Armed with my true name and my soul, he can control every inch of me.
“Merisel,” Keir murmurs, his golden eyes watching me in a way that makes me feel as though he can see right through me. “Are you all right?”
I breathe through the moment, swallowing it all down like poison I’ve consumed far too many times to fall prey to it. “I’m fine.”
His face remains chiseled from stone. Impassive. He sits across from me, clad in sophisticated black velvet with golden dragons embroidered down the lapels. Rubies glint on his fingers, so dark a red that they seem almost black.
I have no idea what he’s thinking.
Can he see it on my face? That I mean to betray him?
Surely not.
He wouldn’t be lazing back against the carriage seat across from me if he was.
I have to believe that, and yet, for some strange reason, that knot of tension is back within my chest. I toy with the sapphire rings on my fingers, forcing my shoulders to square.
“We’re nearly there,” he says, glancing through the windows.
“You’ve been here before?”
“Once.” His lashes shield his eyes for a second. “Though these lands did not belong to the fae then.” Something makes him hesitate. “This court was the summer residence of Igrainne, my king’s daughter.”
Igrainne.
The daughter Queen Mab begot on the dragon king she married—before she betrayed him. I cannot even remember a time when it wasn’t ruled by the Court of Blood. It makes me realize how truly ancient Keir is.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell him in a quiet voice.
“It is as nothing to what it was then,” he replies as if he sees something else. “These lands were wild and free. We called them the Lands of the Golden Lakes, for the summers here seemed endless. And the mountain halls were wide enough for even a dragon king’s wings.”
“Do you miss it?”
He looks at me quickly.
“Your people,” I point out.
“I miss… aspects of it.” Keir sighs under his breath. “I am much changed from what I was then. At first I thought this a welcome disguise, but sometimes I wonder if the body’s alchemy changes the very patterns of one’s mind. I am more fae now than I ever was dragon, in some ways.” His focus turns upon me. “And what of you?”
“Me?”
“You are half fae, half wraith. Which side of your nature calls more strongly to you?”
I look away. “I have never been fae. My father’s court would burn me alive if they suspected I yielded to my fairer nature.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
His voice is so soft it almost seems as though it’s gilded with sympathy. I close my eyes against it. “When I was born, my father took one look at me and sneered at my weakness. I was small and sickly and I gleamed like mother of pearl—”
“Mother of pearl?”
“Some twist of my bloodlines, no doubt.”
“Hmm.”
“It’s true.” Some wraithenkind glow in the night like fireflies, unless they tamp down their magic, but I’ve never seen another wraith with skin like mine. “My fae nature was more ascendant when I was a little girl, I’m told.”
“What happened?”
Restlessness itches within me. This is not something that is spoken of—I don’t think I’ve ever spoken of it, and it feels somewhat akin to revealing a weakness. “To remain weak meant to die. I quashed any and all of my mother’s magics. The first thing I ever learned to do was to hide the glimmer of my skin.” A shrug. “It’s second nature now. I don’t even have to think about it and sometimes I wonder if I could ever go back.”
We stare at each other.
There’s a sad little smile on his lips. “Yes. Something like that.” He glances out the window. “Here we are.”
Our carriage makes its way up the enormous driveway that parts the maze. And then it’s all happening. Keir’s footmen open the carriage door. A step is brought forth. Court of Blood servants turn to glance at our carriage, their eyes turning into saucers when they note the colors and sigil. The Court of Dreams is marked by a swooping dragon, which is probably Keir’s idea of a joke. One of them goes running—presumably to find Malechus and inform him of his newest arrival.
I hate this.
I’m made for the shadows, not the glittering lights that flicker over the Court of Blood entrance. My glamor is firmly locked in place—no one will catch a hint of the faint luminescence of my skin—and yet I feel utterly naked.
“Breathe,” Keir tells me, stepping down from the carriage and offering me his hand.
I’m scanning the entrance, tracking the guards, noting their weapons, potential escape routes, everything…, and his words jolt me out of the abstraction.
I look down, and there’s a handsome prince offering me his bare hand. Our fingers meet, and despite my misgivings I can’t help sucking in a short, sharp breath at the sheer heat of his skin. His mere touch promises I will burn if I were to ever give in to the look in his eyes.
It’s a game.
Punishment for my betrayal.
He knows I desire him, and he’s going to torment me at every turn with that desire.
“Come, my lady Merisel,” Keir says, his eyes burning through me as he lifts my hand to his lips and brushes the chastest of kisses across the back of it. “Let us go and introduce the world to my bride.”
His words chase themselves through my head as we mount the stairs.
I’m not supposed to be his bride—well, I am, but that’s just the cover we intend to use. He’s supposed to be bound by his choice during the Summons, but he is to ask for two rooms and will spend his time hunting with the other lords and dancing with the ladies. The servants will gossip of course, of how there stands a door between our beds.
It’s supposed to encourage the ladies of the courts to compete for his fractured attentions.
Maybe he
