Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
His hesitation sparks my curiosity. “And what indiscretion did you commit?”
He thinks for a moment. “The same indiscretion that resulted in the queen losing her head.”
I’m unfamiliar with the faery courts and their kings and queens, but it isn’t difficult to infer his meaning. “What have I to offer this prince?”
“What don’t you have to offer him?” Luthian approaches me again. “Have you no looking glasses in your home? Have you never seen your smooth, milky skin? Your copper-kissed hair? Have you never noticed the stares when you pass people in the village?”
“So, I’m to seduce him?” I cut directly to the point; Mother also warned me about flattery. “I’m so sorry to disappoint you, but I haven’t the skill for it.”
“Does a sculptor choose stone that’s already been chiseled into perfection? Or does he find the raw material that will help him accomplish his artistic vision?” Luthian counters.
“I’m to be your raw material? A stone you can sculpt into the perfect seductress, capable of altering the destiny of a kingdom?” I laugh, but it dies it in my throat when he doesn’t laugh with me.
“That is exactly what I’m proposing.” He offers me his hand. The goblet in mine vanishes. I slip my fingers into his and he draws me close, close, closer, until I feel the warmth of his skin through our clothes. “But you cannot be stone. If you accept what I’m offering, you must yield to me. Completely. Every request. Every command. You will acquiesce to me in all things and deny me nothing.”
“You still haven’t said, plainly, what you’re proposing.” I hope he doesn’t think I haven’t noticed.
“I want Prince Cassan to be king. He will be when all of my plans fall into place. And you will rule at his side, as his queen. And with that power—”
He doesn’t need to finish. I know exactly what I will do with such power. “I can crush Cadwyn Thrace.”
I can make him far more miserable as his queen than any one wish ever could. I am not inventively cruel enough to think of a wish that could inflict a satisfactory amount of pain upon him, but given time to slowly torture him, keep him alive, heal him and then break him over and over until my pain is satisfied…
The thought is delicious enough to make me shiver.
“And you’ll still have your wishes. Should you need them.” Luthian strokes the backs of his fingers down my throat. “All you must do is surrender to me, totally. Give me all of your trust, swear you will do exactly as I say, no matter the request, and most importantly, you must drop every inhibition in pursuit of this power. Can you do that?”
I imagine Cadwyn Thrace on his knees in chains. It’s almost pleasurable enough to make me swoon.
Still, “That’s an awful lot to ask. You’re basically asking me to give up my free will.”
“It’s exactly what I’m asking,” he agrees. “Until the crown is placed upon your head, you will be entirely mine to command.”
I hold his stare for a long moment, the only sound the silver fire crackling in the hearth.
“Nothing without a price,” he whispers, in a voice that could turn sunlight to ice. And he extends one graceful hand, waiting for me to clasp it in agreement.
A crown can’t coax winter blossoms from beneath the snow or a heal a wounded sap-sparrow’s wing. I’m not meant for that type of power. But I can see myself in a crown, see Thrace’s blood running over my hands.
But I wonder, “I’m human. Why would Cassan deign to speak to me, let alone make me his queen?”
Luthian’s hand remains open to me. “You needn’t worry about the details. Of all the fae courts, his is the least concerned with such trivial matters.”
I reach forward. Our fingers almost touch.
I snatch mine back. “You never told me which court.”
Luthian sighs as if caught at some innocent mischief. “It makes a difference?”
“It does. My mother was cast out of the Court of Seasons. I won’t dishonor her memory by groveling for their approval.” I don’t know why she was cast out, but I don’t need to know. They didn’t deserve her, and they don’t deserve me.
“The Court of Pleasure and Torment.” He flexes his hand, silently urging me to take it.
My heart stops between beats. It refuses to go further down this mad path with me. The Court of Pleasure and Torment. The infamous kingdom of sensuality and depravity, where the fae indulge their every perversion and sick desire.
“Give me all of your trust, swear you will do exactly as I say, and most importantly, you must drop every inhibition in pursuit of this power.”
My tongue thick with fear, I ask, “Do you swear an oath upon every last drop of your fae magic that I will not be killed?”