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He snorted. “Like fuck you’re not. Luckily for you and that needy little hole of yours, I planned for contingencies. The seamstress was only too willing to give me the extra cloth when I asked.”
I frowned at the long strips of fabric he produced with a flourish from behind his back: black, gold, reds, and oranges.
“What do you need those for?”
Shit. I had less than a second’s warning from the mischievous glint in my prince’s eye before he was on me, pinning me down onto the table and scrunching up the gold cloth to shove it between my teeth.
“You’re delightfully vocal when I get inside you,” Ren said happily, clapping a hand over my mouth to stop me spitting it back out, “and you know how much I adore it. But I doubt your screams and moans are going to go down so well in this stuffy, bigoted castle, Mathias, and as I can’t bear to leave you empty or wanting, I really have no choice but to keep you quiet.”
We struggled some more as he wrenched a second strip of cloth over my mouth and tried to tie it in place, although I snatched it away before he could secure the gag.
He tugged at my trousers next, which was his mistake because with my hands free I could still fight back and managed to shove him off me. He rolled his eyes and shoved back, only there was rather less tabletop than either of us had realised, and I fell heavily to the floor just as I heard the door opening.
And that was how I found myself lying at the feet of the queen of Mazekhstam; gagged, red-faced, covered in mustard-scented ink and with my trousers wrapped around my knees.
Astrid raised a perfectly sculpted blonde eyebrow.
“Nathanael.”
I choked on the cloth, my fingers frantically scrabbling to tug it free of my mouth and straighten my clothes. Brushing off feathers and shards of what were either ice or glass, I hurriedly got to my feet and bowed to her.
“Your Majesty.”
Ren, I’m going to fuckingkillyou.
“Your Majesty,” he repeated, his face bland and expressionless as though he wasn’t responsible for the complete and utter mess he’d just made of both me and the floor.
Astrid sighed. “You two areexceptionallylucky that the only person the guards would let through that door without your authorisation is me.”
My cheeks were still burning. “Yes, my queen. And…sorry.”
“Make yourselves presentable and join me in the throne room,” she instructed, her eyes raking over us both with stern disapproval. “Promptly, Nathanael.”
I bowed again, choosing to keep my head lowered until I heard the door close, because words were insufficient to describe the levels of humiliation I was currently drowning in.
“Well,thatwas poor timing,” Ren said with unapologetic cheer. “And you’re standing on my wolf portrait, had you realised?”
I ground it into the rug with the heel of my boot, and he let out a pained whine. “Mat, you’re being-”
“As long as we both live,” I growled, “you will owe me one. No matter how many times you think you have repaid me for this, it willnever be enough.Do you hear me?”
Ignoring his splutters of complaint and flagrant batting of eyelashes, I stomped past him to return to my room and retrieve clean clothes, peeling my ruined ones off and scrubbing at my skin in an attempt to rub the ink away.
“How come Panarina gets all your bows and I’ve never received a single one from you that wasn’t either forced or steeped in sarcasm?” my prince asked, trailing after me.
I glanced at him in exasperation. “Ren, I bent the knee to you in front of your entire court.”
“Oh,” he said, happy and satisfied once more. “So you did.”
Taking a cursory glance in the mirror to check for any lingering mess, I shooed him back into his own room. There were a handful more innuendo-laden comments flung back at me but I had the pleasure of cutting one of them off mid-implication when I slammed the door in his face, only to be greeted by him mumbling vicious threats under his breath in Quarehian when we met again a few moments later out in the corridors, having departed through our respective bedchambers.
We gave the barest attention to pretending we hadn’t seen each other in days, and our guards must have been given the same orders for haste as us, for we were quickly ushered through the castle and into the throne room with little fanfare. I’d expected Ren to whine about the lack of fuss made over his entrance, or the hypocrisy in being hurried up when we’d been left to stew for nearly a week, or anything else that he judged would be sufficiently annoying to our escorts, but my lover was uncharacteristically silent, his fingers worrying at the fresh embroidery on the hem of his coat despite his expression being of carefully crafted unconcern.
He was nervous, I realised. A rare miracle, to be sure, but these were hardly normal circumstances. Ren thrived on politics, on conversing with, manipulating, and performing for his opponents, but the weight of what now rested on his gifts of persuasion had never been greater. If we couldn’t convince Astrid to help him retake Quareh, what was left to us? What other hope did we have?
I was so busy watching him that it took me a moment to notice that there was again someone standing by Astrid’s side, a travel cloak draped over his arm and his feet planted two steps lower than her throne in a gesture of respect. But unlike last time, this man wasn’t some nameless assistant.
I felt Ren flinch as he recognised the betrayal at the same time I did.
