Page 74 of Fated to the Vampire Prince
I dared to try a second finger, and found there was pain, but also pleasure hidden behind it. Just like his bite. I thought of him now, of his cold breath against my neck. His hands tangling in my hair. I tipped my head back and spreading my legs wider. Seeking out the release I so desperately wanted, teasing myself until it was nearly unbearable.
“Bastien,” I breathed, panting as I imagined him thrusting into me.
He gripped my hair. His eyes tortured. “Claire, I’m going to come so deep inside you.”
His words pushed me over the edge, as I imagined him doing just that, spilling his hot release inside me. My body quaked as I came, throbbing out my own release. I reveled inthe feeling. In the way nothing else mattered. When it was over, I squeezed my thighs together, feeling the aftershocks. I couldn’t believe I’d just done that.
Someone knocked, and I startled, quickly adjusting the folds of my robe and wiping my hand on a towel, silently cursing every interruption. “Who is it?” I asked, trying to even out my breathing.
“It’s Tansy!”
I expelled a tight breath.
“I’ve got breakfast!” she added in her musical, teasing voice.
At the mention of food, my stomach growled. “Come in!” I shouted over my shoulder, then went back to brushing my hair.
I watched Tansy in the mirror as she danced inside the room and kicked the door closed with a slippered foot, all while balancing a tray covered in domed silver dishes.
It was still so strange to me to see a Witch of the Light in this dark Château. “I hope you had fun night last night,” Tansy said, offering me a bright, cheeky grin that made me ache for my sister.
“I did. Thank you,” I answered.
It wasn’t the whole truth, but it wasn’t a complete lie either. I noticed she was sidestepping the fact that Bastien had ended the party by throwing everyone out in a fit of rage. She set the tray down on a small dining table and made her way over to where I sat. “Good—they left the iron,” she said with a wink.
“This was your doing?” I asked.
“Of course,” she replied, taking the brush from my hand and running it through my thick strands. I watched with a shocked expression as she smoothed my hair, then reached for the small curling iron on the tray.
I snacked on the fruit she’d brought while Tansy took a narrow section at my temple, wrapped the tip in cloth, wound the hair around the heated rod, and clamped the tongs shut. A faint smell of singed steam rose where the warm metal met the damp hair. I flinched at the heat but held still as she twisted the section into a ringlet, coiled it into her palm, and pinned it flat against my scalp with a silver hairpin. She repeated the motion, over and over.
“You have to tell me what you use to make your hair this color. It’s such a gorgeous shade of lilac.”
I laughed awkwardly. The color wasn’t pretty. It was revolting. “This is the color I was born with.”
“Come on,” Tansy said, rolling her eyes, “you can be honest with me. I won’t tell.”
Shame and embarrassment flushed hot in my cheeks. I’d give anything to have Tansy’s color. “Iambeing honest.”
She simply shook her head, tucking a stray curl behind my ear as she worked. “Claire, I’ve traveled all over the Unified Territories and I’ve never seen anyone with this shade.”
I bit my lip, forcing myself to look into the mirror once again. Mama had told me my hair color marked me as magickless, but I hadn’t realized I might be the only person in the Unified Territories with this color hair. The lone mistake.
“Alright, fine, keep your secrets,” she said with another teasing smile, twisting the last curl into place and fastening it with a tiny ribbon so the ringlets would hold. “I have a little secret of my own.”
I was grateful that she didn’t pursue the topic any further, but her mention of having a secret of her own had another question rising to my lips. Maybe she wasn’t a Witch of the Light at all.
“Is your hair dyed?”
She let out a laugh that held little humor. Shaking her head again, she said, “Sadly, no. I’m a full-blooded witch.”
“What do you meansadly?” Perhaps the question had been too forward, because Tansy kept her lips pressed together as she smoothed the pinned curls into an elegant crown. The rest of my hair flowed down my back in soft waves. The overall effect was quite pretty.Despite the color.
“Let’s not ruin our day before it begins with talk of my life.” I frowned, wanting answers to the questions burning inside me, but I wasn’t willing to push Tansy to tell me things she didn’t want to talk about. “I’m taking you on a very special tour of Château Rose.”
Tansy was going to give me a tour? I wondered what this was about. The breakfast. The hair. The tour. Why was she being so nice to me? She was a consort, not an attendant. “Did His Grace tell you to do this?” I asked. “Or Lena? Because I have attendants. You don’t have to?—”
“No,” she said, cutting me off. Taking both my hands in hers, she pulled me out of the chair. “I just wanted to get to know you better and show you around.” She squeezed my hands and gave me a sincere look. “That’s what friends do.”
