All of them wore dark affairs ranging from navy to burgundy. While Karmuth had umber brown hair framing his face in careless curls, the rest of them had hair as black as black could get. Although Sinister kept his head fully shaved altogether, his facial hair more than made up for it. They studied me with the same curiosity, but I wasn’t sure they liked what they saw any more than I did.

They were strongly built and all, but their presence oozed malevolence and their interest made me uneasy. Why was I here again?

To be insulted, it seemed.

“We can’t all be blessed with flawless memory,” Hiko snipped with a roll of his eyes. He really didn’t like me.

I supposed I started it. Now we were in an all-out insult war. As long as nobody touched my life force, it was a safe game to play, although not incredibly friendly.

Maybe the death fae couldn’t communicate in a cordial manner. Ever since I arrived here a week ago, all I’d had were dreadful encounters. Grath seemed like the perfect gentleman, though. At times it felt like he was trying to make up for everyone else’s maliciousness. As their king, he was held responsible for their actions. But a single person couldn’t possibly make up for all of that hate.

No matter how hard he tried, it was already starting to rub off on me. While nobody had touched my life force directly, the attitude I was received with was killing a different side of me.

“You’re right,” I muttered, not mastering a witty retort of my own. I should’ve probably left for my quarters the moment the wedding ceremony ended. I’d made my appearance, supported Mother’s quest for happiness that ruined my own existence, and suffered through the two-hour long ritual to bind her soul to Grath’s—a reassurance that no matter what happened between them, her life force was sacred and untouchable to all fae in the court including the king himself.

There was nothing more I needed to do. Dinner party, dancing, socialising — those were things of the past I would never participate in with the same eagerness as back home.

I’d tried, I’d failed. Time to go.

Chapter 2

KARMUTH

INTOXICATING DIDN’T EVEN BEGIN TO DESCRIBE THE SCENT OF sunshine and forest flowers that followed Isay to our table. I saw the effect it had on the group, even as most of them tried to hide it.

Sinister shut his mug the moment it was clear she would actually join us. I’m almost positive he barely even breathed to avoid the temptation. Ferro choked, and I felt the vibrations of his foot tapping away to a rhythm that did not in any facet match the background music reverberating through the table, while Hiko turned into a green gremlin if I’d ever heard one speak. It was unlike him to be outright mean, not to women in our court, not even to the women he feasted on outside the court.

The only one keeping any resemblance of cool was Regar, but he never did seem to struggle with control. His little joke to touch Isay was out of bounds but certainly in character.

It bothered me, nonetheless. Irked me to no end, in fact. We weren’t allowed to touch her. Those were the rules.

I didn’t feed every single time I touched a mortal, but chances were their life force would trickle through whether I wanted it to or not. A handshake could steal a year or two, a hug—not that I went around hugging people—ten years, a kiss…

That’s where my brain had to stop, because there was no way I’d even consider the possibility of kissing someone vulnerable to my unearthly curse. To have someone fade away in my arms with a brush of my lips. Some fae found it thrilling, Sinister being one of those psychos. I wished he’d move away from the girl staring daggers at the prince. He might’ve looked like he had a stick up his ass due to her proximity, but he was a snake in disguise, and I’d hate for him to get executed because he couldn’t control his urges.

While Isay wasn’t a mere mortal and a simple touch wouldn’t outright kill her, we’d be in hell of a lot of trouble if it came out that we’d even considered the possibility of getting a taste of her.

I bet all of us were considering it, but how could we not?

“This was fun,” Isay finally said, getting to her feet. For a short heartbeat, she studied the glass still gripped in her hand, then dipped it like a pro before placing it back on the table. “Remind me to never do this again, will you?”

Shit, she was leaving. It was for the best she’d go, but I didn’t want her to think we were complete assholes. I should’ve kept my tongue between my teeth; I hadn’t uttered a word to her since she made her appearance in the court about a week ago. I should’ve kept up the habit, because what came out of my lips was not something I should’ve even considered.

“Why don’t you dance with me before you go?” I was on my feet before I registered standing.

I swear the whole table looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Perhaps I had. Perhaps I’d left it behind in her forest-green eyes earlier. Her fresh perfume was maddening by itself, but her simple beauty could bring a warrior to his knees.

I willed myself to believe I wasn’t going to beg.

“You’re kidding, right?” Isay’s words sang through the air a little slurred, wide-eyed from my question and flustered from the alcohol.

Shrugging it off as a joke would have likely been better than my dumbstruck staring. Nobody besides her would have believed it, however. This was Regar’s approach, not mine. I didn’t have an approach.

