Devi liked food, apparently. Or at least she liked sweets. Ignoring the little pies and sandwiches, she went straight for the cupcakes, picking out one with blue icing. She took her time savoring the sugary frosting before devouring the cake in three bites. Then she reached for a chocolate melt.

“All right,” she said after she'd eaten her first bite of dessert, “maybe you had a point. A public display of affection might have been in order. I'd appreciate a warning in the future though.”

“Duly noted,” he replied, amused.

She seemed far less angry once she'd had some food, he observed, storing the information in his mind. A minute ago, she'd been ready to ax off his head, and now she'd calmed down, recognizing that his excuse for kissing her had been valid. Fae were tactile and affectionate. There was no way anyone would have believed that they could spend a whole evening together without so much as exchanging a touch. It was a clever reason; however, it had come as an afterthought, just like his excuse for rushing to her aid in the first place. He'd simply kissed her because he'd looked at her lips and all of a sudden, he desired to taste them. He might have been able to help himself, with reasoning and logic, but he hadn’t wanted to.

Now Devi seemed to have accepted the necessity of. Perhaps he should take to carrying sweets and pop one in her mouth when she was growling at him.

Vale smiled at the idea. He could kiss her to his heart's content and feed her when she was displeased with him.

“So, what now?”

“Now, Devi Star Rivers,” he replied, saying every part of her name slowly, savoring it, “we’re perhaps an hour away from the end of the party. The crowd will start to thin out, and we’ll be able to make our way out without causing offense. Let us kill some time. Tell me about you.”

If he didn’t find a way to distract himself, he’d be right where he had been ten minutes ago—deep into madness as he lost himself to her softness.

A fucking kiss. It had just been a fucking kiss. He hadn't so much as groped the damn female. Valerius had fucked countless faceless females and not felt a tenth of what that simple, fleeting touch had awakened. It was a hunger he doubted would ever be sated. He’d had a taste and now he wanted more, craving it so much it scared him.

He could see just how much she wanted him to take her right there, in the middle of the throne hall. He'd felt her respond to him and smelled her response, her arousal. It was a delicious temptation he so wished to unwrap.

His theory that his sudden and violent infatuation was born of magic fresh in his mind, he had to keep his distance.

“Not much to say, really,” she finally answered.

“Coming from the daughter of a seelie princess once betrothed to the king of the realm of sunlight, I sincerely doubt that. There is a story. Come on. Give me something. I can tell you don’t belong at court. Where were you raised?”

Something dark flashed in her eyes as the female held his gaze. He'd obviously touched another sensitive subject.

“Sorry if my manners aren’t to your liking, sir,” she stated, her tone making it clear she wasn’t sorry at all.

Yet he liked her voice. Steady, a little raspy, deeper than expected. He liked the tone she took with him. It was a far cry from the usual high-pitched flirtiness he was used to within these walls.

“I’ve heard something of your mother, and yet nothing at all about your father,” Vale prompted, and he immediately knew he’d hit the nail right on the head.

Her entire body tensed; he would have felt it even if his hand wasn’t resting on the small of her back.

“I'm technically an adult female. What does it matter who my parents are?”

“It matters because you're uncomfortable when anyone speaks of it. I want to know why.” His inquiry was met with silence, unsurprisingly. “I could just fetch the answer from your pretty skull. I might even enjoy invading the intimacy of your mind.”

“Then do it and leave me be,” Devi challenged.

Poor dear. No one had warned her about poking a dormant beast.

Vale wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and tilted her head until her hazel eyes met his. Then his upper lip curved as he bit the lower one in anticipation.

“You've quite literally asked for it, sweet thing,” was the last thing he said before entering her very soul.

Devi Star Rivers’s life had been simple once. Her mother was pretty, gentle, idle, and quite happy to let her daughter roam the countryside by herself. At the time, it hadn’t struck her as odd. Later, Devi realized that no creature of these parts would have dared lay a hand on her.

They owned a picturesque manor tucked between a forest and a beautiful clear blue lake. It was the sort of home that seemed to have been built in another age. In the winter, it was incredibly cold, so servants lit fires in every single room. In the summer, every room was a sauna, and Devi used the slightest excuse to take a dip in the lake. There was talk of selkies, nickers, nymphs, and other creatures who’d gladly pull an unsuspecting soul all the way to the bottom of the lake. When Nanny hysterically warned them, Loxy Rivers simply laughed it off.

“Aren’t there any water sprites, then, Mama?” Devi had asked.

“Of course there are,” the elegant high fae replied, bending down to look her daughter right in the eyes. “But they’d never harm you, little princess.”

