Page 35 of Whispers Beneath the Deep
My tresses of hair fanned out, a few strands having fallen from my tie, and curtained the sides of our faces. There was tenderness in her gaze as she pushed a strand behind my ear.
“Prince Kai?”
“Yes, Princess Odele?”
“We should get up now.”
I didn’t want to. Everyone else could damn themselves into the abyss for all I cared. All I wanted wasthis.
“Of course, Princess.” I got up, pulling her up with me. Floating before each other, I pulled the torn strips of her dress together, my fingers confident near her hips. “Sorry,” I smirked. “But I reallydon’tlike this dress.” I pulled my hands away.
She looked at the flaps hopelessly and shrugged. “It’s just a dress.”
Before, she had yelled at a merservant for knocking food onto her clothes. That had been the princess of the past.
Instinct, and desire, had me grasping for her hand. I brought it to my lips, pressing the softest of kisses against her knuckles. My eyes went down to her skin, at the red welts there.
Noticing my attentions, she pried her fingers away, almost self-consciously.
My blood boiled.
“Princess!”A snake-like voice hissed and came over beside Odele. He was an oily looking merman, with long, disdainful features, string-like strands of hair slicked onto his shiny scalp.
Knobby fingers wrapped around Odele’s upper arm. She winced. The action was slight, and she tried to hide the gesture by schooling her features into a mask of impassiveness.
I turned my glare to him, unleashing my consciousness into my other self. Into that part I desperately tried to push down. My veins filled with ice.
“You…”
His eyes left the princess to look at me. Yes. There’d been just enough cold packed in my voice that he froze.
“Unhandthe princess,” I ordered. “Now.”
He sputtered. “Ibegyour pardon, Your Majesty, butIam the queen’s advisor.” He still did not release her. As if he had therightto put his filthy hands on her.
“And I amPrinceKai Li of Draconi, heir to the throne of Draconi, son of the war general and Emperor Jiang Li. I am the Dragon Prince of my kingdom and that mer is my betrothed, so I will ask you only once again,unhand her.”
Only fools disobeyed my orders once.
No one dared do it twice, unless they wished to be corpses, rotting in the silt.
And this mer obviously wanted to be. His hand still rested there.
“Your Majesty,” he snapped with a flourish. “As advisor to the queen, it is also my duty to advise the future queen, and thisrepulsivedisplay was inappropriate andbarbaric.”
My own advisors huffed in breaths of indignation. Though they would have disapproved of the display as well, they’d not tolerate the likes ofhiminsulting us in such a way.
I’d long since mastered the art of calm fury. “Then I suppose sparring is as barbaric as flaying the princess?”
I did not want to announce such a thing in front of everyone. I’d wanted to spare the princess this embarrassment. But I was cruel. It was inside me. And it was time he see it unleashed.
I grabbed his collar, hand shoving out in the midst of his sputtering. In the shock of the action, he released Odele and clawed at my hand instead. I brought him close to me, the tips of our noses touching.
“You think I didn’t recognize what those welts on her hands were? You think I don’t know what youdid?” I was well versed in royal lashings. And to see the evidence marked so prominently on the skin ofmyprincess?
If I still held my katana, I’d run it through his flesh.
“It is necessary to—”
