Текст книги "The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King"

Автор книги: Carissa Broadbent

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 37 страниц)

37

ORAYA

It surprised me, just how unafraid I was.

I’d gotten through the church’s ball wearing nearly as little clothing as this, yes, but I thought that there would be something different about walking into this particular party, in this palace, so similar to all the parties I’d never been allowed to attend. Always reminded that they were nothing more than traps for me.

But I walked into that ballroom with my throat exposed, and I didn’t feel afraid. The vampires stared at me, and I didn’t feel afraid. I showed off the Mark I was supposed to hide, and I didn’t feel afraid.

Maybe it was because there was something different in the way they looked at me now—not like another blood vendor or a curious forbidden delicacy.

They looked at me like I was an actual threat, and I liked that.

My eyes found Raihn immediately, even through this massive crowd, like somehow I’d already known exactly where he’d be.

He was staring right at me—staring with an intensity that made my step falter a little. He was dressed much like he had been the day he’d had to receive the nobles, which was to say, uncomfortably polished. Our outfits, of course, complemented each other’s, his silver-trimmed, dark-blue jacket an obvious mate to my gown. His image was perfectly befitting that of the powerful Nightborn King.

It looked fake.

But not his stare. That was… too revealing. He shouldn’t be looking at me like that here. Not with all these people watching.

I recognized those with him right away—House of Shadow royalty. I wasn’t about to interrupt that.

I turned away, breaking our stare. Strange how all these eyes on me meant nothing to me. But Raihn’s… my fingers fell to my chest, over my quickening heartbeat.

“Gods!” Mische was beside me in a flurry of gold and the scent of lavender. “You look incredible!”

She was holding a glass of blood in one gloved hand and some kind of meat-and-blood filled pastry in the other. She looked like the embodiment of sunshine—so dazzling it actually stunned me.

Her eyes were round as she looked me up and down and leaned close.

“Is this… did Cairis pick this?”

“The dress? Yes.”

“But the—”

She stared pointedly down at my chest—my Mark.

“The top piece was uncomfortable,” I said. “I decided not to wear it.”

A sly smile spread over her lips. “You’ve got such balls. I love it.”

I took in Mische’s dress, the gold shifting and glittering under the Nightfire lights. It was so… un-vampiric. So unabashedly her. I couldn’t imagine a single other soul wearing it as well.

“You look good, too,” I said, even though good was too weak a word for it.

My gaze slid across the room again over her shoulder—to where Raihn was talking to the Shadowborn prince. The prince’s eyes kept wandering away from him and landing on Mische.

Poor Raihn. Such an important conversation, and he couldn’t even keep the man’s attention. Then again, could anyone blame him?

“Looks like the dress has earned you some admirers.” I nodded to the prince across the room, and Mische turned to follow my stare—

–And froze.

Her smile faded. Her cheeks, normally flushed, went ashen beneath speckles of gold.

The difference in her was so sudden and stark that it had me startled. “What’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer. Didn’t move.

I touched her shoulder, as if to physically pull her out of her trance.

“Mische,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

I let more concern creep into my voice than I’d meant to.

She turned abruptly back to me. “Nothing. Nothing. I just—I suddenly have a headache. I think I need a drink.” She set down her nearly full glass and turned away, then turned back to me, like she couldn’t decide which direction to go. Her eyes were wide and frantic. “Don’t tell Raihn I’m—just tell him I—I needed more food.”

“Mische—”

But she’d slipped back into the crowd before I could get her name out. I started to go after her, but someone caught my shoulder. I jerked away and turned around, a snarled word already halfway to my lips.

Standing before me was Simon—Raihn’s troublesome Rishan noble.

I recognized him right away, even though we’d never met. He strongly resembled the brother Raihn had killed during that first meeting. But even aside from that, his real tell was that his entire being reeked of vampiric noble entitlement. I knew the type well.

He extended a hand.

“May I have a dance?” he asked.

I’d already taken two strides away from him, my back to the wall.

“I don’t dance with people who touch me without permission.”