It would be a while before she understood any of that.

Devi had many friends, ranging from the dogs to passing strangers and mysterious spirits who never spoke and never quite showed themselves as they lingered in the shadows.

“I know you’re over there, by the way,” she’d sometimes say. “I can feel you, you know. Mama says to trust my magic, and my magic tells me there’s someone watching me.”

Sometimes she swore she could hear a soft laugh in the wind. It mattered not; the shadow was a friend.

All in all, it had been an enchanting childhood, and like every enchanting childhood, it came to a sudden, unexpected end. Her world crashed the day Loxy Rivers—the best mother on Ertia, according to Devi—died suddenly.

She was just fourteen and became quite lost, unsure of where she belonged.

Looking up from the boat with her mother’s remains burning in the middle of the lake, she saw him for the first time—a very tall grown-up male, quite handsome, and dressed in a way that seemed odd to her eyes. It was not the dress of a soldier, a noble, or a servant. It was made of dark earth-toned, durable cloth embroidered and finely shaped, but cut in a peculiar way.

He had the pointed ears, stature, and air of a high fae, but also something else underneath. Wilder. Stronger.

It was the shadow, and he had her eyes.

Vale pulled away, letting go of her mind before breaking it. When he returned to the throne hall, Devi's eyes were wide, horrified. She was breathing hard, and a few beads of sweat had gathered on her pretty forehead. She'd strained to resist him.

How sweet of her.

“What the fuck was that?”

He shrugged.

“Seriously. I know psychics. I went to school with a few. They can sometimes tell what you’re thinking right then, with a lot of effort, after breaking down shields. My shields are always up. You just waltzed past them, and you fetched exactly what you were after. How is that possible?”

Her interest seemed entirely academic; she was so curious she’d forgotten to be put out. Endearing. But he wouldn’t let her distract him, not now.

“I’ll tell you when you satisfy my curiosity. I asked first. That shadow of yours was an elf. Your father.”

It wasn’t really a question—he knew it. He’d recognized the male’s dress, although at the time, it had seemed foreign to her younger eyes. The shadow had worn the dress of a noble from the elven realm. That explained everything. She was a half-blood. A rare thing, indeed. He hadn’t noticed earlier because elves somewhat resembled high fae.

Lesser fae were often short and stocky, sometimes so small they never grew to stand past his knees. Common fae could stand up to his shoulders, perhaps. Sometimes they were blessed with wings or pointed ears; more often than not, they weren’t. They distinguished themselves by having plain features.

High fae and elves were tall, generally muscular, and prone to beauty. Both races had pointy ears. Elves didn’t have wings, and therein lay the one outward difference. Inwardly, it was another matter altogether.

Vale had met plenty of elves he liked well enough, though he doubted that any of them would think so well of him. Their race was strange, brutal sometimes and inclined toward violence. Confronted by ten strangers invading his space, an elf shot ten arrows before asking any questions. Yet they could be so wise.

Her nature explained the fascinating hazel eyes he found himself trying to read too often, as well as the feelings he’d extracted from her mind the first time he’d seen her.

No doubt living at court was difficult for her. Trees, water, snow—her blood would constantly be called by the wild, but it wasn’t simply that. Elves weren’t liked, and half-bloods were rarely accepted. The blessing of the unseelie queen wouldn’t have protected her from the cruelty of court. There were nasty whispers trailing her steps when his mother’s back was turned, no doubt.

“A little elfling,” he whispered as a thousand other questions came to mind. Did she have wings? What gift might she have inherited with such an exotic parentage? All he said was “I should have guessed. That explains your wild soul.”

Devi narrowed her eyes defensively, shoving his hand away and taking a step back.

Come to think of it, his words could have been taken as an insult; not just the friendly teasing that had so quickly become their normal, but a nasty affront on her nature. And because she’d no doubt heard millions of slights before, she took it that way.

The disgust and disappointment in her eyes was quite real now. It hit him like a slap in the face.

He should be glad of it. Let her believe he was a snobby, ignorant bigot. Let her believe he thought himself above her because of her blood. Let her believe he was the despicable, useless, spoiled brat this court thought him to be. Every single member of the court needed to carry on thinking exactly that. This was for the best.

“Come on, elfling. If we can’t talk with any degree of civility, let us dance instead.”

“I don't think so,” she replied before turning her back on him and walking away.

Vale watched her for five steps, stunned at first, as he didn't think anyone had ever left him so unceremoniously, and then because the view of her bare back was quite enticing. Regaining his senses, he wished he could dart after her. He wished he could afford for Devira Star Rivers to know him. Know that when he said wild, he meant pure and beautiful, certainly not flawed.

