Page 27 of The Beast King's Bride

The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.

And all the while I pace, I swear I can feel eyes on me. I stop in front of a small pastoral painting and I swear even the horse painted on the meadow is eying me distrustfully.

Grabbing the painting, I take it off the wall and place it face down on the desk. “There,” I mutter. “Can you see me now? Is this one of your king’s little tricks? Does he think he has the right?”

But when I turn back where the painting had hung, there is a hole.

A spyhole into the throne room?

Excited, I drag the chair from behind the desk and climb on it to look through, and sure enough, I have a great view of the thrones and the Fae gathered around.

“Naughty,” I whisper to myself. I wonder if this study is the seneschal’s or some other official’s and if they had the hole made to spy on the king’s affairs.

The guards have flanked the thrones, and the maids have retreated. The remaining petitioners have stepped aside. Everyone is acting scared—except for the king, of course, who hasn’t moved from his lounging stance on the throne, black hair falling into those striking eyes.

A beautiful lady is walking toward him, accompanied by two men. Her golden headdress is tall and shaped like a fan, her green dress hemmed in gold, too. She lifts her skirts as she approaches the throne and I hiss at the sight of her goat feet.

A Lesser Fae.

No idea why that should shock me. They are more common than the Greater Fae—a plague, we call them in the human world, always slipping through the cracks between the worlds and causing big and small tragedies. Maybe it’s her rich clothes, the fact that she hid her true nature so well until she deliberately displayed it that shocked me.

I’m not sure about the relationship between Greater and Lesser Fae, though the king doesn’t seem shocked at all.

He waits for her to approach, long fingers tapping a rhythm on the armrest, the only sign of impatience. His riding boots gleam, black leather, his leather britches tucked inside, molding on powerful thighs. His braid has fallen over one shoulder, resting on his chest, curled like a cat’s tail.

“King Talensar Dasar’ath, the King who Never Cried,” the Faerie says, her voice like nails scratching on a board. “Greetings from her Radiant Eminence the Empress. I bring tidings and a warning.”

“I’m sure you are,” the king mutters.

The Faeries accompanying the gold-dressed one titter and guffaw.

She turns and slaps one of them, throwing him to the floor, with an arm that seems unnaturally long.

Quiet falls.

“The Empress,” says the Faerie, turning back toward the throne, “is glad you have returned to our world and your kingdom safe and sound. Did you find what you went looking for?”

“Some things are hard to find,” he says. “As she well knows. She set the rules of this game, after all.”

Are they talking about me? Am I part of a game for bored rulers?

Great.

“You think you could hide her from our eyes?” The Faerie takes a step closer to the throne and the guards don’t even shift from their position. “We watched you.”

“You always do.”

“You haven’t won, King.”

“Not yet,” he says, an edge entering his voice.

“You will not win. There is a punishment for leaving the land of Fae without her exalted permission.”

“She would never have let me go had I asked for her permission,” the king says.

“The punishment for crossing the gate without her permission,” the gold-crowned Faerie continues as if he hadn’t spoken, “is to take another year off our deal.”

The king finally sits up, his back straight and stiff. “You cannot do that.”

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