Page 25 of Thief of Souls
Punishment for my betrayal.
He knows I desire him, and he’s going to torment me at every turn with that desire.
“Come, my lady Merisel,” Keir says, his eyes burning through me as he lifts my hand to his lips and brushes the chastest of kisses across the back of it. “Let us go and introduce the world to my bride.”
* * *
His words chasethemselves through my head as we mount the stairs.
I’m not supposed to be his bride—well, I am, but that’s just the cover we intend to use. He’s supposed to be bound by his choice during the Summons, but he is to ask for two rooms and will spend his time hunting with the other lords and dancing with the ladies. The servants will gossip of course, of how there stands a door between our beds.
It’s supposed to encourage the ladies of the courts to compete for his fractured attentions.
Maybe he made a mistake, they will whisper.
Merisel of Greenslieves is some backwater lady who just happens to have a distant queen in her family lines. She’s not particularly pretty—not like the glamorous fae princesses bound to be in attendance—and her tongue is boring and her wits slow.
I will fade into the background, some mere plaything the Prince of Dreams is growing tired of and he will attract all the attention.
Precisely as planned.
We’re led toward the ballroom, with flustered servants appearing from nowhere. If we’ve timed it perfectly, all the gallant fae will be dancing in celebration of the Blood Moon. It’s the first night of the wedding celebrations, an omniscient start to a weeklong orgy of merriment.
Tonight, they’ll crown the Willow Queen—she who was once offered to the bonfires to ward off the curse of the blood moon.
It might sound like a sacrifice, but the first Willow Queen was a clever little thing. A lowborn nixie, she drank as much water as she could from the pond and filled her veins with it before offering herself as sacrifice. She went to the bonfires and broke the curse, but she did not die. The fires couldn’t touch her.
When they dragged her from the ashes, the Blood Court’s curse was broken, and the king of the court was so enamored with her that he took her as his second wife.
Her family was blessed with skin that would ward off even the sharpest knife, and her weight in rubies.
I don’t know what happened to the first wife. Her name was lost to memory, and the very fact they honor the Willow Queen each and every blood moon tells you something about the first queen’s ending.
The doors before us open, and a self-important kelpie in a pomaded wig draws a deep breath and bellows, “His Royal Highness, Prince Keir of the Court of Dreams, and his betrothed, Lady Merisel of Greenslieves.”
Heads turn.
Gasps echo through the chambers.
The entire dance comes to a stop, as even the members of the string quartet in the corner tilts their heads to look at us, with one last discordant shriek from the cello.
I have never wanted to fade into the shadows so much in my life.
“Come, my love,” Keir says, taking my hand and drawing me forward into the light, as if he can sense my horror.
They’re all looking at me.
Hundreds of whispering fae. I think I’m going to vomit.
Focus on the job. I swallow it all down, and even though I’m no longer feeling sick, I know my skin has paled.
“Prince Keir,” a brunette breathes, her eyes wide with joy as she welcomes him. “An honor.”
“Your Highness.” Another woman swims out of nowhere, dropping into a deep curtsy. “We never dreamed we would have such an illustrious guest.”
On and on and on it goes as the females of the court swarm toward us.
But it’s the impossibly handsome fae prince on the throne who draws my attention. Malechus is the Crown Prince of the Court of Blood, the last in a long line of vicious, dangerous males. His father, King Aswan, may rule the court, but it’s said he keeps Malechus here at Castle Blackrock in virtual exile, far away from the throne and any ambitions his son might foster.