He understood the confusion. Rare were the high fae who shared his beliefs.

Valerius didn’t give a damn about castes, about blood, about inheritance. His home was a haven where all lived as equals.

In the court of night and the rest of the unseelie realm, lesser fae could only work baser professions. Vale had thrown that law in a bonfire; there were lawyers and captains of the guard amongst their race in his court.

He kept it secret for many reasons, the main one being that his rules were technically outlawed. He would have braved the legalese if necessary, but the principal reason why talking of Carvenstone freely wasn’t an option was that, for centuries, his lands had sheltered creatures from each corner of the Isle, those who were hunted, mistrusted elsewhere. Those who’d never had a place to call their home.

There were rogue dragons, dire wolves, sphinxes, centaurs, chimaera, unicorns, griffins, and manticores that called his land their home. All of them were hunted for sport, killed for fun or for gain. If word traveled, they’d never be safe.

There were also elves. Elves who’d wished to leave their realm, and who would not have been welcome anywhere else in the Isle.

Protecting them was his duty and his burden. He’d lied and made himself look like a fool for centuries in order to preserve Carvenstone. No one at court could know—that was the one rule.

She wasn’t worth risking the lives of thousands. She wasn’t, he insisted, repeating his conviction to himself. Thankfully, before he could talk himself into reaching for the female and setting records straight, something caught his eye at one of the side entrances.

Kallan.

Vale allowed himself one last look toward Devi, who'd joined a short, redheaded common fae female in an alcove. The girl looked particularly uninteresting, but he memorized her nonetheless. One of Devi's friends, no doubt.

It cost him to walk away from her right then, but there were pressing matters to attend to.

Later, he told himself.

He turned on his heel and went to Kallan, following him away from the hall and up toward the residential wing. Once they’d reached the tower Valerius had claimed, instead of heading up toward his apartment, they followed the steep corridor leading down to Vale’s dungeons.

It had been a long time since he’d made use of them, other than that one instance two hundred years hence when he’d tied up a pretty young female with heavy breasts.

“You’ve succeeded, then?”

He’d never doubted that Kallan would complete his mission. His friend was a master in the art of moving quietly, without being seen.

“Obviously. Delivery of one common foot soldier, as instructed. Hard nut to crack though, that one.”

Kal pushed the heavy door of a windowless cell open, revealing a high fae.

Shiny armor, polished shoes, not an imperfection on his handsome face. A noble from a lower family, Vale guessed. But a noble who was careful not to show his colors. Like Vale so often did, he wore black from head to toe. That was unusual for a seelie; they were a proud lot, using every occasion to flaunt their heritage if they had cause to boast.

It was obvious that Kallan had started the interrogations, because the high fae’s left hand was nailed to the wall and thick dark blood dripped down along his shining armor.

“I see my second has already shown you the sort of hospitality the unseelie realm shows to uninvited guests,” Valerius said pleasantly.

The high fae laughed. “Nothing you do is going to make me talk, bastard.”

This made Vale pause, then smile, showing all of his teeth. “And yet in those few words, you’ve already told me plenty, guest. There’s only one kind of fae in the Isle who’d think to call me a bastard.”

Something like regret flashed in the male’s eyes.

“You’re not a seelie at all,” Vale deduced. “You come from Corantius. Strange, is it not, that a high fae of the court of crystal would ride alongside the seelie king, and with an entire battalion.”

“I’m not saying—”

“Anything, I know, I know,” Valerius completed, his tone entirely disinterested and more than a little condescending. “That’s what you have to say to pretend that you have balls. At first, in any case. You’ll soon change that tune.” There was pure hatred in the eyes of the Corantian. Vale smirked. “You know me to be a bastard, and I’d wager you know exactly whose blood runs in my veins too?”

Vale’s parentage was no secret, but fae had a way of letting time bury truths.

When he was born, Shea had been in a very public relationship with his father, so all had known whose son he was. Then they’d parted ways at the end of their hundred years binding contract. Vale’s father had returned to his land, and Shea to hers. They’d both taken new consorts, and their short fling had become nothing more than a blip in history. They hadn’t wedded or exchanged vows; no archivist thought to take notice. If historians were to record every relationship greater faes entertained in the course of their long lives, archives would resemble gossip columns.

The overking’s subjects found the fact that their leader had fathered a child from an unseelie fae shameful. Shea said she’d rather not talk of her past lovers. With the elders induced into silence, within a generation, no one knew that Valerius Blackthorn was the son of Orin, the king of Corantius and overking of the four realms.

