Page 80 of Crown Prince's Mate

I shake my head, rolling my eyes. “I know. I hated him so much when he told me. But the truth is, when I thought he fell in, it was like a piece of me being ripped out.”

The sly grin on June’s lips is all the warning I need that her next comment is going to be trouble. “So it’s true they can smell your emotions… did that first kiss reveal anything else?”

I throw a pillow at her. It flies over her head. Then I let out a sigh. “Can you blame me?”

“I can’t. Ugh, you’re really going to hate me for this, but I’m looking forward to more triads visiting. I won’t do anything! But just to see them. I don’t know how I’m going to take human men seriously anymore. They’re so much… bigger in person, and the royalty just… oozes from them.” She smiles so wide it must hurt her cheeks. “And tomorrow I get to see them plant the seeds with my sister.”

I shake my head, in wonder, in awe at how insane my life has become. “It’s funny, isn’t it? I never imagined it like this. I mean, you think of planting your tree from when you’re a little kid, you have this picture in your mind.”

“It’s perfect,” says June.

Our conversation flows like a river, with barely a moment of silence for hours as the bottle of wine empties and we catch each other up on every twist and turn of our life, until June suddenly freezes. Her hand claps over her mouth, stifling a scream, and I whirl around.

Framed by the oversized window is Doman. His face is smudged with dirt, a branch is entangled in his unruly blond hair, and he is awash in drunken euphoria that lights up his eyes.

“Doman, what the hell are you doing! Get in here, you’re going to fall!”

He sways, gripping the windowsill for support. “The moons,” he slurs, his deep voice tinged with awe.

June bursts into giggles. “You’re absolutely hammered!”

As if it is a challenge, Doman releases the windowsill and stretches his arms wide. My heart leaps into my throat as I rush to the window. He’s teetering on swaying branch no thicker than my wrist, and he’s lost one of his boots, balancing on his bare foot. His fellow battle-brothers loiter in the background, equally intoxicated but wisely on sturdier perches.

“Doman, get back to your ship before you do something stupid. You still need to sleep for the clear root to work.”

“The moons, Adriana,” he insists, his bright blue eyes pleading, as if it is the most important thing in the world. “Share this celestial dance with me.”

“You’re out of your mind,” I retort, but I can’t help but smile. It’s the absolute ridiculousness of seeing the proud Aurelian prince, the most important warlord of their forces, piss drunk and balancing on a branch by my window.

Unperturbed, Doman tilts his head back and releases a soul-stirring howl that reverberates, shattering the silence of the Virelian night. To my shock, ripples of echoing sound spread out throughout the forest, the local rangers who he apparently won over in a night of debauched drinking accompanying his cry. There must be a hundred drunk men raising their heads and yelling out in answering howls, to my complete chagrin, and, if I have to admit it, pride. Men who hated him earlier tonight are now joining him in his madness.

Lights flick on in houses nearby, and they’re about to see the famed Prince Doman drunk as a skunk at my window, which will be a story I would rather not have told for the next decade. There’s no way I’m going to convince him to go back to his ship alone, and my only chance to not be in the most embarrassing situation of my life is to go with him, quickly.

“Okay, but hurry, people are about to see us,” I hiss, shaking my head in wonder. His smile widens, and he twirls, crouching down and presenting his back to me to mount him.

“Just like old times, sneaking out,” laughs June, as I vault myself over the window. Doman grips my thighs tight, squeezing me against his back, and to my shock, he charges forward at a full sprint. Branches whip by my face, but he predicts them, ducking and shifting so I avoid them, the wind whistling in my ears as I’m taken into the night. My breath catches as he leaps, clutching onto a thick tree trunk as Titus and Gallien jump below, their eyes upwards, ready for a mishap I know won’t happen. Even dead drunk, Doman has complete command over his body.

We ascend at breakneck speed, the trees growing sparser as we climb above the heights, the moonlight flowing over us as he leaps from tree to tree, until we are halfway up an ancient pine that is the fourth tallest in the entire forest. He scales it effortlessly, until we’re higher than I have ever been on my ownaccord, even in my most daring ascents. I strangely have never felt so safe, even as I look down and see the dizzying drop.

Doman lets me down on a huge branch near to the top of the tree, sitting down, and Gallien helps me off his back, setting me onto the branch. My legs dangle as Doman sits to my right, Gallien to my left, Titus completing us as he takes his place at the far right.

“Don’t fear,” says Gallien, slightly slurring. “If you fall, we’ll jump with you. It will be the most glorious death.”

“No, she will use me as a pillow,” Titus proclaims. “I will break your fall.”

“You three are certifiable,” I say, shaking my head but unable to hide my affection.

“It’s the moons, my sweet.” Doman’s face is glowing, bathed in the silvery light of the nearly full twin moons that rise over Virelia. He leans in to kiss me, and I recoil.

“Prince Doman, you reek of bad decisions,” I say, wincing at the wave of strong alcohol.

“A diplomatic faux pas, I admit, Prime Minister Adriana,” he says with too much sincerity, a rueful smile on his lips.

“Shut up,” I say, and link my fingers into his huge hand, staring out at the twin moons, at the lush green forest bathed in the light. Their marble skin glows, fitting in to the tableau of Virelian nature, and they’ve never been so handsome, three guardians who when they were absolutely wasted, only wanted to see me.

It’s endearing, in the strangest, most human way.

When I was first voted into marrying the three princes, the Virelian ritual was a mockery to me, a stab in my heart, twisting something I had imagined since a child into something foreign and alien.

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