Princess of Thorns

Button dips his head and begins to lip contentedly at the grass. At least he doesn’t seem sore from our ride, but I hadn’t expected him to be. One of the few advantages of being a runt is knowing you won’t give your horse an aching back at the end of the day.

“How can you be sure?” Niklaas asks. “The fairies tell you?”

“We’re in the long summer of the ogre prophecy. We should have warm weather until Nonstyne. Or until the rise of the living darkness,” I add in a sour tone. “Whichever comes first.”

“What is the living darkness?” he asks, fetching his waterskin from his saddlebag. “I’ve heard of it, but I always thought it was more ogre madness.”

I lean against the fallen tree and pull my overshorts lower on my hips, hoping to grant my tender parts a little relief. “No one knows, not even the Fey.”

“But the prophecy says a briar-born child will usher in the Final Age.”

I nod, accepting the skin he passes over. “Yes, but we don’t know how. Aurora and I would never aid the ogres willingly, but it might be our blood they need for a ritual or … something. It isn’t clear. Hopefully, we won’t ever find out.”

“Assuming Ekeeta doesn’t get her hands on you or your sister.”

I nod again.

“She doesn’t have Aurora now, does she?” Niklaas asks, making me choke on my gulp of water.

“Of course not.” I cough, cursing myself for letting my guard down. He’s too close to the truth. “Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know.” Niklaas watches me with deceptive calm, but I can feel his gaze boring into me the way it did when I was half out of my mind on Vale Flowers and certain he could see through my skin. He eyes aren’t merely beautiful; they’re as crafty as a thief’s. I’ll have to be careful if I want to keep my secrets.

“I’ve been wondering why a prince in your position would need an army,” he says, “aside from getting your sister’s kingdom back, which we both know you’re in no position to do without ships to secure the coast and an army five times the size of the one you may or may not secure in the Feeding Hills. You’re not a fool, so you must have a compelling reason. Getting your sister away from Ekeeta would be a good one.”

“Ekeeta doesn’t have my sister, but she has someone … dear to me. A Fey friend who was captured while carrying a message to Aurora,” I lie, grateful that Ekeeta has kept her capture of Jor quiet for whatever reason.

I have to tell Niklaas something if I want him to stop picking before he rips the scab off the truth. If he really wants to be introduced to the princess of Norvere as badly as he says, then telling him Ekeeta has “my sister” would gain his support for raising an army—but it could create other problems.

What if he went charging off to rescue the fair maiden himself, only to find a boy in the dungeon? I doubt he would save my brother out of the goodness of his heart, not after I’d tricked him, and it’s far more likely that Niklaas would end up dead for his troubles. As irritating as he can be, I don’t want to be responsible for his death.

“A friend,” Niklaas repeats, clearly unsatisfied with my answer. “A friend you’re willing to risk your life and your sister’s kingdom for? Aurora will need all the help she can get if she hopes to stage a successful overthrow in the future. If you’re dead, she’ll have lost her only family and the ability to marry you off to some nice princess and strengthen her alliance with the countries of Herth.”

“I know what my sister and I have to lose.” I cap the waterskin and hand it over but keep my eyes on Button’s shivering side, ru

“Aren’t you a little young to—”

“Don’t say it,” I warn, close to losing my patience with his condescending attitude. “If you start preaching about my youth again, I’ll have to beat some sense into you, no matter how sore I am.”

“Sore, eh?” He hums low in his throat. “I know what’ll make you feel better. Me too. I’m as sore as a newlywed’s nethers,” he says, thankfully letting the matter drop. “Feel like I’ve been beaten between the legs with a rolling pin. Which, sadly enough, actually happened to my sorry self upon one occasion.”

“Really?” I fall in behind him as he takes off into the trees, down a gentle hill.

“Really.” He sighs. “One morning, not long ago, a baker off the coast of Eno City got up to set his loaves cooking and caught me asleep by the fire with his daughter.”

“Whose loaves you’d set cooking the night before,” I say, tsking beneath my breath.

Niklaas laughs as he spins around, treating me to a rakish grin I’m sure the baker’s daughter is still dreaming about to this day.

“Maybe you aren’t so young after all.” He’s still chuckling when he turns to leap atop a large stone and climb up the side of an even larger boulder blocking the path.

I scramble after him, determined to hold on to the light moment. Niklaas isn’t all bad, and I can’t deny that I’m anticipating whatever this is that will make us feel better.

The anticipation lasts until I reach the top of the boulder and see Niklaas already down the other side, bounding across two flat rocks toward a pool of steaming water, stripping his shirt off as he goes. By the time he reaches the edge of the smoking spring, he’s shucked his boots and loosened the tie on his riding pants.

I realize what he intends to do, but before I can turn my back, his pants slide off his hips, and Niklaas, eleventh son of the immortal king, is as naked as the day he was born.

I freeze—jaw dropping, blood draining from my face—unable to tear my eyes away, though I know I should. But, warrior’s clothes be damned, I’m a seventeen-year-old girl, and what seventeen-year-old girl could look away from a sight like that?

Niklaas may have the face of a golden god, but he has the body of a devil, a creature sent from the Pit to tempt a girl to abandon everything she holds dear for one night, skin to skin, with a creature designed for pleasure. The sort of pleasure that, since the day I kissed Thyne, I’ve known I must forever do without.

But now, as I watch Niklaas ease into the water, I wonder …

What if I didn’t love the boy—not even friendly love, the way I loved Thyne? What if he didn’t love me? Would my kiss still steal away his mind? Or would he retain his head so long as our bodies were the only part of our selves involved?

What would it be like to join Niklaas in the water? To show him who I really am and feel his hands on my bare skin, his lips at my throat? The thought is enough to make my pulse speed, until I remember who I’m lusting after and come to my senses with a shiver of disgust.

Even if it were safe, there’s no way I’d give Niklaas the satisfaction of knowing that the girl he’s determined to make his wife before he’s even met her finds him even a lick interesting in that way.

“Come on, Ror,” Niklaas calls, pushing the damp hair from his forehead. “It’s a ball stinger for a few minutes, but after that … pure heaven.”

His wife. I will never be this prince’s wife, and once he knows it, he’ll have no reason to keep helping me, even if I tell him that my brother’s life, and the future of Mataquin, is at stake. No doubt he would refuse to accompany any girl on a hunt for an army, no matter what the circumstances. Human men aren’t like Fey men. They don’t believe a well-trained woman can fight, or lead, as well as a man. Niklaas already doubts my abilities because I’m small. Gods forbid he find out I’m female.

As soon as he realizes the truth, he’ll leave. Or worse, kidnap me—to ensure my safety, if my judgment of his character is correct; to force me to marry him at sword point, if it is not and marriage really is what he’s after—and Jor will die.

Niklaas can never discover my secret. I have to leave. Now. I should have run the moment his billowing Kanvasola shirt hit the bank.