Three Days Old Dress
SERAPHAE
Ihad paced the room so many times the floorboards were going to file a formal complaint.
Sixty-four floorboards. Three thousand and thirty-three stars on the wallpaper, which I had counted twice to confirm and once more after that because I had nothing else to do.
Forty-five bricks on the hearth. Eleven ceiling beams. Four hundred and twelve words in the decorative script that ran along the upper border of the walls, which was either a poem or a very long political statement.
I had no way to know because it was in fae and nobody was speaking to me.
The candelabra on the mantel had nine arms. Seven of them were crooked to varying degrees.
It bothered me more than it should have.
At this point, I was going to die of boredom before the prince got around to doing anything about me.
No one answered my questions. No one spoke to me. The guards would not look me in the eye, which was probably my fault, but it was still rude. I tried talking to one through the door. He ignored me. I tried with a different one. Same result.
My hair had staged a full rebellion, and at one low point, I had considered using a fork to address it. I had used my fingers instead. But I had considered it seriously for longer than I was going to admit to anyone.
The worst part was the dress.
The fact that it bothered me was its own indignity. I had slept in ditches, gone four days without a change of clothes on a winter job. Even though I was a prisoner in a foreign kingdom with a cursed tattoo, it was the dress that was breaking me.
I was going to kill him.
When I saw him, I was going to absolutely kill him.
There was a knock at the door. Different from the way the guards knocked. Those were apologetic and careful. This one was polite and certain, which was worse because I knew exactly who was on the other side.
The door opened when I was standing at the foot of the bed.
I crossed my arms and glared at him with murderous intent.
He stood in the doorway. On his face was that smile—the one that had no business being as irritating as it was while simultaneously looking good.
I wanted to punch it. Maybe twice.
“Miss me?” he said.
“Tragically. The furniture didn't have your ego.”
He crossed the room and glanced around as if he were judging his own decor before he settled into the settee.
One ankle hooked over a knee, completely at ease across from a woman who had tried to kill him.
His eyes moved over me. The three-day-old dress.
The bruise on my cheek that Riven had contributed and was only now beginning to fade.
Then down to the ink on my left forearm.
“I assume you understand the implications now,” he said.
My pulse kicked hard when the pieces clicked into place, heat rising fast beneath my skin.
“You knew.” I punctuated each word. “You let me escape on purpose.”
That was why no one had come after me. Why Riven hadn't materialized in a forest and reintroduced me to the ground.
He smiled like a predator that had trapped its prey and gestured to the chair across from him. I did not sit and gave him the finger instead. Unfortunately, he seemed to enjoy that even more.
“I'm going to make you an offer.”
The laugh that came out of me was sudden and not at all attractive. Loud enough to ricochet off the walls.
He continued as if I hadn't just laughed at him.
“The dagger contained binding magic. Your life is now bonded to mine. What I feel, you feel. Vice versa.” He smoothed a sleeve that didn't need smoothing. “Distance, as you've discovered, is uncomfortable.”
Sleeping on cold stone was uncomfortable. The pain I had felt in the forest made death seem merciful.
“And in case you're considering killing me,” he continued, “if I die, you die.”
“How very romantic.”
“I have my moments.” Spoken with the confidence that came with being arrogant.
I had been thinking about it since the forest. The way he had told Riven to stop that first night, then touched his own jaw as if he had felt something. He had felt it then too.
Now I understood the room upgrade. My discomfort had been his.
As the realization took hold, I briefly considered running headfirst into the wall just to spite him.
The fire had burned low beside him, pulling the blue in his eyes toward a shade of turquoise. It reminded me of the sea south of Thalvarn. The kind of water that swallowed fools.
I was not a fool.
He hadn't looked away. The smile had left his face, and his eyes carried a weight the room couldn't hold.
“Stay with me,” he said.
“Is that supposed to make me swoon?”
“Is it working?”
I said nothing and stared at him the way that had once made a grown man cry.
He only stared back.
“Be my personal guard.”
Before I could describe exactly where he could put his offer, he raised a silencing hand and continued.
“You'd be the most motivated guard to keep me alive,” he said. “You should be grateful I'm even offering.”
“Grateful?” I laughed and leaned against the bedpost with my arms crossed. “Should I get on my knees and call you Your Highness?”
His mouth curved, slow and dangerous. As if he had found something worth remembering.
“If I wanted you on your knees, you'd already be there.”
My pulse betrayed me immediately.
“I am not—“
“Seraphae.” His smile deepened when I visibly tensed. “No surname. No known family.”
My silence seemed to please him, and I fought the urge to stab him with something.
