Page 32 of Prince of the Sun

Ugh.

My head seems to press in on itself, to squeeze my brain so hard I fear I might pass out. I haven’t been this light-headed since the month after Dad and Michael, when I refused to touch almost anything in the kitchen. I feel unstable. Vertigo wobbles at the edges of my vision. I stagger left, catching myself on the hardwood table.

I will not look weak, I tell myself.I will not look weak.

“Quinn?”

I turn around. It’s Daerios, of course.God, why now? I don’t want him to see me like this, all dizzy and vulnerable. I’m trying to prove that humans are elves’ equals. Not frail creatures in need of help.

He rushes forward, eyebrows knit. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” The word wobbles. “Just… a little dizzy.”

“You need food.”

Before I can protest, he vanishes back out the door.

I teeter over to the couch and lower myself onto it. The spinning doesn’t stop, just drifts downward, settling at the baseof my skull.

Daerios returns with a plate stacked to the ceiling with paal. He crouches before me and offers the plate. For a brief moment, I consider saying no. Standing up and simply leaving the room. But there’s something about his eyes—the crinkle at their corners, the pupils dilated with focus. Concern radiates from his silver irises. It’s an expression I’ve never seen on his face before, and it makes me feel like I’m the only person in the whole building.

“Here,” he says softly, picking up one of the honey cakes. “Let me.”

I realize, then, that it doesn’t matter if I turn the paal away. Daerios won’t give up. Not until I’ve eaten. He’ll pry my mouth open and force them inside, if he has to.

Normally, this thought would anger me. Would cause me to snap, to push the plate away. But with Daerios, it’s different. With Daerios, I see that that response wouldn’t truly be mine; it would be my fear’s.

Slowly, without taking my eyes off him, I nod.

Pinching the sides of the paal, Daerios lifts it from the plate and raises it slowly toward my lips. I swallow the spit that has, for some reason, built up atop my tongue. Then I open my mouth and take a bite.

Sweet honey floods every inch of my mouth. I nearly moan, it’s so good. I taste flour and butter and sugar and spices. Layers of flaky pastry melt atop my tongue. I chew for a few seconds, then swallow it all down.

Daerios watches the whole process with a strangely intense expression on his face. Once I’ve swallowed, he moves the paal back toward my lips, and I open them again. We repeat this for three bites, four, until the whole pastry is gone. But Daerios is already reaching for a second one, and I don’t protest. I let him feed me a second. A third. With every honey cake I eat, the focusand intensity in the prince’s expression grows even deeper. His eyes track my lips as I chew, the bob of my throat as I swallow. He looks almost pained.

When I feel honey drizzle down my chin, I lift my sleeve to wipe it away, but the prince catches my wrist. His fingers are cool, but warmth ignites along every pore he touches me.

“Let me,” he says. His voice is husky, almost a rasp.

He reaches into his suit jacket, long fingers reemerging with a dark grey handkerchief pinched between them. He brings it to the side of my face and gently wipes the honey away.

I think I’ve forgotten how to breathe.

He lowers the handkerchief, but doesn’t move away. He stays crouched down at eye level. Our faces are barely a foot apart. I can’t take my eyes off him. Can’t look away from that strange intensity in his eyes. They’ve grown so dark now that the silver looks more like steel.

And then, down by the floor, on the bit of exposed ankle sticking out from under my chiffon skirt, I feel cool fingers wrap slowly around my skin.

I inhale.

My eyes dart between his. I search frantically for something to say. Some way to stop what’s happening, what’saboutto happen, but I come up blank, and for the briefest of moments, I hear a little voice whisper that I don’twantto stop what’s happening. That I want to sit on this couch and let him do to me whatever he wants to me, but that can’t be true, that would mean I’ve gone insane, that would mean—

“There you are!”

Daerios and I rocket apart so fast you’d think the space between us was made of lightning.

Cara—thank the heavens, curse the heavens—has chosen this exact moment to bounce into the room. She grabs one of my shoulders, teetering slightly. Her cheeks are ruddy, eyes wideand excited. “Well, if it isn’t the Unfun Committee.”

“Hi!” I say, my voice far too breathy. “What’s up?”