Page 29 of Cinder
Before the prince could answer, though, someone pushed aside the planter Cin had hidden them behind, nearly knocking over the statue at its side in the process. Fear and anger tore through Cin in equal proportions, so strongly he had to stop himself from reaching for the blade tucked against his back when he realized their assailant was none other than an overstrung crown’s watch, complete with the gold brocading of the royal family’s personal watchers.
“Your Royal Highness?” he gasped, one hand still on his hilt despite his worry having loosened at the sight of a Cin in the place he seemed to have half expected to find the Plumed Menace. “I turned around and you were—”
“I’m fine, Wilhelm,” Prince Lorenz chided, sounding just a touch exasperated. “Lieselotte left the gate to stalk me here—she’s down the hall. Go tell her you’ve returned.” When Wilhelm blinked at him, the prince lifted his brow. “The only risk here is a good fucking. Unless you’re joining, I suggest you leave?”
Wilhelm coughed in embarrassment. “Right, my apologies.”
By the time he stepped back though, it was already too late. It seemed like half the remaining guest list had spotted Cin and the prince, two dozen suitors flooding down the hall expectantly. A look as mournful as the one in Cin’s chest passed over the prince’s face, there and gone in a flash.
As slowly and carefully as time allowed, Prince Lorenz took Cin’s hand, squeezing it as he stepped back, into the light. “As foryourworries, never fear, my dove. This prince’s heart is locked away as tightly as his future.”
And Cin, despite his usually better judgment, found himself believing it of them both.
After the watch member’s interruption, it felt to Cin as though he had far too little time to spend with the prince before Floy’s arrival cut them short, forcing Cin to slip out to the gardens and back over the wall—though by the looks of the other guests, every second Cin stole of Prince Lorenz’s attention was a moment too long. Even Floy—the only one of Cin’s siblings to make it past the gate—remarked on it the next day, grumbling haughtily about a guest in a feathered cloak whom everyone claimed was becoming the favorite.
“But Prince Lorenz did not look for him for another moment after I appeared,” Floy added. “We’ll have to arrive earlier next week. I want his eyes onmetheentirenight.”
Cin was confident that Floy was overestimating the amount the prince actually cared to speak with them. Confident, but notcertain. By the way that Louise pampered Floy for their selection as a continued attendee, it seemed that, in the Reinholz house at least, Floy was destined for future Queen-hood.
At least Manfred and Emma were not put out by the prince’s dismissal of them—Manfred, because he’d realized it was easier to convince someone to fuck him if they weren’t seeking the attention of another man, and Emma simply because she was Emma. Very little held her attention for long, even rejection. It was one of the few positives of her scatterbrained disposition, and the longer Cin had to listen to Floy flaunt their place in the continued lineup while Manfred grossly detailed his list ofexploits, the more Cin wished his other two siblings were a little more like her.
When Cin arrived for the next ball, he found the guest list had been cut again, and to his great humor, that he’d been added to the top of the list as simplyThe Cinder-Ella—ten lines up from Floy Reinholz, he noticed with disdain. With the new reduction, there was no one left in attendance who preferred the sidelines, no one kissing on the balconies or flirting in the stairwell. Everyone wanted their moment with the prince, and there was nowhere left for him to run.
The last moments they’d had together lingered in Cin’s mind, leaving Cin wanting for more. More of Prince Lorenz’s touch, more of his heat. More of him, just pressed there beside Cin, laughing and teasing and making Cin feel as though there was nothing beyond that moment, no home to return to or family to cater for. Just him.
Cin could not shake the feeling that they were wasting their precious time together.
He tried to tell himself that the prince needed to see the other attendees—to know them well enough to chose one as his future partner. But then, if he really wished to, Prince Lorenz could visit any of them during the week. Cin had only these few nights and nothing else.
For once in his life, he wanted tochoosesomeone. To be brave enough. To make that first move, even if it was the only one he plannedtomake.
He played his fingers across the stem of his cup and watched Prince Lorenz flirt with a beautiful young man whose family possessed ten times the Reinholzes’ holdings and half of their arrogance. In the next break in their conversation, Cin managed to slip in, brushing his fingers to the back of the prince’s hand as, for once, it was him who leaned in first.
“Take me back to the dovecote,” Cin whispered, and what he meant wastake me back to that moment: justtake me.
The Crowned Prince of Hallin held out his hand to Cin. “As you wish, my Cinder-Ella.”
Thirteen
Cin led Prince Lorenz halfway through the gardens, following the route he’d taken the last time, before the prince pulled Cin to a stop. The pigeon trio that had been trailing above them all took roost, their dark eyes watchful in the night.
Prince Lorenz looked back toward the celebration still setting the night alight. At least three—no, four—attendees were making their way out of the ballroom to trail after him, the prince’s nightly personal watcher splitting her attention between the prince and them. Prince Lorenz grimaced.
“What if I don’t want to take you to the dovecote,” he said. He wove his fingers through Cin’s, squeezing gently. “What if we could go somewhere else instead?”
“Somewhere better than a tiny room smelling of pigeon droppings?” Cin snorted, whispering to the sky after, “No offense, darlings.” One of his trio cooed—deep and low; thatwould be Rags, the sweet boy. “You’d be hard pressed to find a lovelier getaway than that, but do tell.”
Prince Lorenz hesitated, his attention drifting back toward the guests and guards now lingering around in the garden walkways nearest the ballroom, the former looking as though they hoped they might slip into the conversation unnoticed. For a moment, a flash of distress passed over Prince Lorenz’s features, but between the shadows and the quick mask of his usual congenial arrogance, Cin nearly missed it. His voice still held a faint tremble though, as he said, “Anywhere but here.” His grin returned in full force, sparkling and devious. “Show me your little bundle of lights up close. Let me see this town I’ve spent all my life just beyond.”
Cin almost choked on the thought. “It’syourball you’d be leaving.”
“And I don’t want to be a part of it.” The smile didn’t fade from Prince Lorenz’s face, and for all the other guests, Cin supposed they must be seeing only the same charm and arrogance as ever—but only because that mask was eternally hiding something more. Some depth even Cin didn’t think he’d truly seen yet.
And maybe this was a path to discovering whatever lay beneath it?
“Is it safe?” Cin asked, narrowing his eyes at the prince. “Will we be taking your watcher?”
If not for Prince Adalwin’s disappearance, he did not think he would have worried so. The elder prince was said to have vanished despite having his entire entourage with him, though, and he had been even farther outside the capital, where the trees were left to grow tall. The forests between Hallin and Falchovari boasted their own monsters, their own princes—ones of swamps and forgotten castles. But Cin did not know any that went out of their way to frame the local murderers.