Raihn had to kiss this man’s ass, maybe, but I sure as hell didn’t. Besides, I had a role to play: I’m the brute king, and you’re the prisoner wife who hates him.

Simon’s smile—a cryptic curve of his lips that seemed to hint at all kinds of unspoken secrets—didn’t falter. “It was rude of me to do that without introducing myself. I’m—”

“I know who you are.”

Delight sparked in his eye. “Did your husband tell you about me? How flattering. We’ve known each other for a very long time.”

I made a noncommittal noise of agreement and began to turn away, but he caught my arm, pulling me back.

I yanked it away.

“Do not,” I snarled, “touch me.”

But if he was fazed, he didn’t show it. “Like everyone else, I admit I wondered why he kept you alive. Now, seeing you up close, I think I understand.”

I didn’t like this man. I didn’t like the way that his very presence made me feel like I had a year ago—like a piece of meat to be consumed, an indulgence to be coveted. I gave him a smile that was more of a baring of teeth.

“I’m the exotic prize,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

Simon laughed. “You are. Rishan kings have always enjoyed collecting beautiful, curious things.” His gaze slipped back to Raihn, still engaged with his conversation across the room, and it shocked me how the way he looked at Raihn was exactly the same as the way these nobles had always looked at me—the same hunger, the same entitlement.

As if Raihn felt that stare as much as I did, he glanced over at us.

His haughty false smile for the Shadowborn prince’s benefit fell away.

“Not so very long ago,” Simon murmured, conspiratorially, “Raihn was the pretty exotic thing. Did he ever tell you about that? Probably not.”

I’d spent my whole life as a pawn in petty games of power. I knew how to recognize when I was standing in the center of a board. Simon was using me to toy with Raihn. Using me to humiliate him, two hundred years later, as revenge because Raihn had the audacity to become something more powerful than him.

I despised him.

Simon’s fingertip grazed my bare shoulder.

I caught his wrist.

Not what a subservient slave queen would do.

Not that I gave a fuck anymore about that.

“He told me all I needed to know,” I said, and I found a little satisfaction in the momentary flicker of Simon’s smile—a how-dare-you falter.

Good. How fucking dare I, indeed.

Suddenly, a large form was between us, one hand on my shoulder.

The smile that Raihn gave Simon was barely even the facade of anything but a threat—wide enough to expose the sharpest points of his teeth.

“She’s mine,” he said. “I don’t share.”

I’d never heard Raihn’s voice like that—like the grinding of bars barely holding against something much worse.

He didn’t give Simon the chance to say anything more. Instead he swept his arm around my shoulders and led me away, towards the center of the ballroom.

Feeling possessive? I wanted to say, but before I could, he growled, “Stay the fuck away from him. If you want to hurt me, do it in other ways.”

It was perhaps the only time Raihn had spoken to me like that—in a command. And yet, though my instinct was to lash out at him for talking to me that way, something else beneath the hardness of his tone made me pause.

I stopped walking and looked at him, and he did the same. His expression was a stone wall. Then something shifted. Softened. Did I imagine that he looked almost apologetic?

He glanced around the room, as if remembering all over again where we were. He straightened his spine and smoothed out his expression.

He extended his hand. “Dance with me.”

“I’m a bad dancer.”

His mouth tightened, like this reaction was amusing. “I thought Cairis prepared you for this.”

I wasn’t sure if anyone could call whatever Cairis did “preparation.” He’d sent someone in to give me a few cursory dance lessons—“So you don’t embarrass us all!”—and I’d let them snap at me for a few hours before I chased them out of my room.

A choked snicker escaped Raihn’s lips. “Oh, that face tells me exactly how that must have gone.”

“I’m a bad dancer,” I grumbled again.

He stepped closer, his voice lowering. “Maybe. But you move beautifully. And you move even better with me. And I need an excuse for why I’ve just been standing in the middle of the room fighting with you.”

“I thought you wanted me to fight with you in public. I thought I was supposed to be the pissed-off Hiaj captive.”

“In that case,” he murmured, taking my hand, “just keep wearing that face and we’ll be fine.”

