My entire body clenches as if he murmured those words directly into my ear.
That voice.
My head whips toward the Prince of Evernight’s throne and the breath drives from my lungs as if a fist slammed into my sternum. He looks like a prince from a fairy tale, but I know better; I’ve had those hands on my skin in every way possible. This man is no hero. He’s the villain, and temptation is his crime.
The prince stares at me expressionlessly. If not for the intense gleam in his green eyes, I’d almost think us strangers. But it’s there. The heat. The memory. The challenge. That soft mouth is pressed into a thin line, his cheekbones sharp enough to cut butter. I can feel that mouth moving over my skin, his tongue tracing lazy circles around my navel as he dips his head lower.
Of them all, he alone doesn’t bother to wear a crown.
He doesn’t need to.
There’s no denying this male has power. There’s no denying he’s dangerous. Clad in a black velvet doublet, he reclines at ease, both arms resting along the arms of his throne.
And he looks at me as if we share a secret and he’s just dying to ask me more about it.
Even though I half-expected it from the second I heard him speak, shock ripples through me as I stare into my lover’s eyes.
The Prince of Evernight.
I fucked my mother’s dearest enemy.
Oh, my gods.
My heart skips a beat and the blood drains from my face. Shock turns my feet clumsy, and I trip over absolutely nothing, slamming into Edain. My stepbrother grabs me, leaving me tangled uncomfortably in his arms with my nose driving into his velvet-clad chest.
This is the single most embarrassing way to make my official welcome to the alliance, and I can practically feel my mother’s glare searing the back of my neck as Edain sets me to rights.
“Iskvien?” Edain murmurs.
“S-sorry.” I brush the velvet nap free of the indentation of my face and then realize I’m rubbing my stepbrother’s chest right in front of everyone.
His eyebrows shoot up.
He freezes.
Please, please swallow me whole, I silently beg the Hallow.
A shiver runs through the slate beneath us, gravel skittering across the ground. It’s enough to tear everyone’s eyes from my face and I dart behind my mother’s throne, not daring to look at anyone as I hide behind Andraste.
Especially the Prince of Evernight.
I scrape a trembling hand over my mouth.
What am I going to do?
I bedded the enemy.
I fucked the Prince of Evernight, and in doing so, I gave him the gift that my mother has promised Etan.
My virginity.
Even if he didn’t know who I was, he knows now and I am drowning so deep.
Oh, I understand the rules of the game. Of court. My mother and Thiago are enemies. And he knows she wouldn’t approve of what happened. He holds all the power right now. A single smirk, a handful of words, and he has my mother over a barrel. Worse, he has a knife at my throat.
There is torture, and then there is an hour spent furiously staring at my toes as the alliance barters and bargains.
Evernight was curiously quiet, and I just know he spent the entire time watching me. I was barely even aware of Etan, clearing his throat at Maren’s side every now and then as if to try and capture my attention.
I just wanted it to be over.
And then the gods finally granted my wishes.
“What in the Underworld was that?” My mother hisses as we safely pass through the tent line that marks Asturian territory. “Were you trying to humiliate me?”
I’ve had an hour to come up with a reasonable excuse and I have nothing. “I wasn’t watching where I was going and I tripped. I’m sorry.”
“I intended to present you to my fellow queens officially, and you bumble in looking like some pathetic milkmaid off her family’s farm.” She steps into my space, pushing her face close to me. “I don’t want to see you again tonight. Andraste,” she snaps to my sister. “See Iskvien to her tents. She can spend the night inside it, reflecting on her foolishness. No dancing. No singing. No wine. No dinner.”
As far as punishments go, it’s infinitely better than I was expecting.
My sister stays by my side as my mother stalks toward her tents, Edain following like a well-trained shadow.
“Come,” Andraste says.
This is the hardest part, because my sister knows me best. I might have fooled the others, but I can sense Andraste’s curiosity.
She waits until we’re safely inside my tent to look at me, however. “You never trip over your own feet. I’ve seen you with a sword in hand. Your footwork is excellent.”
“My footwork is excellent,” I admit. “It’s my heart that’s the issue.” I square my shoulders. “The last two days have been one shock after the other, and the second Etan smiled at me….” I shrug.
Her eyes narrow. “Etan wasn’t there when we arrived.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I sink onto my bed. “Maybe I conjured him then.”
“Maybe you’re lying through your teeth,” she says, crossing her arms. “What’s going on?”
I shoot her a sour look. It’s not that I don’t entirely trust this sudden peace she seems to be offering—because I don’t—but I so desperately want to believe it’s real.
“Do you remember what you suggested I do last night?”
Her eyes widen.
“He was there today. I wasn’t expecting to see him again.”
“The man you were with this morning? The man you kissed?”
“It was a little more to it than that.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. She didn’t ask. Merely chided me for not returning sooner.
“You don’t have to look so surprised,” I retort. “You were the one who suggested it.”
“Yes, but….” She paces within my tent. “You’re always so… so…”
“So what?”
“Prim,” she admits, as if she’s chosen the word carefully. “You’ve barely even kissed before.”
“The last time I kissed someone,” I snap, “I found out he’d been keeping a mistress for our entire relationship. And
