The prince strode across the arena and presented himself before his father.

He didn’t bother to bow.

His copper hair whipped into his face in the windy arena, his white tunic billowing, especially since the prince had not bothered to tuck it into his dark leather pants.

My heart skipped, and I told myself it was only because I had just laid eyes on the man by whose side I was surely about to die. The humor of the situation did not escape me. Me. The woman who’d never done anything with a male, was now going to die with one.

Great.

His green eyes found mine from across the arena, and he smirked.

And to think I had once entertained pity for him. Apparently, he couldn’t even take our impending deaths seriously.

As I scanned the arena, I noticed what looked to be an obstacle course that ran through the middle of the colosseum. It had only taken a matter of days for the king’s servants to assemble the monstrosity, though they must have worked on it all hours of the night. The first section looked to be a huge triangular prism made of wood. Something glinted at the top edge of the prism, but I couldn’t make it out from such a distance.

Next to the long prism was a collection of vertical logs that looked like a forest of recently guillotined trees. Then, at the opposite end, was a huge metal box that looked like a receptacle, and though I couldn’t see inside it, I was fairly certain the crowd could see into it from its open top.

I searched the crowd for my parents, though I had no idea why I thought I’d be able to find them in this colossal stadium.

And the stadium was packed.

From what I could tell, most in the audience were fae, though I could only differentiate the details of their faces within the first section of seats, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if the humans had been placed in the topmost sections.

My chest ached for my parents. They’d written me every day since they received my first letter reporting that I wouldn’t be back home anytime soon. Though I hadn’t specified that the fae bargain I’d gotten myself into was the betrothal sort, the morning paper had spilled the news for me.

Father had been livid, of course. At least, that was the impression I’d gotten from the way he’d stopped referring to Evander as the prince, and had renamed him The Cad.

But I’d take my father’s anger over my mother’s sorrow any day. If it hadn’t been clear by her letters that she missed me terribly, the tear stains that smeared her perfect script would have given it away.

I could only imagine how they’d felt when they’d read I was to participate in the Trials.

Part of me hoped my parents hadn’t come. If I was doomed to die, as Evander had so kindly informed me at breakfast yesterday, I didn’t want my parents to witness it. But it was a vain hope. There was no way my parents weren’t somewhere in that stadium, hands clasped tightly together, praying to the Fates to spare my life.

If I had lost the will to live, the will to try, the knowledge that they were watching would have been enough to stoke a fire in me.

But I hadn’t lost the will to live, and their presence would simply fan an already-roaring flame.

The king’s voice boomed from his box that loomed over the section of the course with the lengthy prism. “Now, for the prince to escort his betrothed to their first trial.”

Evander approached me and flashed me a dazzling grin as he offered me his elbow. I rolled my eyes at how calm he seemed. What were the chances that I, the human, died during this trial, while he, the fae, made it out alive?

I was no mathematician, but I was willing to bet they were favorable.

Good to know this ordeal would work out well for Evander. I would die, and he’d be free to chase after that poor woman who clearly didn’t want him.

“Take it,” he hissed through his grin, which I now realized wasn’t for me at all, but for the crowd. Maybe he was concerned after all. “Please,” he added, hastily.

“This is ridiculous. It’s not as if you’re escorting me to a ball.” But I laced my hand through his arm anyway. I couldn’t help but notice that the sleeves on his shirt were thin, hugging against his taut muscles where my hand rested.

Heat warmed my face, and I had a difficult time not noticing the firmness of his arms. Goodnight, did the male press tree trunks in his spare time, or were fae just born like this?

The prince strode toward the stairs at the bottom of the first obstacle, taking me with him. “Perhaps if you had attended the original ball, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with.”

“Oh, and why is that?”

“Because I might have met you and been so bored with your company that I never would have considered bedding a human.”

“You’re disgusting.”

He cocked his head at me. “I said wedding a human. What did you think I said?”

I jerked my head to glare at him, at that plastered smile on his face. I opened my mouth to retort, but then the wrinkles around his eyes joined his smile.

He was teasing me.

I shouldn’t have enjoyed it as much as I did.

CHAPTER 17

EVANDER

When I’d first offered my arm to Ellie Payne, her touch had been feather-light, as if she feared that the feel of her hand against my bicep (with a layer of fabric between them, mind you) would send my mind spiraling in a cascade of rakish fantasies.

I sometimes wondered who had first perpetuated the belief that sex was all we males were capable of thinking of.

That being said, Ellie Payne did look ravishing, but I found that fact more frustrating than enticing.

Someone had had the audacity to stick her in a dress after I had specifically asked the tailor to hem her a pair of trousers.

Normally, I tried not to be that guy. The rich cad who dressed his women like they were racehorses meant to be paraded. I’d had the tailors make a set of gowns for Cinderella, but I’d done it because I didn’t know if she’d have anything to wear when she returned to the castle. Of course, it had been Ellie who’d ended up in that dress, the night she’d mortified me in front of my mother…

Anyway. This was a trial, and pants were in order.

My irritation rose when I noticed that not only had they put in her in a dress; they’d put her in a layered dress—the kind with enough fabric around the skirt to fuel Collins’s oven.

We reached the steps that led to the first platform, and I almost groaned when Ellie lifted her skirts and I caught a glimpse of satin slippers on her feet.

My father had most definitely had a part in this.

Did he want Ellie alive or not?

Next to me, Ellie scoffed. “Really? We’re about to face our almost certain deaths, and you’re trying to steal a look under my dress?”

I let out a steadying breath. Actually, I was calculating your chance of survival based on your footwear. You know, because I was concerned for your safety. My apologies for stepping outside my public image of mindless sex-mongerer for a breath of fresh air.

I voiced none of that, of course. Instead I swallowed my annoyance, flashed her a well-practiced grin, and said, “What can I say? I’m an ankle guy.”

The way Ellie’s tongue groped for a response that never came was worth the ankle-fetish gossip that would certainly ensue.