AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Our group slowed. We swapped glances, then stalked past the guards, who hastened to open the doors. Although we should have been announced, the sentinels seemed to have misplaced their tongues.
The lapse provided ample time for a baritone voice to chill the room. “You’re late.”
Standing at the throne room’s center—nay, fuckstandingsincetoweringwas a more accurate description—was a shadowed figure. The human tower loomed with his back to us, his yeti-sized frame hitting six-feet, four-inches. Two of those inches exceeded my own height, to say absolute shit about his width. The man seemed to be growing muscles out of his ass, as if he’d spent his childhood carving icebergs instead of building sandcastles.
An avalanche of dark blue hair hung past his shoulder blades. Beneath a floor-length coat lined in bristling fur, boots toed with steel spikes covered his feet.
I couldn’t see what the hell this prince was doing with his hands, but if my kinetic instincts had to guess, he’d linked his thumbs into his front pockets. That accounted for the way his open coat flared around his upper body. With the Royal’s head bent forward, it seemed as if he’d voiced an observation rather than a complaint.
You’re late.
My gaze slitted. Calculation or not, it was still an insult.
So we were doing this, were we? I’d start off easy, then. Before the queen or princess could reply, my tongue flicked out a pellet. “So eager to see us,” I commented to the prince’s back. “Yet evidently you’ve forgotten the termgrand entrance.”
From the way my tenor had swatted the air like a jeweled whip, most would have winced. Or at the very least, stiffened. Whereas the prince merely lifted his head slowly.
Really fucking slowly. And then—with the patience of an immortal—he turned his profile to the side. His eyelids lowered as though evaluating my voice and how much it was worth in pints of blood.
Apart from that, only his angular jaw showed from behind the mane of blue hair. Regardless, it didn’t take a jester to catch the polished threat in his response. “And evidently you’ve forgotten the phrase,speak when you’re spoken to.”
This, plus the misdemeanor of addressing him informally. Funny, that. “On the contrary,” I remarked. “I’ve heard that rule as often as I’ve heard the words,Evening, Your Majesty and Highness.” The mockery I’d promised to restrain died, my words flattening. “’Tis glorious seeing you again.”
Next to me, Avalea’s sigh drifted through the room.
From my other side, Briar muttered under her breath, “Poet.”
But the prince heard her. His frame clicked in awareness, the prickly fur collar rustling. “Leave us,” he announced impassively.
At the threshold, the knights waited for Avalea’s nod, then retreated into the corridor. As the last one to go, Aire swerved his glower from the prince’s back and leveled his attention on me and Briar, the First Knight’s pinched features reflecting offense. A jester’s unpredictable filter was one thing, yet for a Royal to greet another Royal offhandedly smacked of superiority. However grumpy, an invisible halo tended to float above Aire’s head, so this breach in protocol flouted every decorous precedent he lived by.
By the time the doors shut, the prince had returned his gaze to the vacant dais.
The incessant silence grated on my nerves. “Alone at last,” I said. “Perhaps now—”
The prince turned, the motion bringing his features into severe relief. Abruptly, several lines of excellent sarcasm went numb on my lips.
Motherfuck me. I’d expected icicle-shaped cheekbones, ivory skin worthy of dire wolf lore, and a deep voice that sounded as if he’d swallowed a bear for dinner. Indeed, there was that and more. Matter of fact, this might be the first time the sight of someone—other than Briar and Nicu—left me speechless.
Prince Jeryn wasn’t merely an heir of Winter. HewasWinter incarnate, with crystalline irises that could give his victims frostbite down to the balls. The crescents beneath each orb were naturally pigmented in faint smudges of blue that matched his hair, whereas his eyebrows and lashes were a deathly black.
A cleft practically sliced his chin in half, a blade handle projected from a sheath at his waist, and a vial that reminded me of a glass fang hung from a low chain around his neck. Some type of clear liquid filled the pendant, which signified his renowned obsession with science and medicine.
In the lingering quiet, this fucker dissected us with an expression that could sterilize a fire-breathing dragon. Many called me provocative. Even more called me sexy. But the world would say Winter’s heir was frightening, as beautifully fatal as a blizzard.
If I didn’t know my thorn, jealousy would have curled my digits into fists. But a quick glance at Briar confirmed my thoughts. Rather than attraction, her features sharpened on the prince as if remembering the day she’d watched him gut a prisoner years ago. All at the ripe age of sixteen.
“Your Majesty,” the prince acknowledged, clipping his head toward Avalea.
Then to me, Jeryn cast a brow one inch higher, his pupils anatomizing my figure from head to toe. Damn, but my thorn hadn’t been exaggerating. I’d ask what cult had sucked out his soul, but Winter was Winter for a reason, and he embodied the Season to its fullest potential.
Another way of putting it was this: Whatever he hid, this man did it well.
I decided to fuck with that theory and matched his unflinching stare. I’d see his intimidation and raise him a dose of my own. However, I tamped down the urge to go further. We needed his help, just as he wanted whatever the fuck he wanted from us.
Nonetheless, Jeryn’s features never wavered. We stayed this way, at an impasse until he transferred his attention to the princess. Again, the man’s countenance remained unchanged.
Moreover, he offered no title or bow. Not a fucking ounce of acknowledgement. The bastard regarded Briar like a gnat—a nuisance he was being forced to deal with rather than an actual threat, much less an equal.
