I have no interest in them beyond the very obvious swell of Coralie’s belly, one that alarms me to my chilled bones. It’s around the same size of mine...
Will the prince connect the dots here?
We’ve barely touched our first meal when Coralie announces she’s having her second child. Cliff smiles beside her, placing his hand on the nape of her neck.
He looks ...happy.
Would Daein be this pleased for me—for us?
I look at him from beneath my lashes.
His face is stony, a hint of distaste twisting the corner of his mouth.
He offers Cliff a stiff nod of congratulations and my stomach twists.
He doesn't ignore Coralie, and not because she’s a woman. He does it because she is kuri. And I’m struck all over again by what it means to be a human in his eyes.
I feel dead inside throughout the dinner service. I stare at my plate, even when Daein reaches over the corner of the table and takes my hand in his. He holds onto me for a while before we eventually break for the parlour room.
There, I sit silently beside Coralie as she picks at a plate of fruit. I notice she doesn't eat much. She doesn't say much either. Her eyes are glued to Cliff across the room, as though he’s the shield she needs in this world.
I understand. Only, the difference is, I don’t have a shield.
Like my shattering shield, the party in the parlour room starts to break off. Coralie and Cliff are taking their leave, and apparently I’m supposed to see them off with Daein who comes up to take my hand.
Numb, I walk through the castle to the courtyard and give the polite, forced smile when they climb onto their hairless steed, the kind that looks as though it’s been turned inside out.
Daein is in no mood to let me go.
Hand firming on mine, he turns and steers me through the corridors and up the staircases, taking me to his bedchambers. It’s only when we’re through the door that he releases my hand and he shuts the doors.
Wandering over to his bed, I slip off the straps from my shoulders, then shift to sit on the edge of his bed. The dress’ bodice falls to crumple at my middle—I can’t risk him catching on to what’s happening in my belly, so I spread my legs and hope he doesn’t take the dress off of me.
He seems in no rush to, either.
Rounding on me, dressed in his leather trousers and black shirt, his eyes latch onto my heat.
He takes his time with me. First, he brings me to the exploding lights behind my eyelids with his tongue on my core. Then he pins me down with a grip on my throat, towering over me, and fucks me into the mattress.
Feathers are drifting all around us when I cry out his name, and he comes with a drawn-out moan that lasts longer than ever before.
He falls forward, slumping over me, his breaths erratic and hot on my temple. His hand glides down between our meshed bodies, finding the swell of my belly. For a beat, he caresses it with a brush of his fingertips along the edge.
Then he’s pulling back and slipping out of me, suddenly detached.
He remains that way for the rest of the Quiet. Even as we rest later, his arm that is slung over my waist doesn’t exactly embrace me—it’s just draped there.
I have trouble finding sleep.
4
Out in the courtyard, I feel the warm air drape over me like a blanket. For the thick air, I wear a thin satin slip—one mostly meant for the private chambers of Daein, but he seems to appreciate it today with his constant wandering gaze over how it clings to my curves.
I eye the skeletal horse creature with a wrinkled nose and narrowed eyes. “Why not the carriage?” I ask, distaste palpable on my slick tone.
Drawing my gaze to him, his hand cups the curve of my jaw, the pad of his thumb running gently over my taut skin. “I will share secrets with you today, April.”
I blink, my lashes shadowing my sight of his hard face; Hard, but there are hints of cracks in the bronzed marble, like the statues out in the gardens.