Page 63 of Dare

“Then you entertain them,” I remarked. “You’re used to feral things, are you not?”

Water sprayed in my direction and smacked my profile. I jolted, wiped the droplets from my eyes, and peered at the beast as she lowered her kicking foot back into the pool.

“Oops,” she chirped. “Apologies, Your Highness. How clumsy of me.”

The assault achieved two things. One, unadulterated retaliation. Two, it encouraged the horses to flit around me with increasing enthusiasm, having mistaken the splash for an invitation to revel.

Refusing to engage, I slit my eyes at the creatures. “Be still.”

The tone of my voice accomplished the rest. The seahorses gave up and vacated the premises. Once they’d fled, silence filled the cavern, apart from water lashing against the rocks.

The beast feigned interest in the ceiling. Obscured from the waist down, I reclined against several tiers of rock and bracketed my elbows on its grooves. “Such bravado. Yet now you avoid the sight of my body. That’s out of character and Season for you.”

That did it. Her gaze swatted toward me. “I’m surprised you care.”

“I question everything a fool does. A second ago, you displayed the immodesty of a whore.”

She raised a sarcastic eyebrow. “Tell me all about whores, if you know so much.”

Frankly, she would get a more illuminating answer from Poet. I had no experience with courtesans. Nevertheless, a sudden thought lanced through my mind. The possibility set my teeth on edge, particularly when I recalled how the tower guards had handled the beast, then leered at her thighs in the courtyard.

Rage spiked my tongue. “Did any of them touch you in that tower?”

Her eyebrows crinkled. “Do I look like someone who’d have let them?”

No, she did not. My claws retracted. “Based on your countermove with my knife in the castle quad, as well as the mayhem from last night, you don’t fit the description of an inexperienced female. Though dry-humping a cock and seeing it in the flesh are two different circumstances. Is that why you turned away?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I didn’t want to lose my appetite. And by the way, I know what a cock looks like. Living in a cage doesn’t mean I was sheltered.”

Not sheltered. What the fuck did that mean?

I couldn’t say what got under my skin more. Her insolence or the implication that her knowledge of sex exceeded mine.

A warning snaked from my lips. “Be careful how you respond to me. I’m keeping track of everything you say and do. Plus, every way in which I’ll seek retribution once we get to Winter.”

“By the time that happens, it’s going to be a very long list.”

“Precisely,” I said, my voice husky from the bath.

The beast swung her legs in the water. “I don’t know much about Winter, but I do recall there being two queens who outrank you. Who says you’d be the one calling the shots?”

“My grandaunts have other pressing matters. They rarely deal with the born. That jurisdiction falls to me.”

Her scowl could have lit a furnace. “So they condone torture. The icicle doesn’t fall far from the glacier.”

“Do not speak ill of them,” I gritted.

That gave her pause. Her eyelashes flapped as if she’d spotted a chink. Slanting her head, the beast stared for a solid thirty seconds until I shifted.

“What?” I demanded.

“They matter to you,” she mused. “Everyone says the Prince of Winter has a frozen heart, yet you sound protective.”

My jaw went rigid. I glanced sideways, hating to appear transparent. Nonetheless, I looped my eyes back to hers. “I am not ashamed to value my kin more than my station.”

Curiosity alighted her features. Her mouth softened. “Are you supposed to be ashamed?”

I wavered. Some inconceivable force had compelled me to speak. Although I would defend my grandaunts to the death, I also didn’t like this beast thinking poorly of them.

---