Page 79 of The Twisted Throne

Cardiff was easily the largest untapped market for Harendell. Except given that Harendellians burned Cardiffian women on the slightest accusation of astromancy, it seemed highly unlikely that the border between the nations would open anytime soon if for no other reason than that Cardiffian merchants would be risking their lives to trade within Harendell.

Though she didn’t believe James was as indifferent to the strife between Harendell and Cardiff as he claimed. How could he be when the only reason he wasn’t subjected to the same hate was that Edward was his father? More likely, James had learned the hard way about countering his father and his father’s laws, so he knew to keep his mouth shut. Which was telling enough. As was the fact that despite having had an affair with a Cardiffian woman and her bearing him a son, Edward had not repealed the laws banning the practice of astromancy in Harendell. Either James’s mother had set aside her beliefs for him, or Edward had overlooked them for her, but it obviously hadn’t changed his broader outlook in a significant way. And there wasn’t a chance that trade would flow with the Harendellians burning Cardiffian women at the stake with full approval of the king’s laws.

Which made Ahnna wonder ifthatwas how Alexandra had gotten away with killing James’s mother. If it had been her at all.

He’s never been able to prove the identity of the culprit. If he had, they’d be dead.

Was that the truth? She hadn’t expected James to condemn Alexandra, but if it was someone else, why not say so?

“Bloody hell,” Ahnna muttered, rubbing her temple. They called the king’s seat the Twisted Throne in deference to the storms that plagued the kingdom, but it spoke to the politics of these people. And to the royal family, most of all, for the only thing that seemed to unify them was name and blood, their agendas seemingly quite at odds.

Yet Ahnna’s goal remained the same: do whatever it took to push Harendellian trade, and gold, into Aren’s coffers.

Which meant staying alive.

At least that challenge was a familiar one. It was also the only thing on which she and James seemed to stand on the same side.

The fire roaring in the hearth next to her disappeared from her vision, replaced with his face, brow furrowed in what seemed like a permanent frown, full bottom lip so reluctant to smile. He was so cursedly rigid and unwilling to bend onanything,and yet thinking of him made her toes curl, heat that had nothing to do with the scalding bathwater rising between her legs.

“No,” she told herself, even as she traced a finger between her breasts and over her stomach. “Do not think about him.”

Yet it was impossible to vanquish the vision of him vaulting onto her horse as though it were nothing, looking down on her as he easily mastered the massive animal. All muscle and broad shoulders, every instinct in her body screaming that beneath the manners and courtesy was a wolf, deadly in an instant if crossed the wrong way.

“Do not think about him, Ahnna,” she whispered as her fingers disappeared into the soapy water. “This is folly.”

Nor did it make any sense. Good-looking or not, James infuriated her with his endless need to tell her what to do.

Yet every time he offered her his hand, so goddamned proper in his fancy clothes that she wanted to kick him in the shins, the whole world fell away, those amber eyes burning into her soul. Seeing her the way no one else ever did.

“You’re going to make a bad situation worse,” she whispered, slipping a finger between her legs. “You can’t think about him this way.”

Especially given that William, despite his rare beauty, made her burn as hot as yesterday’s oatmeal.

“You need to learn to feel otherwise,” she muttered, trying to fill her mind’s eye with images of the crown prince. “You need to be able to at least fake wanting him. You can accomplish none of what you came here to do if you let your mind go down this path. Think about William, Ahnna. William.”

But as her fingertip circled her clit, all she could see was James. James soaked to the bone in the cave beneath Northwatch, his hands on her hips as he’d lifted her. James’s chest against her back as they’d fought through the storm. James carrying her down the steps after she’d been attacked. James’s lips on hers in the maze at Fernleigh House, hands gripping her hard and mouth claiming her in a way no man alive had ever dared. In the way she had always dreamed of.

What would it be like to see him unleashed that way again? For him to set aside the propriety that he wore as a shield and have the man beneath put his hands on her?

Her body crested with shocking intensity that tore a gasp from her lips, and she rode her fingers, imagining that it was him stroking her as wave after wave of pleasure rolled over her, leaving her so spent she collapsed back against the tub, sinking deep in the water.

And inadvertently immersed the wound on her back.

“Fuck!” she yelped, jerking upright as it stung. She rested her chin on her knees as the pain slowly eased. “You deserved that, you idiot.”

But there was no more time for admonitions as a knock sounded, a key turned, and Hazel announced, “It’s only me, my lady. Your evening gown has arrived from the modiste—the guards weren’t going to let it into the Sky Palace, but Prince James returned at that same moment and brought it in.”

Cheeks burning at the mention of his name, Ahnna said, “Let me have a look.”

Hazel appeared around the silk screens, holding a massive confection of bright-pink silk and white lace. “It was intended for Lady Elizabeth,” Hazel said. “Apparently, she refused to pay for it, so the modiste was willing to sell it to me for less than it’s worth. Not precisely your color, but…”

Don’t apologize. Do better,Alexandra’s voice said, followed by Bronwyn’s saying,Play the game.

Ahnna gave Hazel a tight smile. “Does it have matching shoes?”

—

An hour and a halflater, she was teetering down the hallway on a pair of pink silk heels, doing her best not to step on the seemingly endless layers of fabric that surrounded her. It wasn’t so much that she couldn’t walk in high heels, for she had excellent balance—it was that Elizabeth had small feet.

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