CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Rowan naked was a beautiful sight, but not like this. I closed my eyes but the image of his hands running down the silk sheets, contouring my mother’s curves, had seared in my mind. Wearing nothing but a gold slave band around his neck he kissed her arm, her shoulder, her collarbone.
Rowan—No, don’t!
I swallowed but my mouth remained dry. My fingers clamped against my thigh, searching for a hilt to grab hold of. My first impulse was to find a knife and the consort chamber and peg her through her shriveled black heart. My second was to turn the blade on Zale. Or maybe on Rowan.
In any case it would involve pain, a lot of pain.
“Truth is tough to stomach, isn’t it?” Zale said, smug amusement thick in his voice. “While you’re here worrying about your little urchin, how to escape, and what tomorrow will bring, your whore boyfriend is sheathing his sword inside another woman and telling her every little secret you ever whispered in his ear.”
Anxious, hurt, and generally mind-fucked, I stared at the screen. Rowan would not betray me.
“He was only too happy to let us ambush you, Gracie. He invited us in, even hid me in the back room.”
I wanted to smack the confidence from his perfect pretty-boy face. Rowan couldn’t do that—he wouldn’t—unless Elani was threatened. Then, maybe.
“See what he does when he’s not with you.”
My eyes widened as Rowan pulled back the sheet. My mother wore a midnight black baby doll, so sheer that I could see his hand as it slid beneath the fabric and cupped her breast. In the back of my mind I wished that she had declined more, sagged more, aged more. But no, she was a sleek cougar on the prowl and Rowan was caught in her clutches.
Her head fell back, mouth open, no doubt to let out a moan. Gods, I could feel it.
My skin tightened as a phantom memory caressed my skin, gentle in touch, but the slightest bit rough in texture. My eyes stung. I blinked quick, and then not at all. Gods, what a picture she made lying next to him, her long black hair strewn over the pillows, tangled around Rowan’s thick biceps, her eyes as emerald green as Jade’s.
Zale prattled off beside me, a steady stream of verbal diarrhea bouncing around in my ear. I was pretty sure that’s where the buzzing in my head was coming from. Either that or my cranium was about to explode.
Shut the hell up. “So what, Zale? The Queen and Rowan have sex tapes. That’s old news where I come from.” My chest cavity hadn’t been this cold since my meltdown at the pond, but I kept my tears at bay. “Does my mother know you’re circulating her porn?”
Zale scowled. “Just watch, this is where it gets good.”
Rowan lay perfectly still as she slid her hands up his chest and behind his neck. She fisted his hair and yanked his head back. I stiffened.
Zale’s smile broke wide.
As Rowan got pushed onto his back, the Queen mounted him. I drew a labored breath searching Rowan’s lifeless gaze as he stared straight up at the ceiling. Misery shone in his eyes—utter desolation—as the Queen leaned forward and moved her mouth slow and demanding over his. Broad mechanical arms wound around her, stroking up her back as it flexed and relaxed.
“Seen enough?” Zale asked. “Your white knight is quite literally a mother-fucking whore. You’ll do well to realize that, and stay in line for the next twenty-four hours. I’m respected in this city. I won’t have you embarrassing me.” All his posturing made me want to knee him in the crotch. “Ready to go to our reception and play your part?”
“Oh, I’m ready all right.” I met his smile with a genuine one of my own. He’d made one mistake in his screening. The Rowan in his little film noir didn’t have a shiner. His skin was beautifully unmarred. No sign of where my fist had connected with his face and no scratches on the back of his shoulders where I’d marked him during our own sextathalon.
This tape was old news. The knowing didn’t erase the ache in my chest completely, but I could breathe again . . . and worry. If they had to use an old tape in their ploy to break me, what was happening to Rowan right now?
Lifting my chin I sucked in a breath and cleared my throat. “Let’s get this party started.”
Following the crescendo of lutes and harp, the chamber orchestra slid into a light and lovely couples’ dance. The glittering crowd spun and twirled, hands and bodies linked, gowns trailing in graceful arcs. It was an Attalosean who’s who. All the Eligibles, past and present, wore all the right gowns and drank all the right multi-hued drinks. We sat on display on the raised dias, lined up for inspection while the aristocrats of the Noble houses, the Strati commanders, the upper echelon of the city and the respected clergy twirled around on the ballroom floor below.
