I painted a smile on my face and tugged my hand free. “Then I would like to spend it enjoying the festivities rather than tolerating them and your presence.”
He scowled, a warning within his eyes, but he didn’t stop me from taking the two steps down from the dais to the grass.
Maybe he knew my own patience was at an end, and if I remained, we would cause a scene by continuing to do as he’d warned we shouldn’t—argue until one of us snapped in a way we could not take back.
The thought of humiliating him in front of so many onlookers both thrilled and nauseated me. That awakening part of me, likely tied to the heat, liked the idea of claiming that devious mouth in front of so many far too much.
Though the rest of me knew that to do so would only further suit his plans—and make me and my father’s kingdom appear weak.
Two guards trailed me as I entered the thick throng of faeries. Scents crashed into me and caused my head to swim. Overwhelmed, I bumped into bodies when a female with hooves for feet nearly squashed my slipper-covered toes.
Her features might have been dusted in a light layer of fur, and her eyes that of a bovine, but I didn’t miss the sharp sneer she gave me. Nor that from the cluster of goblins she’d been dancing with.
I could no longer see the warriors but knew they were watching from somewhere. My eyes caught on the twinkling throne I’d steadily moved away from, and I soon realized why the king had let me go.
A female with glowing crimson hair curling around slim shoulders now stood at the side of the podium.
Florian no longer sat on the throne.
I moved out from behind a line of dancing females, wine bouncing from their goblets, to see he’d descended the steps to speak with the red-haired female. She wrung her hands before her, but her smile was wide and bright. I could only see Florian’s broad back and the crown atop the hair he’d tied to his nape, but I could tell from the glow of her face that they were not family.
The king of Hellebore had no living family.
For if he did, I would not be standing here, dazed in a field of faeries.
Needing air, and to keep from marching back to stop the king from standing so close to the creature of whom he was evidently very familiar with for him to leave his royal perch, I made my way to the tree line.
As predicted, the guards had followed.
A lightly muscled male with piercing brown eyes smirked when I neared him. “Looking a little unwell there, Princess.”
The female beside him knocked his arm with her elbow. Her gaze remained steadfast upon the festivities, as if more of Molkan’s spies might emerge and snatch me at any moment. “Don’t, Fellan.”
“Don’t what?” he said, giving the female a feigned look of outrage. “I was only going to tell the princess not to worry, for dear Nalia is merely our king’s only permanent lover.”
He would only be merely screaming when I gave in to the temptation to snatch his dagger from his waist and bury it in his groin.
Shocked and a touch sickened by the flare of my violent temper, I closed my eyes and pleaded with the skies for this ghastly heat to hurry up and end. I couldn’t keep feeling and acting this way.
I couldn’t keep longing for something I couldn’t allow myself to have—especially when all I truly needed was to find the father who’d sent me to the middle lands when I was born.
If nothing else, at least it was now clear that Molkan had been trying to protect me from Florian’s wrath. A forgivable heartbreak, if only I was given the chance to give that forgiveness to him.
I didn’t need Florian and the useless feelings and desires he conjured.
And right now, I just needed Fellan to shut his irksome mouth.
“Decades, I think it was. Wasn’t it, Lorri?”
Lorri sighed. “I honestly don’t care to remember.”
“No, it was.” Fellan went on. “She practically lived with him, Princess. Though I do believe in different rooms, so don’t you worry.”
My teeth met and gritted.
“Oh, the fun they had. Hardly monogamous from what I recall, but they were always together for every wild gathering.” He laughed then. “I had a friend who walked in on one once. Females everywhere, he’d said. An endlessly magical sea of tits, cunts, and ass.”
Lorri had apparently decided she did not wish to hear another goading word. I was tempted to follow her as she walked back toward her king.
Too curious and apparently masochistic for my own good, I stayed. It would help, I thought, to hate him just that little bit more.
“Wish I’d seen it myself, of course.” Fellan tutted and stepped far too close. “If it weren’t for his wildling of a sister and his heartbroken father dying, then I’d wager they’d still be at it.”
I said nothing—wasn’t given the opportunity.
Fellan feigned a forlorn sigh, his hand tightening around the hilt of the blade at his side. “Changed him well and truly, that did. But don’t worry.” He elbowed me hard, and I ignored the impulse to place a hand over my ribs as the sneaky brutality and his words knocked the wind from me. “Looks like they might be on the cusp of a sweet second chance.”
His hoarse laughter stalked me when I finally drew away.
I was so enraged, so distracted by the knots that had replaced my innards, I all but threw myself back into the ever-growing crowds. Bodies crushed and shoved, and I ducked to avoid another blow from an elbow, this time to the head.
My hand was stolen.
Before I could react, a strange male with indigo eyes hauled me close. He grinned, fiendish, then twirled and spun me deeper into the suffocating swarm.
It took me a moment to realize he was dancing with me. That for the first time outside of my room inside of an apartment in the middle lands, I was actually dancing.
And not on my own.
But my awed smile slipped when another male grabbed my hand, and apprehension slowed my feet. His eyes flared a burning sky blue as he pulled me toward his chest and inhaled my hair. “The heat has her,” he said, the words almost groaned.
The male who’d stolen me first pressed his chest to my back. “Are you looking for help with that, Princess?”
“No,” I said, smiling tightly and attempting to push away from them. But they were too much muscle, too tall to see past, and too insistent on persuading me.
“We’ve done it before.”
“Yet to have found a mate from it, either,” the new one said over my hair at my ear. “So we’re not breaking any rules.”
“Who knows…” The other male’s hands clasped my hips. “Perhaps our beloved Mythayla will decide you’ll be our mate.”
Before I could tell them I wasn’t interested in them nor what the goddess might have in store, another male joined us. “Bold,” he said, his dark eyes glinting as he tossed back a goblet of wine. “To be touching the king’s plaything.”
“He’s occupied.” The indigo-eyed male squeezed my waist possessively. “We checked.”
The new arrival who’d been overtly ogling me looked over my head, and his grin spread. “History always repeats itself with those two.”
Jealousy, that insidious poison, stole my breath and burned through my veins.
The males laughed at the expression on my face. The new one took the opportunity to steal my hand and spin me around. “You’re better off with us anyway, Princess.”