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“Where are you taking me?”
“To my king.”
“Oh,” she says, seemingly relieved and perhaps a little excited. “To clear my name. Why yes, sir, I heard King Et’enne reads minds, and he’s welcome inside mine anytime.”
“Is he now?” I answer like a sarcastic, jealous boyfriend. A sixteen-year-old boy could have a better conversation with a female than I can. “The king holds no such power,” I lie, since the royals of my court deny their magic. “I will ask the fate who knows all that’s come to pass about what happened at your court. The Summer queen will tell me all I need to know.” If she’s inclined to tell me, but I leave that bit out.
The princess gulps. “The fate?”
I release her and fist my hands behind my back. “June is a kind female and a lovely queen. You will be at ease with her. You are a royal female and must act like one.”
“And how does a royal female act?”
I place two fingers under her chin and force it up. “For starters, a royal female turns up her nose when she addresses tall males even though she’s in a lower position. She appears as if she can rise above everything, so practice elevating your face, not just your eyes, for when you only look up with your eyes, you appear submissive.”
Her eyelashes flutter. “Submissive?”
“Correct.” My head dips dangerously low toward her lips, which are parting as if anticipating my kiss.
“Do you not find submissive royals attractive?”
“Not all of them.” Her submission is attractive.
“If not all, then some?”
My internal alarm roars louder than a mother dragon signaling danger to her cubs. The princess seeks hope, and because it would be false hope, I can’t indulge her. I cannot lead her to think I like her, because our relationship would only result in heartbreak. But I also don’t wish to reject her outright. I respect courage, and it takes courage for a female to ask such questions.
The water buckets arrive from downstairs, and I invert them all at once into the bath, splashing water all over the floor. As intended it disrupts our moment, making me step back and acknowledge that I almost kissed her.
“Get in the bath,” I bark and turn around to glare a hole through the window.
The unfortunate side effect of carrying kinetic magic is the awareness of all nonliving things around me and the ways I can manipulate them. Without looking, I sense her flimsy clothes as they hug her body and as they slide off her skin. The soft brush of cotton on her skin gives me goose bumps.
I want to retract my magic, but something inside me, some kind of fucked-up hungry beast, yearns to touch her via clothing, and the feel of it becomes a visceral thing for me, as if I’m the one who’s undressing her.
I grit my teeth and grab the bars of the windows as the princess, behind me, pads toward the bath. The floor senses her soles, and it makes my toes curl in my boots. When she steps into the bath, I await the moment she leans back against the cool metal, warmed only slightly by the hot water. But the moment never comes.
I give her my profile. “Is the water too cold?”
“It’s too hot.”
I tap my claw on the window bar. She’s breathless, and her heart’s drumming loudly. I could stand outside and let her bathe alone, but it makes no difference where I am at this point. I will sense all the objects around her acutely and likely with more vigilance if I’m farther away.
“You…you can look at me,” she says. It’s an invitation. One I must refuse. Just as I’m about to politely decline, she adds, “I dare you.”
I chuckle.
“I dare you,” she repeats.
I turn around and lean against the window.
In the bathwater on her knees, the princess is perfection sculpted by fate’s hands. Although her long hair covers her breasts and her hands are folded in front of her and over her mound, effectively covering all her feminine parts, telling me she’s not as brave as she sounded before I turned, her beauty draws me.
The princess lowers herself into the bath, her red hair splaying over the water like poured fine wine. She doesn’t hold my gaze, and her face is burning, but her obedient nature makes her attractive.
I watch her bathe, my magic covertly infusing itself into each stroke of the sponge as she moves it over her arm, neck, chest, one breast, then the other, down her belly, and finally between her legs.
Looking at the ceiling, she rests the back of her head on the edge of the bath and bites her lip at the same time that she starts rubbing the sponge between her legs. Her chest rises and falls, making her breasts slosh the water around, and because it’s springtime and she’s young, vibrant, and untrained, her pleasure seeking takes little time.