“Taken in by the Obsidian Hand at eight. First contract at fourteen. One-bedroom apartment in Blackwater Cape. Impressive collection of wine and dresses.” His gaze dropped briefly to the battered one that clung to my body.
“You took my contract for the sake of Xander Flint. Very touching. You missed, and now every Hand in the syndicate has your name on a new contract.” He leaned back.
“So yes. You are going to be my personal guard. Because the only place safe for you right now is Primoria. And the only way you stay in Primoria is if you have a reason to be here.”
I ran through the options methodically. Starting with the most optimistic and working my way down.
There was no alternative. No clever remarks. Not even a creative insult. I stayed silent and made it look intentional.
“There's a witch,” he said. “Within Twilight. She can break the bond. Once she does, we can reconsider killing each other.”
He sat across from me with the relaxed posture of someone who already knew what conclusion I was reaching and was patiently waiting for me to accept it.
“Fine,” I said. The word tasted like something I was going to regret. “But I have conditions.”
“Go on.”
“Once the bond breaks, I'm gone, and you let me.” I let that absorb into that thick skull of his before I continued. “And I want to be paid.”
“What are you thinking?”
I thought of a ridiculous number and doubled it before telling him.
“Done.”
If I hadn't been leaning on the bedpost, I would have fallen over.
“And I want clothes,” I said, because it was important. “Proper ones. A full wardrobe.”
When he looked at my dress, something moved across his face that wasn't quite amusement and wasn't quite pity, but somehow worse than both.
“Obviously.” He stood and moved toward the door. “You'll have tomorrow to settle into your role.”
I stared at his back long enough to collect myself.
“As you wish, Your Highness.” The last part came out with all the warmth of the cell floor I had slept on.
He stopped and looked at me over his shoulder.
“Caelan,” he said. Smoothly, as if he'd been waiting for an excuse to use it. The smile was back, entirely too pleased with itself. “Call me Caelan.”
He left.
I stared at the door as if he might come back through it just to spite me.
Personal guard. How ridiculous. Probably not more ridiculous than the salary he had just agreed to. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Both, probably. Preferably over wine.
Tonight, I was a prisoner in a three-day-old dress who had seriously considered a fork as a hair care solution.
Tomorrow, I was an overpaid personal guard for the fae prince I had tried to kill.
I had stopped expecting fate to make sense somewhere around the tattoo. At this point, I was just going with it.
So far, it had also kept me alive.
It was progress.
I was halfway through my dinner when someone knocked.
By now, I had a running list of knocks that identified who was on the other side. This one had not been on the list. This one had opinions. Three solid thumps that suggested waiting was a foreign concept.
Because no one in this estate understood privacy, the door opened.
The man who filled it was someone I hadn't met yet.
Taller than Caelan, which I hadn't thought was the direction things could go.
Built as if he could lift a carriage off the road.
Ash-blond hair long enough to be pushed back from his face and tucked behind his ears.
Kind eyes, which meant nothing. Dangerous men usually had those. It was practically a requirement.
He looked at me the way someone assessed something they'd been asked to collect and was deciding if it was worth handling.
“Like what you see?” I asked smoothly, with a tilt of my head.
“Pfft.” He looked away and back in disbelief. “I don't know what Caelan sees in you.”
Caelan. Not Your Highness. Not the prince. First-name basis without formality, as if it had never occurred to him to use anything else.
I swept my eyes over him. Silver armor, Primorian cut, polished to a sheen that required effort. Sleeveless, like all of them. Massive arms that I wouldn’t miss from a mile away. But the burgundy cape on his shoulder was something different.
“Maelor,” he said.
“Mm,” I replied, offering nothing else.
A flicker of irritation crossed his features. He pushed the door open wider and stepped aside. “Let's go.”
“Go where?”
“You're being moved.”
“Moved where?”
“The main wing.”
I kept my eyes on him and picked up my fork. Then took one more deliberate bite of duck breast. Chewed it slowly and patted my lips with a napkin.
He inhaled deeply through his nose. He watched me with the defeated expression of a man who had been warned about me and had hoped the warning was an exaggeration.
It was not.
“Come on, you tiny human.”
I followed him out.
Moving me to the main wing was a practical arrangement. Being closer meant it would be easier to keep an eye on me.
The guest wing fell behind us. I didn't look back at it.
Guest wing implied temporary. A new position and a new wing implied the opposite. I would not spend energy on feelings about that. Outside those walls, every Hand in the syndicate had my name on a new contract.
Small victories. You took them where you found them.
I followed Maelor down the corridor and tried to look like someone who had chosen this.
Even if there was no other choice.