“My sister makes the finest sweet ale in all the dark lands. I brought three barrels in honor of our treaty among centuries-old friends,” The Fae King says with a lazy smile.
The smile that’s plastered on my face for Thorn doesn’t waver. Despite how much I want to break his fucking face right now.
I’ve never seen my father drunk in my entire life. I don’t even know what being drunk feels like. Mortal drugs and wines only give us mere minutes of relief from our ever-constant mind.
Whatever is in sweet ale, it’s powerfully intoxicating. And the Fae King is definitely plotting something.
“Have a glass, Prince.” The Fae King’s friend, the one with the dark watchful eyes, hands me a glass, appearing as if from thin air.
Rule number one of being friends with fae: never take a gift.
Rule number two: never refuse a gift either.
“Thank you.” The smile I offer is bitter against my lips. I hold the goblet loosely in my hand, and their attention on me feels heavy.
Waiting.
“Should we make a toast?”
The king’s dark eyebrows lift high as amusement widens his perfect smile.
“I had no idea the Blood Prince of the Burning Kingdom was so festive.”
I smile back at him through tight lips for that fucking name he just tagged our kingdom with. His friend laughs as he claps his king on the back. The energy lifts, but just beneath our false smiles and pretty words, there’s centuries-old conflict that’s dying to be released.
The king and his friend both raise their shining cups high, mine joining there as well. My father staggers into the circle of raised cups, his big goblet clashing against ours, and I have to really put effort into not breaking my entire jaw from how tightly I’m holding onto this fucking smile.
“To—”
My words are cut off as the Thorn King interrupts.
“To Crymson Vain. May she right many wrongs and heal the poison between our two kingdoms.”
My attention narrows on the king while cheers of immense approval follow his strange words. He holds my gaze the entire time he throws his head back and downs the glass in one big gulp.
We’re coming up the back. Keep him distracted until I can get her inside.
Rorrick’s voice cuts through my mind, and my attention flashes toward the back door of the garden. Through the smoke, I see her holding her shoes in her hand as Rorrick holds open the door for her.
“Father.” I take a step into his space but his drunken attention doesn’t see me at all. It’s like he knows she’s there. Or perhaps stupidity simply leads him in life.
“There. There she is. Come here, girl!”
Stiffness lines her slender back from his roaring words. I notice then that her dress exposes the peeking hint of claw marks from her first encounter with my father. The jagged scars are still pink and healing. My jaw grinds when he doesn’t wait for her to come to him. He storms across the smoky garden.
She turns slowly, her bare feet dirty and muddy against the castle steps. Her chin lifts, and she meets him with silent but steely attention.
“You are mine! Do not dishonor me again, girl.” And then... his hand rears back and snaps across her face.
Her gasp of shaking shock is barely heard before I’m in his fucking face. My fingers sink into the flabby meat of his neck, my nails digging into soft flesh as I slam him down against hard brick. With hostility rising between us, flickering violent memories of my childhood threaten to come to life in my mind. But I shove them back down.
A space is made around us as I hold him pinned there like a moth with tattered, breakable wings.
“Know your fucking place, Father,” I hiss through my fangs. “This entire exhausting, ridiculous ceremony is for her. It’s her fucking ceremony that we’re just puppets lined up to get a fucking glimpse of her. She isn’t yours.” Seven’s hand touches my shoulder for a single moment of calming energy that’s failing to extinguish the fiery rage inside me. But it does reach me. The whiteness that’s kissing my knuckles fades. I lower him back to his stubby legs. My fingers curl around the collar of his suit, and I smooth it back out for him with a shaking, unsteady smile pressing to my mouth. “She isn’t yours,yet.” I add. “Let’s not insult our friends or the gift they’re giving.” I turn my manic smile to the Thorn King, and what I find there is just as unsettling as my own sudden messy emotions.
The hardness of his jaw trembles. The heavy wings against his back are arced high above him, shadowing across not only myself but my father as well. He looms over us like a grim angel with dark intent.
“Rorrick,” I say casually, my eyes clashing with Thorn’s. “Take my father inside. He’s had too much to drink.”