Page 111 of Promise of Darkness
“Anything,” he repeats.
I consider my options. Not the Darkness. Not his bloodied past.Us.“I know you saw me in a vision, but I don’t know…. Why me?”
Why had he fallen in love with me?
He toys with my fingers. “I know you don’t remember any of our courtship. I know you wonder how we could have fallen in love so swiftly. Three days is not an eternity, and yet we bound ourselves to each other forever. But all my life I have been called “other” and “abomination” and “impure.” To be granted a vision of my one true love by Maia was a gift that made me feel as though I belonged, for Maia turns her face from those who darken the earth beneath their feet. She shuns the Unseelie, and if she’d gifted me, then I felt she must have found me worthy. That vision was all I had on nights where the blackness ate at my heart. It kept me going with the promise that one day I would find you. One day I would know love.”
The words fill some gaping wound deep within me.
Because he’s not the only one who felt as if he didn’t belong, and yet I never had a vision. All I had was hope and the desperate longing to earn my mother’s respect, if not her affection.
“And then I finally met you. You were the first woman who ever looked at me as if she saw past the whispers,” he admits. “You didn’t look at the tattoos. You didn’t look at me with fear. You tipped your chin up and told me ‘An Asturiannevercowers before her enemy, so if you think your big, bad reputation scares me, then pray, think again.’ I knew in that moment that you were mine, no matter what I had to do to have you.”
“It sounds a little too perfect to be true.”
Thiago smiles, his voice growing rough. “You did threaten to throw a bottle of wine at my head. It shattered a few of my illusions. In my vision, you were beautiful and kind and you smiled at me. And then when we met, you told me that if I even thought about putting my filthy Evernight hands on you again, you’d break my fingers, one by one.”
Not even a hint of recognition fills me, but now I’m fairly certain he’s telling me the truth.
“And now you’re smiling,” he whispers, brushing a strand of hair from my cheek. “I love seeing that smile. It’s your secret smile, as if you don’t want to be amused but you can’t help yourself. It’smysmile, the one you only give to me. The first time I won it from you, you looked like you wanted to murder me, even as you simply couldn’t stop yourself from laughing.”
“You don’t strike me as that charming,” I point out, trying to regain some equilibrium.
Thiago reaches forward to pour me more wine, his eyes shining with glee. “Ah, but you’ve been fighting me at every step, Princess. And I know all your weaknesses by now.”
“Let me guess.” I grasp the wine and lean closer. “My weakness is you?”
He doesn’t look away as he snaps his fingers. “I’d like to say yes, but the truth is…. Sometimes you can resist me. I don’t know how. It honestly baffles me. I thought I was irresistible. No. Your weakness is….”
The server clears her throat beside me, breaking our eye contact.
She holds a small plate on her tray. A decadent, steaming banana pudding sits in the center of the plate, oozing with a rich rum sauce that melts into the cream. The mere smell of it makes me salivate.
“Oh, no,” I groan. “I couldn’t eat another thing.”
“Would you care to make a wager on that?” Thiago lifts a suggestive brow.
* * *
He wins.
I ate the pudding and scraped every hint of sauce from the plate. I probably would have licked it clean if we weren’t in public.
And perhaps I have to admit he was right: he is charming me. Inch by reluctant inch, one smile at a time.
I thought myself immune to charm, but this is different. The males in my mother’s court hounded Andraste and me the second we came of age. There were gifts and smiles and elegant platitudes. Poetry and dancing and smirking invitations to take a walk through the gardens. It was all so… premeditated.
I was always aware of the crown on my head and my mother watching from the distance. This lord would be good to “cultivate,” she would suggest, as if the loss of my virginity was a bargaining chip used to win good fortune.
Years of facing such a pursuit turned me cold on the entire ordeal. I grew used to practiced flirtation and managed to guard myself with scathing retorts that held the worst of the offenders at bay.
It wasn’t until Etan of the Goldenhills walked into my life that I came close to understanding the difference between being hunted and being wooed. Unfortunately, it was too late for me to realize I was no less his quarry than I was to any of the others. He was merely better at hiding it.
This feels different.
Thiago doesn’t care whether I’m a princess or not. Indeed, my relationship to my mother proves a hindrance more than a prize.
Which means… he wants me forme.
