homeroom.
Ms. Brem had been my safe space and refuge.
I’d spend hours staring at the student-made posters on her wall, one of which depicted the nymph Calypso, whose name literally meant “to hide or conceal.” If I ever see the kid who loved to point out, We are literally never going to need this information in life, every class, I will gladly correct him because, on the left side of the painting, I can clearly see hinges hidden just behind the lip of the frame.
To hide or conceal, indeed.
The king leans against the wall beside his grim reaper guard, exchanging muted words in his magic sound bubble and pretending not to watch me and Durian out the corner of his eye. A mountain cat staring down another predator who caught the prey first.
It’s clear from our earlier conversation that the two brothers have some kind of buried resentment toward each other. And it seems the sight of the cursed prince speaking to me is making King Castor feel some kind of way.
Hopefully, it is making him feel some kind of jealous way. The kind of jealous way that makes you want to drag a person into your room and tear their clothes off—with no guards present, thanks.
“Your singing voice is unlike any I’ve ever heard,” Durian tells me, resting his chin on his forearms propped atop the piano. “I’ve a mind to steal you away from Magesté and hire you as my own personal music box.”
I tamp down a sneer. He sounds just like every other entitled mortal man—like he deserves me because he wants me. But Castor is still watching, so I flash Durian a coy smile. “Have you heard many mortals sing?”
“A fair few. But the tieg wine usually distorts their voices, makes them slur their words a bit or sound more dazed than anything. You sing with awareness and power.”
I frown down at the keys, moving as though pressed by phantom fingers. “Perhaps you could try not giving mortals tieg wine?”
“Mortals can’t handle the stupefying reality of magic without glamours or mind-altering substances. It would drive them to madness. Tieg wine is a kindness.”
“I’ve handled it.”
Suddenly, his fingers are running along the edge of my jaw, lifting my chin. I resist the impulse to pull away, meeting his gaze instead. “You are nothing like other mortals, Maddox.”
You’re not like other girls, I hear.
He moves closer now, hand sliding from my jaw down my neck to bare shoulder and trailing farther south. “Your mortal scent is overwhelming,” he breathes in my ear. “Would you risk the threat of death to let me see if you taste as sweet?”
My body tenses, readying to flee or attack just as Castor’s voice booms out, filling the room. “Thank you, gentlemen, for your presence this evening, but I am afraid the end of our merrymaking has arrived.”
The cursed prince pulls away with a wicked grin, stepping back enough for me to catch the rage in the king’s eyes from across the room. The press of the blades hidden beneath my full skirt calls to mind my mission as I slide off the piano bench, stepping out of Durian’s reach.
Castor approaches, avoiding eye contact with his brother. “Allow me to escort you out.” His voice is perilously calm.
“How very typical of you, Your Majesty,” Durian murmurs. “Always taking my toys away before I’ve even begun playing with them.”
Okay, no. Cursed and lonely or not—I whirl around to face the prince. “I am no one’s toy.”
“Sure you aren’t.” Durian flashes a contemptuous smirk, then he slides his hands into his pockets and strolls out the door behind the stream of drunken dryads.
The room is nearly empty, save for the grim reaper. I fold my arms, donning my invisible mask for the performance that is about to go down.
Get the king alone. Get him close. Kill him.
Then I can figure out how to bust out of here with his horns in tow. After that, I can worry about passing them off to the Myrtle Queen, being cured of this damned disease, and getting the fuck out of this forest.
“Can I speak to you alone for a moment?” I ask Castor. My heart rate spikes higher and higher, making my head spin.
He nods stiffly, glancing over his shoulder at Tamarind. His favored guard begins to close the doors on the others, remaining inside the room with us.
“Alone,” I grind out in his direction.
Tamarind tenses, fixing me with a face that clearly says, Never in your wildest dreams, you mortal plague.
I fling my arms wide, gesturing at my gown. “What am I going to do, slay him with my mortal beauty?” I snap. “I would just like to speak to the king without feeling like a wanted criminal.”
Which I basically am.
I lift my skirt to reveal my bare legs, up to my midthigh, to the place just below the tips of my weapons and diabetic supplies where they hang from the hidden belt the king gifted me. “Care to feel me up to be sure I don’t have a dagger shoved up my—”
“That won’t be necessary,” the king interrupts before gesturing to his guard. “Step outside, Tamarind.”
“But, Your Majesty—”
“That was an order.” King Castor’s eyes darken. “Step. Outside. And close the door behind you.”
Tamarind waits for a beat, shooting me a look filled with hostility and hatred. It takes far too much effort to keep my mouth from breaking into a triumphant grin.
“Vines of silence would not be wise now,” he says to the king. Then, finally, he steps through the door and closes it behind him.
My heart starts to pump even more aggressively. I have the king alone. Finally alone. And my blood sugar is far from low, which I’m telling myself is only temporary. Only a little longer. But I have to play my cards just right—perfectly, in fact—for this to work.
I pace to the piano with my arms still folded in front of me.
Leaning back against it, I fix the king with a look of intense disappointment.
“You should not have spoken like that to me earlier,” I begin.
“King or not, I am still a guest in your kingdom, and you treated me like the worthless mortal you clearly think I am.”
A muscle jumps in his jaw as he slides his hands into his pockets, reminding me rather strongly of his brother in this moment.
Except, instead of a cocky smirk, he’s wearing the same expression a guilty dog makes when they’ve been caught rooting through the garbage.
Tail between legs. Upturned brows. Avoidant eyes. Trash everywhere.
