Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Iwas brought here to court the Snow Princess, but I've decided to have the Snow Queen instead.”
The king’s chambers reeked of clove oil and mothballs.
The grandeur of it was lacquered over with age.
Heavy drapes sagged at the windows, their velvet faded, their tassels dulled with time.
The rugs were thick but fraying at the edges.
The furniture was grand but stiff, as if no one had sat in it for a decade without armor or gout.
Dust floated like lazy ghosts in the shafts of moonlight, cutting through the tall arched panes, and the fire in the hearth sputtered like it too was on its last legs.
And yet, there stood the golden boy prince.
Towel slung low on his hips. His tunic lay crumpled on the floor beside a discarded sash, one boot tipped on its side near the hearth, the other nowhere in sight.
A silver comb had been left askew on the vanity.
A wine goblet—half-full, staining the edge in a careless ring—perched precariously on an ancient table carved for kings, not playboys.
That pissed Graham off more than the boy's words. Raveena loathed disorder. She kept her life, her castle, her image, in perfect lines and polished corners. The sight of Charming’s chaos, his carelessness, was just galling.
Graham wanted to slice off the prince's bare feet that had tracked water through the room.
His fingers itched to reach for his blade, to run the golden boy through right there.
But his eyes flicked to the snow bear's pelt beneath the prince’s bare feet.
One drop of blood would ruin the rug. Raveena would be more furious about the bloodstain than the corpse.
“Mother wanted me to court the girl. And I did. But gods, she bored me. Always pouting or preening or pretending to be above it all. Raveena, though—she’s a woman.
Sharp. Hungry. She doesn’t wait to be caught; she hunts.
She chased after me, while I always had to chase Snow.
That gets tiring, you know. Wears on a man’s ego. ”
Graham’s hands curled into fists. Not because of the insult. Because part of him knew that Charming believed every word. And Raveena—his Raveena—had let him believe it.
"Don't worry, wolf. I won't bar you from the queen's bed once we wed.
" Charming waved a bejeweled hand at the king's bed, then sat his bare ass down on the sheets as he toweled himself dry.
"I prefer maids to these royal ladies. Common women will bop on top of you all night long.
A noblewoman will expect a chap to do all the thrusting until they reach a climax.
I don't have to tell you how hard it is to get a woman off.
It can take some of them ten, twenty minutes.
Who has time for that? Am I right? Well, I suppose men like you do.
So after she's with child, have at her."
The red drained from Graham's vision. It was replaced with a clear view of the situation. Raveena would walk circles around this man. She wouldn't even have to run. The Snow Queen would eat this golden prince alive with silk-gloved fingers and a smile that could freeze rivers.
Charming didn’t see it—couldn’t see it. Too stupid. Too arrogant. He thought bedding the queen meant ruling beside her.
Fool.
Graham knew better. He knew how to make Raveena kneel before him. How to make her beg him. How to get her to concede. Because she knew, without a single doubt in that beautiful mind of hers, that his every move on the game board was to get her the win. The orgasm. The prize.
This boy might be a prince. But Graham was the king. A king without a crown. For his queen to have the ultimate prize, she would have to marry this idiot.
Graham was going to have to let her.
"You almost had me near the end of our bout." Charming tugged on his shirt—crimson velvet embroidered with gold that caught the firelight like a smug smirk. “That move near the end?” He mimicked a feint with his hand. “Could’ve taken my head off.”
Graham still hadn't moved, still hadn't spoken a single word. Not that Charming had noticed. Graham stood with his boots planted squarely on the queen’s side of the threshold, arms crossed, spine rigid.
“But then,” Charming continued, buttoning his cuffs, “you dropped to your knees.”
He turned then, fully dressed and insufferably pleased with himself. His polished boots stopped just shy of crossing into Raveena’s rooms. He stood toe to toe with Graham, not that it made them equals.
“There’s been talk that you might’ve thrown the match, let me win. You and I both know no true warrior would ever show his neck to a lesser opponent.”
Graham’s jaw flexed. His fingers twitched once—just once—where they rested on his biceps. A wolf would have snapped his teeth. Graham didn't even blink.
Charming chuckled, mistaking the silence for surrender. He turned, smug and satisfied, unaware how close he’d walked to the edge of something deadly. But the prince didn't get too far.
A guard stood in the outer door to the king's chambers. The man was dressed in the gold of Charming's lands, but he was followed by men in the ice blue of Thornhall.
"Your highness, you must come," said one of the golden guards.
The golden guards led Charming away. The Thornhall guards stayed behind to face Graham.
“What?” Graham barked.
It had to do with Snow White. Had they found the princess? Had they been wrong? Had it been foul play?
“The queen. She’s gone.”