The Princess to my right—Hope, I thought, but could have been Faith or Charity, they were all the same to me—was a bubbling fountain of intel for the evening’s festivities. She knew nothing of any use, clueless about where prisoners were held, or in which part of the palace I’d find the Queen’s personal consort chamber rooms.
“. . . after the introductory dancing, there will be a feast and then the actors will come and the finest dramas of the past cycle will be acted out. I attended one last year that. . .”
Blah. Blah. I gritted my teeth and scanned from right to left. Seventeen sisters sat erect in their cushy, junior thrones with intricate updos and golden armbands roping up delicate arms. Their ample chests were corseted and plumped up for view and their gowns were a veritable rainbow, reflecting the visual interpretation of their given names.
I scowled at my flat bodice. Thanks, Balor. When he’d done his magic enhancements, couldn’t he have given me more in the T-and-A category? I had the strength of earth, the passion of fire, but I got totally robbed in the boob gene pool.
As a tray-wielding waiter passed by, I swigged down the remnants of my flute and swapped it for a freshie.
Freya Love, sitting prim and proper to my left, scowled. “Could you at least pretend you have manners? You reflect upon the Ninth House now. Who raised you?” She gave a polite wave to a couple swooping by on the dance floor.
“Maximus Reign,” I said, pasting on a smile. “The most feared warrior and slayer of the Realm of the Fair.” I batted my eyes at the men standing with our douchebag fiancé at the side of the room. “Reign was more concerned with his kids coming out on top of a fight than which fork to use. You know, he never even mentioned holding up our pinkies as we stabbed through the chest of our enemy.”
Freya rolled her eyes. “You don’t scare me.”
“I guess I’m the twin who got the lion’s share of the brains.”
“Gods, don’t say that aloud. It’s bad enough you’re a sister Eligible, but to be my biological double—it’s horrifying.” She smiled for the crowd, keeping her gaze straight ahead. “Why don’t you go get yourself killed? Then, Zale and I won’t have you thrust upon us like someone’s unclaimed laundry.”
I snorted. “Trust me, I have no interest in playing house with you, Zale, and the sister wives of the Ninth House.”
“So, go.” She sipped on her glass flute. “Slip away after the feast and be gone. No one will even know you’re missing until the dramas conclude and that won’t be until after dawn.”
“That’s a great plan, in theory, but I’ve got unfinished business here in the palace. I can’t just take off. Besides, where would I go?”
“Back to your pathetic little mountain, of course.” She paused as the song ended. Some of the dancers milled around before us, waiting for the next song to start while others escorted their partners back to find someone new.
I busied myself with my champagne glass until the music picked up again. “I can’t access the portal pond. Believe me, I’ve looked into it.”
Freya slid her gloved hand into the silk clutch looped around her wrist and pulled out a sapphire brooch. As she delivered a Cheshire grin to the masses, she slid the jewelry into my palm. “Give this to the night watchman at the portal. His wife loves trinkets and he’s willing to bend the rules to keep her happy.”
My skin got hot as the hair on my nape stood straight up. “Why would you do this for me?” She looked over at Zale and I had to laugh. “You know Zale’s got a thing for me and you want me out of the way.”
“Please,” she scoffed. “He’s not interested in you any more than a man watching a dog fight. You’re a novelty he doesn’t understand.”
“And can’t possess,” I said. “He’s not used to being slighted by Eligibles. I’m not part of the collection he’s built for himself.”
“Two is hardly a collection.” She swept a wayward curl and tucked it back in place.
“Two?” I snorted again. “No, he’s up in the double digits. According to the guards, he sneaks them out behind the bronze wall and gets his grind on quite regularly. I actually stumbled upon him myself the first morning I was here.”
“You’re lying,” she snapped. An unattractive vein pulsed beside her eye. “You would say anything to cause trouble.”
“I guess that wasn’t you then, moaning and panting as the sun came up.”