Besides, this was the king’s stepdaughter. Even without the no-touching rule, I wouldn’t stand a chance. Such privileges were bartered to make alliances. Being the summoners of death, we had plenty of enemies. No, my intentions were to make her feel at least slightly welcome in the court after the complete fuck-up of her first day.

None of us knew what she was going through being a beacon of life in a starved fae court. Alone. The beacon of life part wasn’t helping her case, not in here anyway.

“As a tribute to your mother. You folk like to dance, don’t you?” is what left my cursed lips instead.

Her lips curled into a sneer. “I doubt you folk even know how to dance.”

“You’re right, the only thing my folk does is lure pretty innocent girls to dark alleys to drain them dry and discard afterwards. That’s what you believe, is it not?” There was bitterness in my tone, but I refused to believe I was disappointed by her refusal. I couldn’t be. I hadn’t been serious in the first place… right?

I needed to stop staring at her like she was the only person in this wedding, but her red dress made it hard to look away. Her pale complexion and golden-brown hair was out of place in a sea of darker shades.

My own hair, dark brown as it was, could likely match closest to hers out of everyone in the court, something Regar pointed out the day we saw her dragging her luggage up the grand staircase of the main palace. His idea was that my mother must’ve belonged to the light side, even as absurd as that idea may have been. We’d agreed not to talk about it, but he couldn’t help but bring it up when King Grath brought Siya around, and then her daughter.

I wanted to believe there were other brown-haired death fae out there before I came around. We just hadn’t met them… yet. It didn’t help that my mother was AWOL, and nobody knew who my father was.

One day, a babe was dropped off at the reserve’s doorstep without so much as a note. Success. What a surprise it turned out to be when that child needed to feed on life. I was the last child born in decades for our court. Fae had trouble conceiving and unexpected pregnancies were non-existent, which left my existence with a big question mark. Not a problem to solve right now, if ever.

My current problem was getting my ass back on my seat and pretending I hadn’t gotten up in the first place. My knees refused to bend. So instead, I stood there like the perfect idiot as Isay took a step away from our table, unsteady from Void Sundance.

Time slowed down as her high-heeled feet searched for solid ground in the grassy courtyard but inevitably sank into the soft surface. Void Sundance, being stronger than Isay expected had gone to her head faster than any of us thought to warn her about, and for a moment she appeared puzzled. Only until she lost her balance completely trying to pull her feet free and went tumbling to her hands and knees.

I could’ve caught her and saved her from ripping her pretty dress open when it got caught in the fall, but I wasn’t allowed to touch her. Rules were rules, and we were out in the open for the entire court to see.

Giggling, Isay swayed back and forth where she fell, the sound like bells swaying in the wind. Everyone close enough to have heard her turned to look if her fall hadn’t caught their eye yet.

“I did wonder if she could stomach Void Sundance,” Ferro finally sighed when Isay failed to get back on her feet for the second time and nobody rushed in to help. We couldn’t do anything for her. “Here’s the answer. Can’t say I’m terribly surprised.”

I shook my head and planted my ass back in my seat. Not only were people staring at Isay, but I also started to draw attention. Her crawling through the grass towards the palace between fits of giggles had to have something to do with me standing stiffly with my eyes fixed on her, didn’t it? No.

Huffing out a breath, I grabbed my own Void Sundance and gulped down a healthy dose of it. It burned down my throat until it settled in my stomach. Unlike with Isay, it did little else to intoxicate my senses. It also did not help to settle my nerves as the girl kept making a spectacle of herself in front of the entire court.

She should have simply agreed to the dance. I could’ve escorted her out safely thereafter. It was too late now.

When the commotion got impossible to ignore and the new queen caught sight of her daughter lying between the tables staring at the sky like it was a complete marvel stars appeared once the sun dipped low, she carefully stood up in her puffy white garment and glided over to Isay.

Every movement of hers flowed like the softest breeze. Her golden hair, slightly lighter than her daughter’s, billowed after her on her delicate but unswerving path to the girl.

She hadn’t been a queen for a day yet, but Siya carried herself like she’d been born to rule. When she passed our table, her gentle face held firm discontentment. I received the brunt of it as she must’ve seen our interaction, too.

Just great. I didn’t need to get on the bad side of the queen this quickly. Didn’t plan on it to happen at all.

Siya tenderly pulled Isay to her feet and steered her stumbling form out of sight. Only then was I able to look away from where she’d disappeared to. I got to meet four completely different reactions. Hiko sneered at me like he had at the girl. Regar grinned so widely you’d think he’d gone mad. Ferro squinted his eyes, studying me. Sinister simply sighed in relief, glad that Isay was gone, taking her intoxicating scent with her, a raised eyebrow being the only indication he wondered about my uncharacteristic response to her.

I rolled my shoulders and rubbed my neck, then took another gulp of Void Sundance. They didn’t stop staring.