“Interesting,” he said, grinning in a way I’d never seen before. It reached his eyes and brightened them to a dawn-touched sky. “For I’ll wager I can still make you come undone within seconds, Princess.”
“Do not call me that.”
“But that is what you are, and now, what you are is mine to do with as I see fit.” He closed the space between us until he’d backed me against the wall and clasped my cheek. “You are mine, Tullia. In time, you will learn to accept that as I have.”
“I won’t,” I seethed, my eyes making the mistake of crashing into his. Endless blue threatened to hold me underwater until all breath left my lungs. My rage and fear dulled, but the ache it left me with would not. “You lied to me, Florian.”
“Don’t take it so personally,” he whispered, brushing his nose over my cheek. “I will do whatever it takes to get what I want.”
“I hate you,” I rasped.
He tensed, then his hand slid down to my throat.
My heart kicked when he gently squeezed. I still said it again, hoping it wounded him—even if it was just a scratch compared to what he’d done and would likely continue to do to me. “I loathe you.”
His mouth hovered over mine, our lips grazing with every low word that left his lying, manipulative mouth. “Hate me all you like, butterfly.” His grip on my throat loosened, his thumb stroking my thumping pulse. “It changes nothing.”
“It changes everything.”
His eyes sparked. “You still hunger for me, and that is all I need from you.”
“And to parade me at your side like a pet you keep only to punish those you despise.”
His lips spread into a smile against my cheek. “You do not suffer, Princess.”
Then his mouth stole mine.
I sank my teeth into his lip, and he snarled softly. This male was pure poison. Yet I licked his blood from my lips like it was an elixir.
His eyes were on my mouth. His teeth flashed as he rubbed my throat before releasing me. “Climb into bed like a good little pet. I’ll return to tend to you when I finish carving Frensroth into bite-sized pieces for his return to your father.”
Bile rose up my throat at the image he’d gruesomely painted.
He was stalking through the door when I said in an unintentional whisper, “Find another body to defile. I want no more of you.”
His fingers gripped the doorframe, the wood creaking. “Ordering me to humiliate you further, my daring creature?” His eyes gleamed a depthless blue over his shoulder. “I highly advise against such foolishness.”
The door slammed.
I sank down the wall with my hands in my hair, terrified, ashamed, and longing for the home I’d been so skies-damned determined to escape.
A guard was standing outside of my rooms.
I didn’t need to ask to know she’d been standing there all night. She eyed me up and down with a smirk, her perfect features freckle-dusted and her dark hair trapped in a thick braid.
I was still in my robe, and I had no intention of remedying that as I stalked down the hall. The sun was almost due to rise when I’d finally found sleep. After dreaming of flying blades and pools of blood and unfeeling kings, it hadn’t lasted long. I’d woken with a pounding head and heart with the birds, and in a cold sweat.
The guard followed me, of course.
Olin waited beneath the stairs with that perfect posture and his pointed chin in the air. Rather than bid him good morning as I’d done every day prior, a greeting he’d never deigned to return, I said, “I know why you detest me now.”
The steward blinked and arched a brow. “Oh?”
I narrowed my eyes. “And I’ll have you know that I find your unfair judgment almost as disgusting as your king.”
I left him gaping after me and entered the dining room.
The guard stood by the doors in silence while I ate with my fingers, my teeth ripping into a strip of pork. “Olin detests most things with a heartbeat, Princess, and I must advise against slandering the king.”
Shocked she’d spoken to me, I looked from the crackling fire to her light-brown eyes. “Are you to follow me everywhere I go?”
The guard gave me a bland look. “Yes.”
I dropped the pork to my plate. “What is your name?”
“Zayla.”
“Pretty,” I said absently. Then I knocked the plate of food toward her and rose to collect Snow’s breakfast from the hutch. “You’d better eat, then.”
“I’ve already eaten.”
Of course, she had.
Zayla followed me outside into the gray morning. The wind tangled my untouched hair and whipped it over my cheeks. “Where are you going, Princess?”
“To feed my wolf.”
“A blizzard nears.”
I cared nothing for blizzards when I’d been swept into a storm I might never survive. “Then we’d better hurry.”
In nothing but knee-high boots and my robe, I stomped through the ever-growing snow upon the grass to the stables. All the horses were in their stalls, Henron busy catering to their annoyance at being cooped up.
He laughed lightly as I passed. “Didn’t feel like dressing in one of your evening gowns today, Princess?”
That word again—from him. I’d ignored it the first time. There was no ignoring it now.
Most would be delighted to discover they were a long-lost princess, including my stupid past self. Now, I couldn’t think of anything worse.
“Shut your trap, Henron.”
The stable hand whistled. “Never thought I’d live to see the day you were grumpy.”
Zayla muttered something that sounded like, “Lucky me.”
The two of them talked quietly while I tended to Snow and tried to calm down. But not even her soft fur or dark and inquisitive eyes could help settle me. My anger and self-loathing worsened with the weather that lashed at the wooden walls around us.
Snow shivered, and I withdrew my hand from her velvet ear as an idea came.
Once she was done eating, I picked her up and carried her back through the stables.
Henron’s eyes bulged, a piece of hay falling from his mouth. “Where are you taking the wolf?”
“Out of the cold.”
He cursed colorfully at my back, while Zayla raced after me. “I urge you to reconsider, Princess.”
My hair flew in front of my face, making it hard to see. “Would you like to sleep in the stables in this weather?”
“If I were a wolf, yes,” she said, almost pleadingly. “Much better than the woods.”
I ignored her and tucked Snow’s head to my chest when a giant branch fell in our path. Zayla grabbed my arm, but I didn’t want her assistance. I pulled free and stepped around it.
She apologized, then tried to reason with me again. “Please, this isn’t wise. The king will be furious.”
I only smiled and thought, exactly.
I left Snow in my rooms and headed to the kitchen.
My nape prickled with awareness as I hurried past the king’s study. He was in there. Hopefully wondering what I was up to.
I’d keep him wondering for the rest of his days if he insisted on keeping me. I had no doubt he’d already been informed of the cub in my chambers. I hoped his skin itched with irritation.