She turned on me, her pale purple gaze hardening with fury. “Zale loves me. He told me I would be head-wife—”
“You too? He told me the same thing. Said I intrigue him beyond the others.” I laughed as she raised her hand to cover her mouth. “Oh, please. Is that the line he used on you? Come on, you’ve got to see that he’s a player, right?”
“Get away from me, you . . . you freak.” Freya Love’s veneer of perfection cracked like a fault line. She squeezed her eyes tight and when she opened them, her mask was back in place. “If you think I’ll let you ruin what Zale and I have, I promise you . . . you’ll find yourself on the unpleasant end of a tragic but fatal accident.”
I had to laugh out loud. “Let me get this straight. You’ve heard the allegations that I’m the person who stalked a senior Strati in the dead of night, evaded an army of soldiers and left four men with their throats hanging open and your first thought is to blackmail me with the threat of violence? Really? You’re going with that?”
While I was still chuckling over that one, a middle-aged man in a scarlet chiton stopped directly in front of us. “Princess Grace,” he said. “Would you care to dance?”
“No. I’m fine, thank you.”
“Please, it would be my honor,” he said, raising his hand.
I was about to decline a second time when the curled fingers of the hand being offered caught my attention. Upon closer inspection, I saw the crooked bridge of the man’s nose. It was the priest who sat beside me at the luncheon on my first day here. Zale scowled at me and suddenly, there was nothing I wanted more than a tour around the ballroom dance floor. “On second thought, I’d be delighted.”
With our raised hands linked and his crippled hand at my back, we merged with the flow of the crowd. After the initial adaptations to move as one with a stranger, we relaxed into a rhythm. The rise and fall of the music pulled us along like a gentle wave. For just a moment I let my fear for my boys slip away and took a moment to really breathe.
Reign had insisted on formal dance lessons for Bruin, Julian, Jade and me from the time we hit puberty. ‘You’ll thank me one day,’ he’d said. ‘Treaties and negotiations get hammered out as often on the dance floor as they do in a war room. Politics is nothing but a fucking dance . . . and a headache.’
When the song ended and the clergyman retained possession of my hand, I assumed we were going again. His eyes were whiskey brown and kind. Maybe I could trust him with my questions. “Uh . . . would you happen to know of a priest of the Fae Trinity Temple formerly known as Rowan?”
We began to move for the second time, his brow creased but his smile remained in place. “Perhaps,” he said. His voice was even but his body tensed noticeably beneath my hands. “What would you want of him?”
“Nothing serious, I . . . uh, was just hoping to ask him a few questions.”
We stopped. As the other dancers whirled past us, he squeezed my hand tighter and dropped the hold on my back. I met his gaze and after more than a decade of living with warriors, I read the minute he decided to reach into the fold of his tunic for a weapon.
I clasped my hand around his wrists and twisted. A knife. Nice. “That’s a lot of steel for a priest, don’t you think?”
He struggled against my hold, eyes wide. “You’re stronger than you look, Princess.”
“I’ve heard that. Now, how ‘bout you drop the weapon.”
“Or you could let go of my arm before you snap my wrist, and I’ll slip the knife into your skirt as planned.”
“Planned? What plan? Who—”
“Your followers.” He leaned closer and I caught a good look at his priest’s collar. It was actually a mourning band, the same as the one Bay made for me. “Those of us who think you’re the one. The one who will bring change.”
I searched his gaze and didn’t catch any deception. “Nice words, Padre, but flattery won’t get you under my skirt. I’m not that kind of girl.”
A wry smile crept across his face. “Reaching under a lady’s skirt isn’t an everyday occurrence for me either, but I smuggled this knife in for you—regardless of the danger—and we are beginning to draw attention.” Zale was making his way toward us from one direction, while two senior Strati eyeballed me from another. “Please, Lexi, trust me to do this.”
His familiarity took me aback. “I don’t know you.”
“True,” he said, stepping against me, our hands concealed between our bodies. “But you know my namesake, biblically by what I gather. Help him, Lexi. Help both of them. Bring my godchildren home where they belong.”