His touch was so gentle in contrast to the roughness of his hands. Warm—warmer than it seemed like a vampire should be. But then again, Raihn’s skin had always seemed a little warmer than most.

Every primal instinct within me screamed, “Danger!” at that touch.

Yet when he began to move, I moved with him.

38

ORAYA

The orchestra, as was common at Nightborn parties, was enhanced with magic, the music layered to inflate through every crevice of the massive room. It made the sound deep and rich, filling me up from the inside.

In this moment, the music swelled, sweeping up into the beat of the next arrangement. It was a slow, dramatic song, with a rhythm that echoed the beat of a heart, all seductive strings and aching organ notes. A dance designed to be an excuse to bring two bodies together.

Raihn slipped one hand into mine, the other settling at the small of my back. I flinched a little at his touch against my bare skin, but hid it quickly.

The dance was a challenge. The same part of myself I’d unleash at the start of every Kejari trial rose up to meet it.

I’d sell the hell out of this thing.

Raihn swept me into our first steps. Clumsy at first—just for a half step or two. But it surprised me how quickly we fell into a rhythm, even with our bodies this close together. The steps that had seemed ridiculous and unintuitive when fed to me by Cairis’s dance instructor now felt like instinctive responses to each of Raihn’s movements.

“See?” he murmured in my ear. “Look at that. You’re a natural.”

“I’m just stubborn,” I replied. “Don’t like to pass up a challenge.”

He chuckled, a low, breathy sound. “Good. If you’re going to play the game, can’t quit just when it starts to get interesting.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, too sweetly.

Raihn pulled away just enough to raise a skeptical brow at me, just as he launched me into a twirl, caught me, dipped me. When I arched my back, a shiver rippled up my spine as his fingertips traced the shape of my Mark—just brushing the swell of my breasts.

“Oh? Then what’s this?” he murmured.

He straightened, sending me deeper into his embrace. The warmth and size of his body enveloped mine. The rhythm of the music had slowly begun to accelerate, mimicking the rush of a seduction. Maybe it was the pace of it, and the matching cadence of our steps, that reduced the rest of the ballroom to nothing more than inconsequential blurs, cocooning us together.

Maybe.

I wished he’d picked a different song.

“The mantle was uncomfortable,” I said. “I decided not to wear it.”

His lips curled. “You’re such a shit liar, princess.”

Another dip. I returned from it viciously, like a counter to a strike. It turned out the two of us did know how to move together, after all. Our footsteps matched each other’s like blades, a mirror to countless sparring sessions.

“Maybe I’m tired of hiding,” I said.

“Some kings in my position might call that a threat.”

The beat grew faster, faster. What had begun as slow and seductive now was the racing heart of the moments before a kiss. When he pulled me back to him, the full length of my torso pressed to his, our bodies battling to keep up with each other’s next step.

I’d been physically close to Raihn since the wedding. More than I’d wanted to—every time we sparred, every time we flew together. And yet it was this dance, fully clothed, that felt so… sexual. Like the push and pull of the night we had been together, our flesh fighting for dominance, finding agonizing pleasure in every defeat or victory.

And when he watched me now, I felt it just as I had then. Like nothing in his centuries of existence mattered more than making sure he wrung every shred of pleasure from me.

Another spin. Another violent crash into his arms, too fast to stop myself, too fast to keep our noses from nearly touching. I felt the slight, silent shudder in his exhale and wondered if it was from exertion. Felt the brush of hardness against my lower stomach and knew it wasn’t.

“A threat?” I said. “Could’ve sworn you liked the dress.”

Dip. This time he lowered with me, forcing my body to arch against his.

“Oh, I do,” he murmured. “The dress is an act of war. But you’ve always looked fucking fantastic in blood.”

His mouth brushed the angle of my jaw as we straightened. My entire being responded to that brief touch, awareness limiting to skin-against-skin.

“You don’t go into battle without armor,” I said. “This is all just another trial, right? Just as much of a fight as the Kejari.”

He chuckled, scarlet eyes sparkling.

