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“No.”
“Now is not the time for you to be petulant about your father—”
The handle twisted, someone fumbling with the locks and cursing.
“Opal,” Dade said, voice shockingly soft, as were his eyes. Pleading, I realized, and then the door burst open, and he was gone, the prince stumbling inside.
“What in the witch do they need so many blasted locks for?” he grumbled, slamming the door behind him with a breathless laugh. “Shit, that was loud.” Straightening, he removed his coat, slurring, “Did I wake you?”
The scent of ale wafting from his unsteady form into the room was enough to make my head spin as I inhaled it. Drunk as he was, he evidently didn’t see the clothes on the bed and floor, most threaded with gold. “No, Prince.”
He waggled a finger at me. “Someday, I will be king.” He stopped at the side of the bed, his leg mere inches from my bare foot. “And I will need a queen to rule beside me.”
So focused on the reek, on the garbled words leaving his smiling lips, I didn’t see it coming.
In a breath, he’d fallen over me, smacking my head into the wall behind the bed. “But one must always sample before they commit.” His hands were suddenly everywhere, sliding down my sides to my thighs, pulling at my skirts hard enough that I heard numerous tears.
“Bron,” I said, my voice squashed in my throat as I struggled to push at his shoulders. “I ca
“It won’t take long,” he said, as though that were all the encouragement I’d need to submit.
I’d never submit, but his body, draped so heavily over mine, and my fear held me trapped as his wandering hands made their way to my breast and between my legs. My knees clamped over his hand, and I groaned, teeth snapping as I tore at the other hand tugging down the bodice of my gown. “Stop,” I hissed. “Stop it right now.”
He just laughed, mumbling low words. “I’ll make you feel so good. God, your skin is so soft.” Then his hand broke the confines of my knees, reaching my undergarments and brushing over them, and I screamed.
I screamed, and all the frustration, all the fear, all my pent-up power made its way into my hands, thrusting him off me with enough force to send him over the edge of the bed and flying to the floor with a violent thump.
In a rush, I sat up, my heart racing.
Cursing, Bron groaned, clutching at the bedding to help himself stand. “You little faerie bitch,” he spat, rubbing at the side of his head.
My teeth gnashed when his eyes met mine, and then I gri
The air slammed him in the chest, stu
I swallowed and scrambled off and away from the bed, unsure how such a petty gathering of air, typically used for cooling and gardening, had worked on the prince in this way. But it had, and my eyes squeezed shut. “It worked,” I heard myself say, over and over while frantically pulling down my tattered skirts, and then I tripped backward into a hard pillar. “It worked.”
Not a pillar but a male.
Strong hands gripped my upper arms. “Fury heightens things in such beautiful ways, my swan.”
“He…” I blinked and blinked at where the prince’s foot stuck out from behind the other side of the bed. “He tried to…”
“And he’ll never dare try again.”
“Fuck,” I said, bile coating the word, my throat. My palms dug into my eyes, my chest on fire. “That fucking human fuck.”
Dade released a low laugh that quickly died. “I’m done playing this game now.” Dropping my hands, I whirled to find him staring at the prince, at the asshole who’d tried to steal even more from me. “Let’s go.”
Stepping back, I looked at the window, then at his waiting hand. “When did you get here?”
“When you pushed him off you like the sack of horseshit he is.” His arms came around me, unyielding as the night sky bled and shifted behind him, and he warned, “Hold on.”
“No,” I screamed, but it was too late, the sound stolen by the ice we’d warped into, color blurring, objects remolding, time clutching then readjusting… and then it stopped with a ferocity that stole every ounce of oxygen from my lungs.
My head swam, and I coughed, my stomach threatening to evict the lamb shanks I’d had for di
“I rescued you. You’re welcome.”
“Rescued me?” I did shout then, a crazed bout of laughter following as I advanced on him and ordered, “Take me back right this second.”
“Why? So you can marry the prince toad and find a way to defeat me?” He laughed, low and insidious. “It won’t work, and not only because I ca
“I was going to work for my freedom,” I said, not knowing why I even bothered.
His brows lifted. “By seducing the prince into helping you leave?” Taking a lock of my hair, he twirled it around his finger, thumb brushing the golden strand. “If tonight was any indication, you’d have failed.” His eyes flashed. “Creatures like him don’t wait. They take.”
He released my hair, and stupefied, I spun in a circle, taking in the grandeur around me. The intense contrast between the beauty that befell my eyes to the overgrown, gnarled, and worn exterior I’d seen from the sky some years ago while taking one of my rare and daring flights.
Before I could absorb the lifeless stone walls, the domed ceiling, and the giant black doors of what appeared to be a grand foyer, my hand was snatched, and I was dragged deeper into what I knew had to be Shadow Keep.
“Dade,” I warned, tugging to no avail to free myself from his hold. “Stars help me, if you don’t—”
He whirled on me, and I tripped backward, grateful for his grip as my other arm spun to keep me upright. “You’ll what?” he seethed, eyes shards of black-specked ice. “There’s no escape, not from here, not from me, and should you try…” He let those unsaid words fill the small space between us, then continued toward a giant marble staircase.
It flared at the bottom, thi
I was indeed standing in the middle of Shadow Keep.
We climbed, me with my heart pounding painfully inside my chest and he with brutal determination in each graceful step, until we reached the central landing. The floor there was made entirely of that gleaming stone with no carpets or clustering furnishings in sight.
The only décor was the arched window above the landing, large and filled with crimson glass, the others along either side oval and their glass a gray so light, it was nearly clear.
We veered left down the hall, passing door after closed door, their brass handles shaped in the face of a snarling wolf, and then we reached another flight of stairs, but this one was stone and far less grand.
I noticed another set that matched on the opposite side of the palace, keep, whatever this place was, but little else as I was led high up into a shadowed hall that housed two rooms. The one straight ahead was blocked by arched doors big enough for a beast to clamber through. The one we walked toward had a single, smaller door, and it was open.