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His smile is small. “They will remain here.”
“And what?” I probe. “You’ll gift them to your next lover?”
His lashes lower over his darkening eyes.
In answer, I shrug. Spurred on by the apple and wine, I’m sure.
“I do not recycle,” he says.
My nose crinkles at the word I don’t understand. Still, I don’t push the matter any further and instead, I shift on the cushions to rest the back of my head on his lap.
His hand comes down to comb through my curls.
“When do you leave for the palace?” I ask, picking at my neat fingernails.
“At the break of the Quiet.”
It’s not often that the prince leaves during the Quiet, but apparently this occasion is different. The royals and the gentry are gathering for some sport which involves racing their skeletal steeds and using sticks to hit balls across a field. He explained it to me, but I still have little understanding of it. For some reason, they play their sport during the Quiet. Something to do with the field being more docile then.
“I will return in a while,” he tells me. I nod, expecting him to be gone at the palace for some time, as he always is when he leaves. “When I do, we will attend the markets.”
I frown up at him. “Why?”
“You might like some new material for your dresses,” he says. “Do you not like to sew?”
I nod, cheeks warming in response. He remembers such a small detail about me.
“But there’s no point,” I mumble. “I’ll be leaving soon, and I can’t take the dresses with me.”
“Then sew to fill your moments without me. You do complain about your boredom.”
That I do.
Without being able to go down to the kitchens and entertain myself there, I just have to wander the castle—sometimes take a dip in the pond—until I find Terry and hope she has spare moments to spend with me. When the prince is here, her moments are few and far between.
“Can we buy material that isn’t so drab?” I ask, picking at the beige of my slip.
His smirk turns dark. “Drab to match your position.”
I flicker a glower up at him. I know he’s stirring me, teasing me for his own entertainment.
“Do any of the other princes have human lovers?”
“Had,” he answers, his fingers now buried deep in my hair, and he gently massages my head, causing my lashes to flutter. “Some of them. Mostly the princesses.”
“How come?”
“They are most free in who they share their beds with—and how many at one time.”
My cheeks burn hot. “More than one lover at once?”
His smirk widens to a crooked grin. “Does that offend you?”
I think on that for a beat before I shake my head slightly—I don’t want to lose his massaging fingers on my head. “No,” I answer honestly. “But it shocks me.”
“The females of our kind are more excitable,” he tells me, his grin still stuck in place. He’s very much enjoying how hot my face is burning. “So they take more lovers, and at times have them all at once. It is a crime for a male dokkalf to have a lover when they are married, but not for the females. Their needs are greater.”
“Really?” I blink up at him, my eyes blank with utter confusion.