The waste of air in his dungeon was a fae of the court of crystal, no doubt about it. To the rest of the Isle, Valerius was the dark prince, heir to the unseelie. Only the Corantians thought of him as a disgrace. What the hell was this fae doing here? It made no sense, but there was no doubt in Valerius’s mind that he would find out.

“You’re too weak to make me talk,” the noble said spitefully, attempting to hide his anxiety.

Valerius simply laughed out loud. Devi amused him because she believed herself capable of inflicting a degree of pain upon him, but her mistake was born of ignorance. This fae knew Vale’s power. His denial was nothing short of comical.

“Oh well. I guess we’ll find out, won’t we? Kal, is this floor still soundproof?”

“Yep.”

“Great. Let us begin.”

Mere moments ago, when he'd entered Devi's mind, Vale had done so carefully, coaxing his way in, ensuring that he broke nothing on the way. It had felt like a caress, and still she'd pushed against it, exhausting herself. The moment it might have gotten painful for her, he'd stopped, pulling away.

What occurred now was very different. For one, it wasn’t Vale in charge of his mind. It was the dark prince. The inner beast he usually kept on a leash by preventing himself from using too much of his power. Now he let go of all control. The room darkened around him; his aura, typically quiet and purple, to those who could see these things, became a mist of night and thunder. His eyes shone in the shadow.

The prince was free, and he liked it. He smiled, flashing canines as he lifted his hand and violently crashed against the Corantian’s mind, punching his way in. The prisoner’s body was lifted upward; if it hadn’t been for the chains and the nail keeping his hand in place, he would have been plastered on the ceiling.

The noble was strong, Vale had to give him that. But still, he immediately started to scream, and then he pissed himself while begging and cursing him all at once. The prince was delighted. He unrelentingly pummeled against the walls shielding the fae’s mind, his lips curling a little higher yet. The enemy’s distress had a sweet scent; the powerful feelings fed the prince, enthused him.

Vale barely recognized himself when he let go of his restraint. He turned into a creature with simple needs. Air, water, food—they were nothing. The only thing he desired, the one thing he sought, was power.

Recalling that there was a purpose to his torture took some time. Oh yes, he’d meant to check into the fae’s mind once he’d destroyed his mind and subdued his soul.

The fae’s mind had been altered by someone who knew how to prevent a psychic from looking too deep into relevant information, but Vale still caught flashes, jumbled visions.

A female. A child. A bed. A throne. The throne.

Vale had only visited the court of crystal once, at his father's invitation, over six centuries before, yet he perfectly recalled that imposing throne, inscribed with incredibly fine words in a foreign tongue. He wasn't sure why, but he'd known that the delicate, translucent crystal throne was no simple seat. It held a strange power. A power the dark prince found himself greatly desiring now.

Vale never thought of the throne one way or another before that day. It was his father’s, and it would go to his brother when the overking passed.

Vale understood that. The dark prince didn’t care.

Enough was enough. He’d let the dark prince take over for too long already. Vale slowly, clearly enunciated the spells he used to control his powers in his mind, and reluctantly the dark prince retracted.

Vale released his hold, and the noble immediately passed out, spent.

A sudden and overwhelming fatigue took Vale’s limbs and mind. It had been a long time since he'd let himself embrace the darker part of himself. He supposed that, like any muscle, his shields became rusty when he didn't flex them. Reining himself in had taken some effort. He needed rest. Food. Water.

But his needs would have to wait. The fact that they'd found a Corantian within their walls needed to be reported to the queen immediately.

“Let me know when he wakes up?”

“You got it,” Kal replied. He hesitated before asking, “Are you okay?”

Kal knew what it cost Vale to use his power that way. Torturing the mind of an enemy, all the while feeling everything his victim endured, was a curse. It didn’t bother the dark prince at all while he did it, but Vale was left with consequences. Each time he did so, part of his soul suffered for it.

Vale was painfully aware of Kal’s concern: his second wondered if someday, Vale might lose his apathy and become the beast he used.

And if he was honest, Vale didn’t believe the concern was unfounded.

Carvenstone was his anchor to the world, the one thing that allowed him to hang on. He was determined to protect it—even from himself, if necessary.

Vale sighed. “It needs to be done.” This was no reply, and Kallan knew it. “I’ll be at my mother’s if he wakes within the hour. Then I’ll try to catch some rest. Get Beck and that damn poser, Drake, to guard him in turn. Only those two. I wouldn’t trust anyone else.”