“Mother of Night. Thalia.”
“What?” She gives him big, innocent eyes.
Thiago shakes his head and turns to follow Kyrian. “I need something to drink too.”
Thalia simply laughs.
There’s drinking and dancing, of course, and Lucere can barely hide her thrill at having a new dance partner. Kyrian sweeps her around the clearing in vigorous circles, though his smile remains cool.
He dances well though. There’s an athletic sort of grace to him that begs you to imagine him aboard a pirate ship, and while Lucere might beam in his arms, it’s quite clear he’s controlling every move of the dance.
A soft sigh echoes beside me. “It’s such a shame that such a delicious body houses such an unruly spirit.” Thalia throws back her glass of wine, before she catches me watching her and rolls her eyes.
“Hmm.” I hadn’t missed the hot glare the pair of them had shared. “There’s a story there. And not merely an argument.”
“No story.”
I poke her in the ribs. “Oh, no. You’re not going to get away so lightly. You know all my secrets, and yet I’ve never heard you mention Kyrian’s name.”
“Because there’s no reason to mention it.”
“Liar. There’s a reason he watches you like a scalded cat lashing its tail. And you were baiting him.”
“Fine.” Thalia sighs. “Kyrian and I have met. Numerous times, though Thiago tends to keep us apart as often as he can these days. Suffice it to say that one of the saltkissed ensorcelled him. He was so enamored, he was poised to marry the girl before he woke to find her above him with a knife, intent on carving his heart out of his chest. They fought and she escaped to the seas, but not before he learned that she’d never truly loved him.
“She’d been sent by her father to seduce him and then assassinate him, and, fool that he is, he tripped over his own feet the second he heard her sing.” Thalia rolls her eyes. “So now he despises the saltkissed, and spends the storm season hunting the seas for Meriana. That compass he has? It’s a magical device he stole that can find anything in the world. The bearer just has to wish for it, and the compass needle will point directly toward it.”
“It was pointing at you.”
Thalia pokes me back. “That’s because he uses it to hunt the saltkissed, and there’s enough salt in my blood to make me flare like a beacon whenever it’s around me. I had to hide what I was every time we met. But I’m done hiding.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re so determined to bait him,” I tease.
“That’s because he’s an arrogant, insufferable fool. One saltkissed woman does him wrong, and now he’s determined to hunt the entire race? That’s sheer idiocy speaking.”
“And it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact he’s as handsome as the Horned One.”
“Princess or no princess, I will plunge you into the wine barrel head first,” she threatens, “if you keep making such inane comments.”
Someone’s touchy.
“Besides,” she sniffs, gesturing an hourglass shape in the air, “as pretty as he is, he doesn’t deserve to get his hands on this.”
Every inch of her is perfection, and she knows it.
The fae are physically inclined to be tall and lean as a race, but Thalia owns an abundance of curves she clearly inherited from her saltkissed brethren. She crosses the line between curvy and voluptuous, and every male in the entire gathering has noticed.
That might have something to do with the gown she’s wearing. It’s virginal white, though there’s nothing virginal about the plunging neckline that sits just off her collarbone. Billowing fabric flares from her shoulders, gathering again around her wrists, and leaving her upper arms bare. I don’t know what her dressmaker has done to her skirts, but they drape in the center where a silver band bedecked in pretty diamonds emphasizes the curve of her waist.
Lucere sparkles like the moon in her white gown, but she pales in comparison to Thalia. I don’t know if my friend knew Lucere would be in white, but I suspect she did.
When it comes to wardrobe decisions, nothing Thalia wears is left to choice.
Nothing I wear is either, since she’s been in charge of my wardrobe the second she saw me wearing “some kind of loose Asturian handkerchief that does nothing for my shape”. She’d spent fifteen minutes lecturing me about how I’m the Princess of Evernight now, and I represent their kingdom.
I gave up, told her she could do what she liked to my wardrobe, and the very next day I walked into my dressing chambers and discovered rows of silk and velvet she must have already had prepared for me.
I might have fought more for my own sense of style, if Thiago hadn’t taken one look at me the second I walked downstairs and dropped his spoon in his porridge, sending a wave of mushy oats directly into Finn’s face.
“Fine,” I agree. “Kyrian doesn’t deserve to touch so much as the hem of your skirt, but that doesn’t explain why you’re still staring at him….”
Thalia’s smile holds a hint of the wolf in it, and it’s all Thiago. “Just because he doesn’t deserve to touch me, doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to,” she purrs, handing me her empty wineglass. “Excuse me, I’m going to go dance.”
“He’s not going to dance with you.”
“And he’s not going to. You.” She points at a nearby blond who snaps to attention so swiftly, he spills wine all over his friend. “Dance with me.”
“What are we doing?” Thiago purrs, draping his arms around me from behind.
I’m still watching the dance floor, though I sensed him swimming through the tide of courtiers toward me like a hungry shark. “Admiring your cousin.” I can’t help laughing. “She’s absolutely merciless.”
Thalia’s also danced with every handsome fae male in the vicinity, leaving a trail of lovesick swains