Chapter 15 #3
‘Well, isn’t this a fucking delight?’ I can’t yet see his face, but his voice is a deep drawl that’s awfully familiar.
‘Let’s have a party while the great king’s soldiers die.
Or maybe that’s why we’re having a party?
Is it?’ As the second drink follows the first down his throat, he grabs yet another and turns in a slow curve towards the king, his arms stretched out wide.
‘Have I missed the toast? Has our beloved king already said a word for the fallen?’
Eyes wide, I baulk. Whoever this is, he must have a death wish to speak to the king like that in front of this many people. I wait for the knights to snap into action, for the few dire wolves prowling the room to rip across the floor and savage him. But none of them move.
‘Come on, who’s drinking to our fallen?’ His words slur and the champagne in his glass spills onto the floor as he gestures wildly.
King Korvane laughs loudly, but his eyes are hard and cold. His forced jovial tone falls flat when he says, ‘Well, it appears that our alcohol might be a little too strong tonight. This is indeed a celebration and we need a toast. To Etta and our great Rettlings. Drink up, everyone.’
The room does as instructed, lifting their glasses and muttering their toasts in hushed and hurried whispers, yet my attention remains fixed on the man who swans through the room as if he owns the place.
As he moves to set his empty glass back on a tray, he finally faces me, and the breath rushes from my lungs as his icy-blue eyes lock onto mine.
It’s him.
A thousand shivers cascade down my spine as the heat and fury I felt at the sight of Korvane transform into something else entirely. Something that causes every sense in my body to heighten.
The white shirt that he’s wearing is unbuttoned a third of the way down his chest, revealing a hint of the circular tattoos that mark him.
But I remember them all. Just as I remember the sharp lines of the muscles beneath his olive skin and the way his lips curved into a smirk when he spoke to me.
A warm and involuntary shudder overtakes me.
‘Who is that?’ I whisper to Jonas, but my voice barely makes a sound. I clear my throat and try again. ‘Jonas, who is that? He’s from Wrohelm, right?’
Jonas looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. ‘You’re joking, right? That’s Prince Kyor.’
‘No,’ I murmur in confused denial, unable to draw my eyes away from the royal as he drinks directly from a champagne bottle, gulping down the expensive vintage as though it’s water.
‘No,’ I say more forcefully. ‘Kyor had brown eyes.’
‘He did.’ Jonas puts all the emphasis on the second word. ‘But then he had them changed – after his mother died.’
‘What?’
I search Jonas’s face for any hint of humour, as if he might be pulling my leg. But there’s nothing.
‘It was a massive scandal,’ Jonas continues.
‘Korvane was furious. Every heir to the throne has had the same dark brown eyes for the last, well, Gods know how many generations. And then Kyor went and pulled that stunt. He had priests and priestesses from all seven Gods perform the charms, so it’s irreversible.
Kyor will be the first blue-eyed Morathkian king for centuries. ’
I can but gape. Those icy-blue eyes – the ones that have haunted both my sleeping and waking dreams since I first saw them two nights ago – belong to fucking Prince Kyor? That touch that caused my skin to nearly melt belongs to the man I despise more than even the king himself?
The knots in my stomach twist so tight I can barely draw breath.
I don’t want to believe it. With my whole heart, I want Jonas to be lying, but I know he’s not.
I knew I recognised those eyes somehow, but I couldn’t place them, convinced that the last time I saw eyes that shade, they belonged to a woman.
And I was right. Kyor’s eyes are the exact shade of the irises that looked up at my mother and told her to save the babe instead.
The blue eyes that flashed when the queen sent me a fleeting smile as I stood at my mother’s side, uncomfortably aware of the blood that was pooling on the ground by our feet.
‘Are you all right?’ Jonas brushes my arm. ‘You look pale.’
Of course I look fucking pale, I want to snap at him. This is the man responsible for ruining my entire life, and I’ve been lusting after him. A mixture of fury and disgust rises within me, and not just because of our past.
This ball is in celebration of Etta’s name, and he is a Rettling gifted with the honour of competing, when dozens – if not hundreds – of others were rejected.
Yet he’s here, drunk and talking of death.
Whatever powers he may have been blessed with, even Zara has more right to win this thing than he does. What can he possibly need?
I lift my glass, desperate to ease the dryness in my throat.
As the champagne bubbles touch my lips, those blue eyes lock on mine for a second time.
My pulse soars and I will him to look away, but he doesn’t.
No, this time he holds my gaze completely.
Adrenaline floods through me. No matter how much I want to tear my eyes away, I can’t.
My mind and my body are locked in conflict.
Finally, I let my lips shift into a snarl, letting him see all of my fucking hatred for him.
In answer, his own lips tip up in amusement. My hatred amuses him? My jaw clenches and I refuse to look away. Refuse to show him even an iota of deference.
But the prince, it seems, is not in the mood for a staring contest across a crowded room. Instead, he drops the champagne bottle to his side and starts walking.
Straight towards me.