Page 40 of A Vow of Embers

He had a dark purple bruise on his cheek where I’d hit him, and it filled me with satisfaction. “I hope your face still hurts,” I said sweetly.

“You punch harder than I would have guessed. I don’t envy Xander.”

I couldn’t help but be interested by the blue tattoos on his face, neck, and arms. I wondered if he had them everywhere and what they were for. In Locris only criminals had tattoos. Their crimes were tattooed onto their forehead for all to see. Was Thrax a criminal?

It was odd to want to end someone’s life and yet also have questions you wanted them to answer.

“You’re not supposed to be harming anyone under my protection,” Alexandros reminded me.

“I hit him before the contract went into effect.” As of today, I wouldn’t be allowed to punch Thrax again.

Even though he had a face that practically begged for it.

Prince Alexandros let out a sigh and then picked up a piece of pasteli. He put it in front of my mouth. “I know you like this. Take a bite.”

If I couldn’t figure out a way to follow his requests without wanting to throw things, this was going to be the dreariest time of my entire life. I should eat and try to seem like I was enjoying myself.

I leaned forward and bit off a small portion. I was sure that, to the rest of the court, we appeared sweet and happy—a groom feeding his nervous bride, worried about her well-being.

Alexandros was a master actor—understanding exactly what his audience wanted and knowing how to deliver.

“You’re being watched, princess. Put on a smile and pretend like you don’t want to stab people.”

That might have been too much for him to ask.

“I am going to stab your brother at some point,” I told Alexandros through my plastered-on smile.

Thrax laughed, and it was loud and boisterous and infuriated me.

“Don’t do that,” the prince said to me. “Stop threatening people.”

“I can’t be the first woman who has threatened to stab him today.”

“You’re not even the first woman from your family who has threatened to stab me today,” Thrax said, wiping tears from his eyes.

His words slammed into me and I gripped the edge of the table. “What did you do to my sister?”

My sweet, precious sister, who had never threatened to harm anyone in her entire life. She would never say that she was going to stab someone.

“I brought her breakfast and she told me she was going to slice me open with her dull knife.” Thrax said it fondly, as if he’d found it adorable.

There were so many thoughts running around in my head all at once. My hand reached out of its own volition for my knife and I wrapped my fingers around it.

Prince Alexandros’s hand came down on top of mine, prying the knife away from me. “I wouldn’t want you to accidentally cut yourself,” he said.

How did he always seem to know what I was thinking?

“To be honest, I prefer the stabbing threats over the biting,” Thrax said.

“Quynh bit you?” Again, it was inconceivable to me. None of this sounded at all like her.

“Right after I saved her from those men trying to kill her during the race. She had a cut on her cheek, and when I tried to look at it, she bit my fingers.”

I couldn’t tell if it was just his personality—where everything seemed to amuse him or he thought everything was a joke—or if it was personal to my sister.

Either way I didn’t like it.

“She bites me anytime I get my hand too close to her face. I’ve had to learn the hard way,” he said.

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