Page 210 of Settle Down, Princess

“Feeling bold because you’re wearing the blood of your enemies?” He smirked at the marks Jessalyn had left. “That doesn’t mean you’ll end up wearing mine.”

“It’s my blood,” I corrected.

“Good, because you’ll end up with a lot more of it on you before this is done.”

I was falling backwards the moment I heard his tone shift, my head jerking away as his knife sliced through the air. I felt the breeze against my skin, my heart pounding for a second until I realised that was all I felt. My own knives were up and in my hands, my body snapping back and ducking under his guard to slice out. Fabric parted with a sigh, but not his flesh. My other hand followed the first, the knife finding the channel I’d cut and then sliding through it, successful this time.

You never forgot the feeling of a blade cutting through flesh. The resistance to the knife’s edge is completely different, considerably more dense than even the padded jacket my father wore, but I didn’t have time to dwell. I was forced to twist through the air, throwing myself sideways to avoid his downward strike.

“I thought sending you to play at being a soldier would make you sharper, but it’s made you sloppier,” Father announced, his weight on the balls of his feet, ready to attack.

His words washed over me. There was a time I lived and died by his approval, but that moment was long gone. Instead, I just watched his lips move as if he was speaking another tongue, my eyes focused much more intently on his body language. There it was, that slight tensing of his torso. His right shoulder was rising, announcing that was the hand he would strike with, so it made no sense for me to lurch in that direction, did it?

Ha.

My father announced nothing to anyone, not unless he wanted you to see it, so I took it as given that wasn’t the direction he would strike from and I was partially right. His first strike came from the left, but he swung wide in an attempt to still hit me, forcing me to twist my spine as far as it would go to take advantage of his now bared ribs. My blade punched down, sliding between two of them, but too far down to do any real damage. That left my entire back free and unprotected. His lips formed a snarl, his eyes shining as he raised his other knife, ready for a downward strike. If he hit right he’d puncture my spine, my heart and all of this would be for nothing, so I jerked my knife free and spun away.

Only to feel the white hot burn of his knife as I sliced my shoulder and arm.

It wasn’t a bad cut. If it were, I wouldn’t have felt anything at all, the nerves severed as I bled out. Instead I felt the sluggish drip of blood from my fingertips, then focused on his. The muscles along the ribs didn’t respond well to abuse. I watched his breath hitch, his weight shift to his left, wanting to ease the burden on his injured side, right before he nodded.

“So you haven’t forgotten everything I taught you.” He started to move slowly around the training ground floor and I mimicked his moves. “Focusing on honour and protecting the country hasn’t blunted all of your instincts. Perhaps you are ready to take over from me.”

“In a pig’s eye,” I replied, but there was no heat in my voice.

The burn of the cut was the only thing I felt as everything else was scrubbed away. I’d learned to mask my feelings around my father years ago, because any admission could and would be used against you. It didn’t feel good to fall back into that flat affect, but there was nothing else for it. I’d never survive this attempt to end him, never mind achieve my goal, if I let him get in my head.

Which was precisely why he started talking.

“Don’t remember telling you to fall in love with one of your marks though, did I?”

I didn’t respond to his words or his sly smile. There was no point in denying what I felt for Jessalyn. He knew, I knew that I was in love with her, and all that was left was to ensure he could never touch her again.

“Not such a bad thing, getting close to a princess, but how will that work? Get to snuffle around her skirts when she sits on the queen’s throne beside the Bastard, will you? Her obedient little lap dog. The courtiers won’t like that, will they? What if she bears a son with hair of coal, not gold? Once the threat on the border is resolved and everything calms down, you’ll be right back where you were.”

I saw the gleam of gold in his teeth as his grin widened.

“The son of a whore and thief. Not good enough to father a king. Not good enough to even touch the hem of the queen’s skirts, let alone squirm your way under them.”

“Shut up,” I said, my first mistake.

“Doesn’t matter what the wolf shifters say, that you’re a puppy pile–” he said with a sneer.

“A pack,” I corrected.

“They don’t give a shit about what the wolf shifters think, despite the fact we’d never be able to hold this land without them. Mark my words, boy…”

He watched me stiffen, his eyes shining with amusement.

“You’ll be out of your ear before either one of them gets a crown placed on your head.”

“So we’ll walk away.” I stepped closer, which was in itself an insult. It made clear the fact that I didn’t consider him a real threat, despite his skill. “From all of it. That never even occurred to you, did it?” I lowered my weapons, watching his smile be replaced by real rage. Find the motivation throbbing in a mark’s heart and then exploit it, he’d told me. Well I was about to do that now. “Because that’s the only way you can comprehend the world, through a series of selfish, venal actions. Why did you steal Jessalyn from the camp, when we had taken pains to keep her out of this?”

“Keep her out of this?” He shook his head then turned on a dime, striking out at me. I watched the knife sail through the air, then his other one, but moved out of their paths. “There would be no revolution without the girl, so how could you expect me to leave a pretty thing like that where you stashed her?”

He danced backwards, in anticipation of retaliation, but I didn’t move. Get ’em talking, Father had said one training session. People couldn’t resist an opportunity to tell their side of the story, allowing you the chance to get the drop on them, I just never expected that to be true of my father.

“I thought for sure you lot would get all heroic once you discovered the fate of the first princess,” he continued. “At the very least the second, but you just turned a blind eye.”

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