Page 163 of Crown of Darkness
Bedplay. Wet work. All of it done in the shadows.
Not even my mother dares talk of Edain’s talents with a knife and the way many of her enemies suddenly disappear. But I’ve seen him slip into her chambers unannounced, and I’ve seen the blood on his clothes and the emptiness in his eyes.
And then news will come of a mysterious death, and my mother will smile to herself in private and offer condolences in public.
“And what are you best at?” he murmurs, wiping the blood from my skin with strangely gentle hands. “The crown princess who stalks around this palace with such a flawless mask it’s difficult to even catch a glimpse of the woman beneath it? A crown princess who spends hours each day drilling with the best of her guards, as if she’s trying to fight an enemy she never names? A crown princess who murmurs caution in her mother’s ear and tries to hide the horror in her eyes when her mother ignores her words?”
He may as well have slapped my face.
“What?”
He looks up. “Sometimes the mask slips. Sometimes I see you. Therealyou. And if you think I’m unaware of where your sympathies lie, then you should think again.”
No.He can’t know.
I capture his wrists, and for a second there’s a part of me that wonders if I can get rid of the threat—
“Make me promise, Princess. Make me swear that I won’t breathe a word of it.” There’s a savage heat in his eyes, as if he can read me like a book. “Because if there’s one thing we both know, it’s that you don’t have the means—or the heart—to kill me.”
Every inch of me thrums with the need to either fight or flee. The knife’s still on the bench, the hilt slippery with blood, but it’s close enough. “Nobody’s invincible.”
His hand cups my cheek, and then the rasp of his thumb strokes down my jaw. “I am.” He leans closer, and then his other hand comes up to cup my face. “And you will lose if you even reach for that knife.” His breath whispers against my ear. “Because you’re not a killer, Princess. And I am.”
I don’t know how to take those words.
Because while they’re a threat, his hands are gentle.
“But I’m not here to hurt you,” he concedes, “and I’m not going to tell her, so stop looking at the knife.”
“Then whyareyou here?”
Edain stares at me for a long, heated second. “It sometimes amazes me how blind you truly are. In that, you’re your mother’s daughter. Adaia can’t see what’s right beneath her nose.”
I blink. “Fuck you.”
And he laughs. “Surely you can do better than that, Princess. Now sit the fuck down and let me see your wounds.”
I don’t want him touching me, but I have no choice. He captures my hips and lifts me onto the bench, and then he takes my knife and flips it until he captures the blade between his fingers before he slides it behind his belt.
Then his eyes dare me to do something about it.
Fine. I stare past him, at the wall. “What were you doing out in the woods?”
“Watching the game play out.” He ducks his head and curses under his breath as he examines my thigh. “You’re bleeding again. Don’t move.”
Watching the game play out…. It never occurred to me that Edain is the one I should be watching.
And once again he senses it as he swiftly cleans me up. “Try not to think too hard, Princess. You might strain a muscle.”
My eyes narrow. “I think I liked you better when you weren’t pretending to care for me.”
His laugh is soft and silky. “You’ve never liked me, Princess. Because I am the mirror to your soul.”
His dark hair falls into his eyes as he reaches around my thigh to bandage my wounds. The towel edges up. His breath shivers over my skin, and suddenly I realize I’ve never truly looked at him. Not the way I should have. Because it’s clear he’s been watching me, and while he’s unearthed a few of my secrets, I don’t know anything more about him than the peripheral.
All I know of him are shadows, shadows of the whole.
The reckless, petty, spoiled pet who whispers in my mother’s ear.
