Page 19 of The Crimson Princess
“Yes. And it was not what your father expected.”
I set my cup down, no longer hiding under the guise of enjoying it. “Meaning what?”
“I’d say you could come see for yourself, but your presence would be newsworthy, and your father would find out.”
He’s not wrong, but oh, how I’d like to learn more about this vampire king and how his world stands next to ours. Okay, if I’m honest, that’s true, but the interest runs deeper and far more personal. He continues to spin me around and around in every moment I’m with him. “One day,” I murmur, as if it’s a nonchalant answer when it’s anything but, “I’d like to know what I’m up against.”
“I do not see you as weak,” he says without hesitation, “and I have no reason to attack gale. I’m not hungry for your kingdom.”
“So they all say.”
His gaze doesn’t falter, as if he invites me to look into his eyes and see his truth. “Do youdoubt me?”
“I don’t know you. And, supposedly, neither did my mother, and yet she inserted herself in between you and my father, the man she loved.”
He rotates in his seat and turns to face me, and since it would be weird if I didn’t do the same, I shift his direction, barely avoiding a brush of our legs. “I was never intimate with your mother,” he says, “nor did I consider it as an option.”
There’s a flutter in my chest I can only call desire. I want to believe him, and that’s the problem. “Want” tends to shadow logic. And in shadows, there is death. “If only she could confirm or deny your claim.” The statement cuts right through my heart.
“You’re an empath and omniscient. You can sense if I’m lying. Trust your instincts.”
“I’m omniscient, not an empath.”
“You’re both.”
I can sense what he is, and his powers, but truth versus lies? No.
Can I?
His head tilts, the intensity of his inspection cutting. “You’ve only partially come into your powers and you don’t know what you have and don’t have at this point.” It’s not a question.
“Of course I have. My birthday—”
“Was the day your mother left this life. Grief clearly suppressed your change, at least in part. You’re an empath.”
“How would you know?”
“I know a lot of things others do not.”
He must be omniscient, though I can’t sense that in him, but then if the change hasn’t fully happened perhaps my magic is a mess right now. But that’s impossible. “The Book of Life—”
“Says you come of age at twenty-three. I get that. But you’re powerful enough to resist the change while suffocating in grief.”
“Maybe my gifts are not hers.”
“You have the gift I speak of. I can feel it, but it’s buried deep within you. Be ready, princess. A late coming of age may well lay you down with the force of it, or it might arrive in subtle, gentler pieces.”
I’m overwhelmed with a sense of being vulnerable with Toren, of him knowing what I do not know, and how? How does he think he knows what my father did not? I face forward and reach for my box of sweets. “I used to come here with my mother, and we always took home a big box of treats.” I glance over to find him still facing me. “You want to try them with me?”
I can feel his hesitation, and I point to a chocolate cookie. “My favorites.” My brows dip. “You do eat chocolate, right?”
“I love chocolate.”
“Is it the same as ours, or—”
“We adopted most of the gale food about the time I was born.”
I want to ask how and why, but a far more interesting question steals my focus. “Where’s your mother?”
