Page 6 of Dare

Our limited history had prepared me for a fight. What I hadn’t expected was her stunt with that vine, nor for her to leave me soaking in an icy creek like fodder for the carnivores. I had nearly fractured my wrists trying to break free. At which point, the knights from my security detail had located me. As usual, my absence had been noticed.

My temple throbbed. She would not escape me a second time.

Nailing my features in place, I stepped into the infirmary. Courtiers, dignitaries, and commoners in various states of pain lay atop thin cots. Charred forearms. Blistered flesh. Gashes. Contusions. Stab wounds. So much for this kingdom’s alleged pacifism. Dignity aside, if this nation had practiced a shred of indifference instead of leaning toward softer emotions—trifling inclinations such as tenderness—tonight’s mayhem would not have transpired. The populace would have been equipped to control their disillusioned reactions once those limits had been compromised.

No matter their sovereign’s transgressions, Winter would not have succumbed to pandemonium. I wouldn’t have allowed it.

The castle blackout, then the subsequent riot instigated by Summer’s tempestuous and bumbling excuse for a king, had left many wounded. Blood splattered the floor. A man wailed as a physician jiggled an arrow from his stomach. Were it not for this scene, I’d still be searching for that tiny fugitive.

When I got my hands on her, she would suffer. I would punish her slowly, thoroughly.

Images of mad fools howling from surgical tables occupied my head like a portfolio—an index of memories. Picking their fingernails out with tongs. Sawing off an ear. Testing droplets of an erosive liquid on their oculi and calibrating how long it took for the sockets to disintegrate. Painstaking experiments that had nonetheless yielded a stockpile of effective remedies.

She would know this anguish. In the near future, I would inflict my skills on her until she yielded. Until she became unequivocally mine.

When next we met, I would not hold back. No matter how brightly those combustible eyes glowed, no matter what volcanic expression she hurled my way, and no matter how her fucking body felt burning against mine. I would not succumb to her.

A cacophony of screams and moans engulfed the infirmary. Shrugging off my coat, I tossed the vestment onto a stool, then rolled up my sleeves and washed my hands in a basin. Despite the numbers of patients hemorrhaging, I stalked toward a pallet where a boy whimpered under the ministrations of a healer.

Correction. An inexperienced practitioner, judging by his hesitant profile. And while patience was a strength, I drew the line at incompetence and indecision.

Approaching the juvenile’s bedside, I tossed the novice an imperious look. “Move.”

The man gulped, backing up as I assessed the boy’s shoulder, the scalded flesh black and flaky. Expedient annoyance crept up my spine. I narrowed my eyes at the inferior idling next to me, my presence having drawn an audience of additional physicians. They had gathered to observe, to witness the genius Prince of Winter in his element.

My eyes tapered into shards. I swatted my chin toward the surplus of patients. “What the fuck are you waiting for?”

They blanched with shame, then scattered like vermin. Much better.

The boy wore the livery of a stablehand. He sobbed quietly as I knelt to inspect his arm. The sleeve would have to go, to reach the wounds adhering to the fabric. Inconveniently, this court lacked enough anesthesia to treat this number of people at once. Thus, critical procedures took priority.

I arched my gaze to the boy. “Are you brave?”

“I hope so,” he sniveled.

Sufficient enough. I twisted and retrieved a pair of shears from an adjacent tray. “This will hurt,” I informed him. “A lot.”

The child nodded, sank his teeth into the branch I provided, and lifted his chin. As I cut into the fabric and pried it from the burns, his yellow irises gleamed in defiance of what had to be pure anguish. Fierce. Impressive. Like someone else I’d met.

A hiss pressed against my mouth. No more. She had caused me enough obsessive upheaval.

After finishing with the boy, I spent until dawn making the rounds. One of the patients bucked and yowled as I carved through his calf. He took it worse than born souls did on my surgical table, though their mutilations were usually worse.

For fuck’s sake. With exasperation flaring my nostrils, I waved a hand to an assistant. “Silence him.”

After that, the wad stuffed in the patient’s mouth made things easier. By morning, crimson stained my hands and soaked into my clothes.

On the way to my suite, two figures passed through a lower level. Halting at a mezzanine railing, I trained my gaze on the pair, their bodies magnetized to one another as they moved in the opposite direction below. Battered and exhausted, the man slid one possessive arm around his woman, tucking her into him.

Poet. Briar.

They did not speak yet somehow didn’t need to. The jester and princess excelled in communicating with each other through mere looks, disguising their thoughts in a private manner no one could translate.

Clever. Irksome.

Not long ago, the Court Jester of Spring and Princess of Autumn had triggered a shitstorm by pledging themselves to one another. Poet had been Spring’s secret weapon. With a silver tongue bred for dark ridicule and a face that would make a deity jealous, the jester had been the continent’s most idolized and feared celebrity, not to mention its most desired fuck toy. Not only a performer, advisor, and whore, but an influential pain in the ass.

A treasonous one as well, with a simpleton son. Apparently, this hadn’t mattered to Briar. She’d claimed the child as her own once she and Poet made their controversial affair known, then brought her new family to Autumn.

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