“Damn right it is. So who’s the enemy?”

I laughed, short and rough with effort, as he launched me into another series of steps. Our dance had gotten vicious now, quick, like a battle gone brutal.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

I tilted my head up to whisper into his ear. “Everyone is the enemy. That’s what’s funny.”

“I’ve seen you survive worse odds.”

The force of the next spin flung me against him, the speed of the music forcing me to keep up. The pace was frantic, exhausting, but I wasn’t about to surrender.

His fingers played at that little dip in my spine, right where my skin met the fabric, as if trying to stop himself from sliding beneath it. I could feel it in the strain of his muscles that I knew better than to think was from exertion alone—no, Raihn was strong. Moving was nothing for him.

Holding himself back, though? That was hard.

And worst of all, I knew he sensed it in me, too. The same desire that he’d brought to the surface of my skin the night he had touched my wings, and the night I had tasted his blood.

And that, I knew, was what drove him wildest of all, earning the lust in his eyes, the flare of his nostrils.

“So should I be afraid?” he murmured, the smile fading on his lips. “Are you going to kill me, princess?”

An echo of the past. A shade of the future.

I thought of Septimus’s offer.

It would be so easy, to drag Raihn to a dark corner of this crowded ballroom, kiss him, drag his hand between my legs, let him feel my desire for him. I could take him away. Let him slide this dress off my body. Let him spear me against the wall, fuck me while I sank my teeth into his throat to dull my screams.

And what a distraction it would be, when I buried the knife strapped to my upper thigh into his chest. Right where I did it last time.

It would be the perfect time to make a move, with all the power of the Rishan here to be slaughtered.

The music rose to its crescendo. I leaned close so he could hear me over the roar. “I already did. I don’t know why you keep giving me chances.”

The room was so loud, his voice so low, and yet I heard nothing but his words: “I’d spend a lifetime at the tip of your blade, and it would have been worth it.”

I blinked. Something in his voice snapped me out of the haze of our flirtatious game. I pulled away just enough to look at him, a question on my lips, even though I couldn’t articulate exactly what it was.

But Raihn just smirked at me. “Grand finale. Ready?”

The music was deafening now, throbbing in every curve of my body, drowning out words and thoughts. Before I could protest, he launched me into the finale of the dance, and I was in too deep now to let us falter here—my pride, if nothing else, dictated that. The end was frenetic and savage, and I threw myself into it with all the fury of our battles—and just like he had the final night of the Kejari, he met every step, never faltering.

And in the end, I was back in his arms, inches from falling before he caught me, my back arched in a graceful dip.

The last notes of the song swelled through the ballroom. My breath was heavy. Raihn’s hand was planted firmly between my shoulder blades, mine around his neck. A few loose strands of his hair tickled my cheek.

Everyone was staring at us.

As the rush faded, it sank in what we must look like.

“That was stupid,” I said. “Cairis will be pissed at both of us.”

Raihn grinned. It was such a disarmingly pure expression, like it didn’t belong in a place like this at all. “So what? Let them talk.”

He helped me back to my feet, but the movement was a little off-balance. He half-stumbled as he straightened. I caught his shoulder to steady him.

“Took that much out of you?” I muttered. “You’re out of shape.”

“Maybe more than I thought.”

But I couldn’t keep the wrinkle from my brow. I left my hand on his arm. He was swaying slightly—I could feel it, even if it wasn’t visible. Was he drunk? Raihn was a big man. That would take a lot of alcohol, far more than I’d seen him drink tonight.

“Are you alright?” I whispered.

He hesitated before shooting me another easy smile. “Perfect.”

I pulled my hand away and stepped back. Raihn did the same, assuming, once again, his role of Nightborn King. It was such a smooth transition, such a perfectly rendered disguise, that no one else would notice the slight stumble in his next step, nor the flicker of confusion across his face.

But I did.

I started to follow him, but Cairis swooped in. He, unsurprisingly, looked irritated.

“Excuse me, Highness. I need to speak with you.”

