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“You know I’m not going to do that. I hardly trust that you won’t go sprinting off into the crowd.”
“Where am I supposed to go while we’re inside?” I asked sourly. “At least take it off while we speak to the lord and lady.”
It was a small concession but one that suddenly mattered to me. I didn’t know or care about these nobles, but I did care that Scion seemed to think he was able to parade me around like he owned me in front of others he deemed to be of his station. He was wrong to say I didn’t understand anything about Fae culture; I understood enough to realize that was likely the larger issue than the rope itself—the perception of control.
His smile grew wider. “Say ‘please.’”
I closed my eyes. I could think of a whole host of other things I would rather say, none of them involving the word “please.” Then again, I might like to slit his throat, please. Please, dance on his immortal grave. Please, beg my snake friend to chewveryslowly.
“If you are hoping to make me beg, we will be standing here a very long time.”
“On the contrary, I don’t care either way what you do.” He gave a sharp tug on my rope, forcing me to step forward. “We will be going inside either way.”
Infuriating, odious, vile bastard!
I gave him a sickly sweet smile that I hoped conveyed every bit of my hatred and swallowed several times, trying to force the word from my suddenly dry throat. “Please.”
He smirked at me, looking far too triumphant for my taste. “That’s a good girl, rebel,” he purred as the shadows unfurled from my arm. “Now, come.”
My stomach flipped over, and I stared after him for a few seconds before following. Shit.
I should have known better. The Fae—the Everlasts, especially—were predators, and their beauty and sexual appeal was only one more way that they trapped their prey. Prince Scion was a master who wielded compliments and sexuality like all his other weapons—with deadly precision. Everything was intentional, calculated, two steps ahead of me. There was no innuendo he didn’t mean, and it was all a choreographed dance to put me off guard.
I would just have to try harder, be on my guard at all times, or I was sure the shadows would be the least of what I needed to be afraid of.
19
LONNIE
THE CUTTHROAT DISTRICT, INBETWIXT
“No,” the Lord of Inbetwixt said, his voice shaking slightly.
I blinked up at the lord in surprise a split second before Scion’s enraged voice echoed off the ornate wallpaper. “What the fuck do you mean, ‘No’?”
Everyone in the room, aside from Scion, tensed. This was not going well.
As soon as Scion and I had entered the home of Lord Bard and Lady Acacia of Inbetwixt, we’d been ushered into a small parlor. Small, I supposed, was relative.
Before I’d spent any time in the upper floors of the obsidian palace, I would have found the room to be enormous—it was nearly as large as the entire kitchen where I’d spent most of my formative years, with a seating area on one end and a spindle-legged piano on the other.
Either the lord and lady were expecting us, or they simply always spent their afternoons entertaining because they were already dressed to receive guests and seated as if in a painting, both on the same velvet-wrapped settee.
Lord Bard was thin and sharp-looking, with thick black hair and close-set dark eyes. His wife was waifish, almost frail, with a face that had probably once been round and a permanently saccharine smile. Two other Fae, who could only be their son and daughter, stood off to either side of the couple, looking like they would rather be anywhere else.
As soon as the butler led me and Scion inside, I suddenly remembered that I’d met not only the eldest daughter of Lord Bard and Lady Acacia before, but Melina of Inbetwixt had been rude to the point of threatening. Now, the brunette in the tangerine-orange gown stared meekly at the floor while her parents struggled to negotiate with Scion over the use of the Inbetwixt army.
“We mean, Prince Scion, that we cannot spare the soldiers.”Lady Acacia gave an awkward chuckle. “If only we’d had more notice, then perhaps…”
“I don’t need to give you fucking notice. It’s my damn army you’re borrowing.”
Scion shook with rage, and I could see the shadows moving around his hands. In the corner, a guard winced slightly, and Scion made his hands into tight fists, digging his nails into his palms. I wondered distantly what Thalia would have to say about that observation—was it worth hoarding if I had no idea what it meant?
“Yes,” said Lady Acacia. “But it’s only that they’re occupied, my lord.”
“Doing what?”
The lord and lady stiffened. A silent communication seemed to pass between them—her widening eyes, his thinning lips. Lord Bard turned back to Scion. “You must realize that the guilds have been growing in power. The rebellion might be your largest concern, but here, we have more pressing issues.”
