Page 53 of The Reluctant Queen
She didn’t like the man one bit, but Hevva had to admit the diversion sounded lovely. So, she allowed him to escort her into a darkened breakfast room.
Clearing her throat, she asked, “A little light please?”
He chuckled and called up a flame for their passage through the chamber.
They walked quietly through the palace, weaving from one half-lit corridor to another, and only passing the occasional member of the staff. The night was too young for partygoers to be pairing off and seeking refuge in darkened corners and unused salons. Being that they entered near the northeast corner of Kirce, and the billiards room was in the southwest, it took them some time to meander through the almost peaceful halls.
It would be a better diversion if the man on my arm were a different Hethtar.The thought smacked her on the head and had her stumbling over her slippers. Nekash covered her hand with his own, steadying her.
“Are you well, Lady Hevva?” he inquired.
“Quite, thank you.” But she wasn’t well, not at all. The night with Ehmet in the guest room had gone from euphoria to nightmare in the blink of an eye, and she wasn’t sure she’d fully woken up.
A caustic pit settled in the base of Hevva’s stomach following the king’s casual words about the unimportance of love, and she hadn’t been able to drink or eat or sleep it away in days. Perhaps a game of billiards with theunpleasant prince would at least ease some of the burn in her belly. Perhaps he’d piss her off enough to target her confused ire into something cohesive.
“Come along, little bird,” Nekash drawled when they reached the entrance to the billiards room.
She blinked slowly, rather than roll her eyes at his comment, and stopped beside him.
The prince pushed open the doors, and as they stepped in, someone shrieked. A shuffle of fabric, a whirling body, and Nekash fired up a flame that illuminated King Hethtar standing with his backside against the billiards table. Lady Tahereh Nathari stood between his widened legs, a hand on his broad thigh and another pressed firmly to her own bosom. One of Ehmet’s palms was splayed across the lady’s hip, Hevva saw it there before he abruptly pulled it away.
The pit in her stomach pulsed with fury and she nearly vomited on the carpeted floor.
“Light the bloody candles,” the king boomed.
Nekash must have followed through, as flames flickered to life around her, around all of them. But she was already pushing through the double doors on the far side of the room that she knew led into the salon she’d discovered a few nights before.
“Nice to see you have a type, brother,” Nekash intoned.
Hevva slammed the doors. Just like Gamil.Just like him.Only he’d been in a closet pressing his cousin against an armoire.Unscrupulous, unconscionable aristocrats!
When she was halfway across the salon, the doors creaked open behind her and footsteps followed. The steps were not heavy enough to be the king’s, so she rushed onward, past the hearth, and toward the door she knew led to the library—no one would be studying at this time of night. She needed to get away, to find somewhere suitable to hide and collect herself.
She barreled in, stopping in the middle of the book-filled room. A few stray candles offered meager light in the vast space. Eyes bleary, Hevva slapped her palms against the surface of a table, rattling an unlit candelabra.Common boys don’t do these things,she lied to herself, because it felt betterthan accepting some men were simply terrible. Through a haze of unshed tears, she replayed those flashing images of Ehmet with his arms around Lady Tahereh of Appven, the way she leaned into him, her bottom pressed against his groin. The way her hand laid upon his leg, and his upon her hip was repulsive. A spat of bile rose up into Hevva’s mouth, and she swallowed it down while frantically blinking back tears.
A warm brightness flashed through the library, and she squeezed her eyes against the abrupt change in the room. Squinting for a moment until she adjusted, Hevva realized what had been done. Each and every candle in the enormous library was lit in tandem, a sweeping and triumphant show of magic that basked the room in a cozy flickering glow. The effect was lovely, though she was too enraged to care.
Turning, she found that Prince Nekash had joined her, which wasn’t a surprise, given the theatrics.
“Countess.” He started forward, nasally voice pitched low.
Are you fucking kidding me?
When he reached her, the prince raised a lanky arm and trailed a flicker of tepid flame from her shoulder to wrist.
Hevva dropped her chin and pursed her lips at him.
The man was rapacious. He brought a second set of flames to tease the slope of her shoulder, languidly trailing them down her other arm. “What do you say, Lady Hevva? You have not yet given me a birthday gift . . .?”
Hevva smirked at the prince and stepped forward with a sway of her hips. Gulping, he eyed her bosom and licked his lips.
Her wind up was quick. Before he knew what was coming, she slapped him crisply across the cheek.
Nekash’s head snapped to the side and his hand flew up to protect himself from further injury. But Hevva was gone, pushing past the overstepping man and back into the small hallway. She set her magic off to thump and rattle the wooden staircase so it would sound as though she were ascending. Then she shoved open the door to the future queen’s office and locked it.
Stumbling across the space, drunk on nothing more than despair, she flung herself out onto a silent balcony. Leaning over the edge,Hevva upturned the contents of her stomach.
After wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she stepped back into the empty office and crumpled on the floor in a billowing mass of tulle and feathers.