With a firm hand on Raihn’s shoulder, he ushered him away. A protest caught in my throat—even though I didn’t know why I wanted to stop him, or what made me so uneasy.

Even if I’d gotten the words out, it wouldn’t have mattered. The crowd swallowed them immediately, and Raihn didn’t look back.

39

RAIHN

Maybe Oraya was right, and I was more out of shape than I’d thought, because that dance had taken more out of me than it should have. For those few minutes, the rest of the party had become a blur, time and music and the sounds of the crowd fading to a distant din. How could it not, when I was so singularly focused on her?

But when Cairis led me away, that feeling lingered. My thoughts were fuzzy and slow, a half step behind. When I looked around and realized that we’d left the ballroom, wandering outside under the cooling night air, I startled a little. I didn’t even remember walking through the rest of the party.

Cairis was saying something, but I’d managed to miss whatever it was.

“Wait.” I held up a hand, then pinched the bridge of my nose. “I—go back. I’m sorry. What are we talking about?”

He let out a small laugh.

“One dance with her and you can’t even think straight anymore, hm?” His voice lowered. “I told you to be careful about that.”

My head was suddenly throbbing. I didn’t especially feel like being scolded.

“I’m allowed to dance with my wife,” I said shortly. “What did you want to talk to me about? I have things to do.”

I imagined Oraya in that ballroom, surrounded by vampire pricks who’d just found a new reason to be interested in her. Suddenly the image of Simon standing over her, his hand on her arm, was infuriatingly vivid.

Cairis’s mouth thinned as he cast a disapproving glance back to the party, light spilling from the open doors and multi-paned windows. The entrance was farther away than I remembered it being—when did we walk this far?

He sighed. “That’s the problem, Raihn. You think we’re all stupid.”

It took a few seconds for the words to sink in. When I turned back to Cairis, brow furrowed in confusion, my eyes struggled to focus on his face. I couldn’t get the sharp rebuke out of my mouth.

“Surely you must think more of my intelligence than that,” he was saying, hands tucked into his pockets, eyes drawn to the ground. “You keep saying that she’s just a prisoner. But I’m not blind. And no one else is, either. Everyone knows.” His gaze lifted to me, a wrinkle between his brows. “It’s sweet, Raihn. But it wasn’t just you who sacrificed for this.”

His voice sounded like he was underwater. The world tilted, the stars behind him smearing against the sky.

I opened my mouth to argue with him, ready to unleash the appropriate verbal storm of a disrespected Nightborn king, but instead, a sudden wave of dizziness had me falling back against a stone wall, barely catching myself.

He caught my shoulder. “Are you feeling alright?”

No.

The truth solidified through my sluggish thoughts.

This wasn’t alcohol or exertion. Something was very wrong.

I forced my head up to look at Cairis, expecting confusion or concern on his face.

Instead, what I saw was pity.

Guilt.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice low. “I just can’t go back to the way it was, Raihn. I can’t stay with you until that happens. I just—I can’t. I need to pick a winner. You have to understand that.”

Realization ignited through increasingly sticky, drug-addled thoughts. What Cairis was admitting to. How many drinks had I let him hand me tonight, accepted without question?

I never even considered him.

That fucking bastard.

I conjured my wings, trying to fly, trying to move fast enough to prepare for the onslaught that I knew was coming. But my body betrayed me, just as my advisor had.

I fought the drugs until the last moment, even as my vision faded at the edges, my stomach roiling, my head pounding. I fought it even though I couldn’t even keep track of how many soldiers—Rishan soldiers, my own Goddess-damned men—poured from the darkness, surrounding me, grabbing me. I managed to strike a head, a throat, an arm.

But whatever Cairis had given me drained my consciousness ravenously, second by second.

I fought until I physically couldn’t anymore.

Until the chains wrapped around my wrists.

I forced my head up to see that distant ballroom light, now little more than smears of gold in my failing vision. I tried to crawl to it.

But by then my body had failed me.

In another distant world, the clock rang out in ominous solitude, a thunderous GONG echoing through the bloody night.

I didn’t hear it chime again.