I took another sip of the putrid liquid in my glass that tasted even less like champagne and more like pure fire, making a face. “Why don’t you introduce me to your friends, brother?”
I tried to say ‘brother’ the way he’d said ‘princess’, but my voice didn’t go to such lengths and sang it out like it was the prettiest word ever invented. Hiko scowled either way. Calling him my brother was likely the worst insult he could imagine. Wouldn’t want to be a brother to the likes of me, now would he? Too bad you couldn’t choose your family. I didn’t have a choice in the matter either. Was I bitter about it? Sure. Did I blame him for it? Not in the slightest. It wasn’t up to us that our parents had decided to tie the knot. Not up to me Mother turned to the dark side, and not up to Hiko that his new stepsister smelled like a bright summer day, suffocating the death out of him.
“You’ve met them before,” Hiko replied curtly. His disinterest ran deep into his cold, hard heart.
I tutted, “Pretend like I wasn’t paying attention earlier. Better yet, pretend I’ve got no memory of our previous encounter. I’d like to think you stepped out of the bed on the wrong side last time I saw you and you’re not always an idiot.”
Shit. Take it back. Can I take it back? No, not really. Just brilliant. That wasn’t what I had in mind pretending to be confident. Most definitely not.
Laughter filled the table, but it wasn’t Hiko who was amused by my boldness.
“Regar,” a big man to the left of Karmuth said, holding out a hand as if to shake mine. I stared at the gesture like he was handing me a poisonous snake and expecting me to grab onto it. Not happening.
“See, I did not remember that.” I ignored Regar’s outstretched hand. He raised his eyebrow in challenge nonetheless, thinking I was stupid enough to fall for it. Eventually, it was Karmuth who shoved his hand away, and it fell on the lacy tablecloth.
“That’s Kar.” Regar pointed at Karmuth, the only one whose name I did remember, despite not caring to and not because I was dumbstruck the first time I saw him. Karmuth responded with what I now now assumed to be his signature stare but let Regar continue with the introductions. “Sinister and Ferro.”
“Seriously?” I stared at the two other fae, one who was sitting closer to me than I now felt comfortable with. “I feel like I should’ve remembered those.”
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.
