Page 27 of Heir to His Court

Darkan, you can say I told you so.

This time, he didn’t reply. He didn’t offer me the illusion. I needed the illusion of Darkan. Desperately.

“I’m here, Rinne,” he said, the gentleness in his voice as cutting as the calm. “I never left you.”

I was the definition of a fool. Dancing and talking and flirting as if there was a single chance in the realms that somehow I could navigate a future where the Prince of Everenne, High Lord of House Montague, shared my vision of a modern, at peace and human integrated city.

As if there were not a Vow I’d rashly made, and an Ancient who wanted to take over my body biding her time before the next attack.

As if there was any hope for me to have alifenow. I’d drawn the gaze of an Old One, however inadvertently, and at least two Ancients. My life was over.

“Your life is not over.” Patience, his infernal patience.

It infuriated me that he was so intent on his game of seduction that he’d allowed me to daydream, even for an hour. What did he care? If I was a fool it only ushered me into his bed faster. Renaud was a hunter, a predator, a warrior intent on claiming a female he’d marked as his. He’d use every tool in his arsenal to bring me to heel, to coax me into submission.

“Do you truly think,” he said in his measured tone that sounded like a slap, “that I would sacrifice your mental equilibrium for conquest? You are my bonded.”

He sounded so much like Darkan talking me through a spiral, that my nursed anger dissipated.

“No,” I said. But Renaud hadn’t forgotten for one second about my Vow or the consequences if I reneged on it. “That doesn’t mean you aren’t playing me.”

“I have no need to play you. I would have to fear you, and fear is not, at this time, required. Perhaps in a thousand years, but not now.”

I moved, but his hands were around my wrists a flash later, slamming my arms over my head.

“Listen to me, as I despise repeating myself. You made a Vow.” His expression hardened. “Vows are not insurmountable.”

“Not if I fulfill it.” My family didn’t know, and I was going to have to tell them. This was the second strike.

Three, and you’re out, Nora had said.

He shrugged a shoulder, the movement impatient, dismissive. “Live as long as I have, look back and count how many Vows you survived, and then we will discuss the parameters of fulfillment. Your Vow was poorly worded, Aerinne. So poorly worded that—” he stopped, then shrugged again. “I would put you out of your misery, but then I would deprive you of a good lesson, and myself the petty revenge for you daring to defy me in such a fashion.” His eyes paled to gray. “This is another lesson for you, my halfling. I may love you, but I am not above malice. I warned you to be careful how you handled me. I can be your enemy, or your ally—but in either case, I am yours. Choose how you will have me, but have me you will.”

I stared at him, understanding two things which lit a slow ember of fury, pushing aside encroaching depression. One, there was a way around killing him—and of course he would say that, because I assumed he did not want to die. Two, he was going to let me suffer because he was, after all, Raniel, and Raniel’s entire philosophy of teaching was to let the faelings learn the hardest way possible, short of actual death.

“You bastard.”

My bonded smiled at me. “Do you feel better now?”

But. . .this was a fairly clear-cut Vow. I’d Vowed to kill him. I failed to see the loopholes.

I strained against his hands and he released me. I sat up, sliding off the bed, giving him my back as I went to my window in an effort to not launch at him and wrap my hands around his throat.

“Get out.”

He knew, heknewhow to end this slow Vow torture, and he refused to tell me. I’d forgotten how much I couldhateRaniel.

“You will learn, Aerinne Kuthliele, not to speak to me thus.”

The even cold in his voice warned, all the more because I was a snowball, and he was an avalanche. I didn’t care.

I hated feeling weak, insignificant. As if I had no hope of holding my own against him. “And what will I learn, Raniel Threnvanne Sanyelle? Lord of Avellonne, General of Ninephe?”

Another fragment, another wisp without context. Behind me, his stillness, and then, “As you wish, Lady.”

The Prince was gone, leaving behind a chill scented with blackberries and forest and the bitter frost of his deep anger.

I was not a fool. I did not delude myself into thinking that “As you wish” was anything but, “Be careful what you ask for.” He reminded me of his grandmother. Fitting.

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