I’m the trash.
“You can’t understand why or how—and I can’t explain without endangering us both—but everything I said before was to protect you.”
“Protect me from what, precisely?”
“From him.” He gestures to the closed door as though Durian is standing right there, watching us with that cheeky smile of his.
“The prince? What do you honestly think, Castor? That I’m going to fall for your cursed brother in a single night and die at your feet?
” My voice builds. “Do you think I’m some pathetic mortal dreaming of falling in love with a royal dryad?
A desperate girl hoping to be whisked away into the trees forever? ”
He takes several steps closer to me, sending a look over his shoulder. “Lower your voice.”
In the dim glow from the dying fire, his blackened horns cast an ominous shadow across his face, more beast than man in so little light.
“Are you afraid the cursed prince will return to save me from your wrath?”
The king takes two more steps forward until we are only a few feet apart. The shadows in the room move as he does, growing in height as he comes closer to the flickering fire near the grand piano. “It’s not my wrath you should be worried about.”
“Oh? Whose, then? Your big bad cursed brother who fucks girls so good they can’t possibly live another second?”
Head tilted down, he glares up at me with a murderous expression. “Stop.”
“Maybe they die from the sheer force of their orgasms. Ooohh, Durian,” I cry out, arching my back and running my hands down my bodice in feigned ecstasy. “Right there. Yes. Don’t stop. Yes. Right—”
Closing the distance between us, he throws out both arms, caging me between him and the piano. “Stop.”
“You know why I think you have such a problem with him?” I say in a low voice. “I think you’re jealous.”
Veins of black appear along the skin of his arms visible beyond his rolled-up sleeves. I can feel the wood of the piano behind me start to erode beneath his hands.
“Why would a king be jealous of a cursed prince who kills everyone who loves him?”
“Because people do love him. They love him so much they’re willing to die for him. Can you say the same?”
The king’s horns frame my head. He could bash them into my skull right now if he wanted to. Pieces of the piano crumble to the floor, the scent of decaying wood filling my airway.
“And would you?” Castor’s voice rolls fog-thick over me. “Would you die for the cursed prince?”
I bite down on my bottom lip, and his eyes track the movement, watching as I drag teeth across the delicate skin. “If I loved him, I would.”
A second passes. Perhaps two.
Then Castor’s lips capture mine—or maybe it’s the other way around. I can’t really focus. Everything is too hot, my head pounding from my sky-high blood sugar, my heart beating too fast.
Our kiss is filled with every unspoken hateful word each of us wants to say but can’t.
Instead of screaming at him, I bite down on his lip.
Instead of cursing my name, he takes my hips in his hands and lifts me onto the half-ruined piano.
My legs wrap around his torso, pulling him forcefully closer.
I gather clumps of his hair in my hands, squeezing tightly. He winces, but instead of moving away, he groans into my mouth, sending a shock of pressure between my legs. Pooling warmth sits heavy in my stomach, tightening like choking vines.
Fuck.
I need to focus. My plan is working a little too well. He’s distracted. I’m distracted.
My fingers inch to the clasp at my waist where my blades are hidden, waiting to be buried in Castor’s heart, waiting to fulfill this pact so I can go home. But then his hands cascade from my face, brushing over the curve of my breasts and down to grip my thighs. My focus wanes.
With one hand he pushes the fabric of my gown up, fingers inching higher until I let out a startled gasp.
Fuck.
His tongue flicks out to caress mine, and the image of the weapons sinks into the quicksand of my mind.
I slide my hands up from his hair to the base of his horns, grasping them to control the kiss.
He moans again, and this time it sounds like a growl.
His fingers turn clawlike at my hip, bruising, inches away from the place that’s aching to be touched.
Touched by him. Not anyone else. This realization would devastate me if I had control of the direction of my thoughts.
“Maddox.” Hot breath caresses my ear, sending a shock across nerve endings.
His mouth holds my name like I’m his idol to worship on sinful knees.
My hand slides from his chest to find the hard length of him betraying his interest. Not an act, it seems, though the slickness between my own thighs might say the same about me.
Pressing against him, I crack a smile as Castor sucks in a breath. “Fuck, Maddox.”
I quite literally have the king in the palm of my hand. All I need to do is focus long enough to—
Suddenly, a loud crack rends the air, and Castor pulls me to him, holding me as the piano collapses to the ground.
A cacophony of clanking keys and groaning wood roars like a sinking ocean liner.
The next moment, the doors to the smoking room are thrown open and Tamarind, followed by two more guards, thunder in with weapons raised.
I realize several seconds too late what they are now seeing. Me, straddling the king, my gown pulled up to the middle of my thighs and my lipstick tattooed across the bottom half of his face.
Slowly, and somehow gracefully, he sets me on my feet, hands still on my waist. If he moves them any farther south, he will feel the hard outline of my weapons. I take a step back and his hands fall away.
Castor stares down at the ruined piano. “That was my fault,” he tells them. “Everything is fine here. Carry on, gentlemen.”
My chest rises and falls like I’ve just sprinted to Magesté and back. My lips tingle with the memory of his. The dagger and axe and bag of diabetic supplies feel heavier than ever. This pact feels heavier than ever. Suddenly, I’m Atlas and the world is on my shoulders.
Kissing Castor did not get me any closer to killing him. If anything, it pushed me to the very edge of the plank with my name written on it in blood.
Calypso’s haunting eyes meet mine from her painted prison. It almost looks like she’s trying to hold back a knowing smile. One egocentric goddess acknowledging another.