Page 48 of Fae Crown

12.MY ONLY SAFE HARBOR

RUSH

After all I’d endured at the hands of the queen, whittling away the hours in her company and that of her ladies shouldn’t have been that difficult. I shouldn’t have had to continuously remind myself not to allow my irritation to crack the careful mask I had to keep in place.

I’d already revealed too much of my true intentions to her. She knew my brothers and I had been in the bowels of the palace and discovered the dragons she kept prisoner there. She had to know the only reason I did a damn thing she wanted was because I couldn’t lose another sister. Larissa was my responsibility, and I’d already let down Ramana in the most devastating way possible.

I couldn’t now risk the one chance I had at becoming crown prince of this forsaken kingdom. I was so close to achieving my goal. I had a duty to allof faekind to see the Mirror World returned to what King Spiro intended it to be all those centuries ago.

So I tamped down my revulsion and smiled graciously at her and the ladies. I pretended not to recall, in the kind of vivid, hideous detail that reverberated down to my very fucking bones, how the night before the queen had forced my body for herentertainment. She’d reduced me, a drake who led an entire clan, who was responsible for the well-being of countless fae and their families, to an unwillingwhore.

While we waited for the first round of contestants to emerge from the doorways that hovered ominously behind her throne, I nibbled on finger foods and sipped at overly sweet sunrise spirits without tasting them. I was no longer cordoned off. I had been encouraged to mingle, and now I longed for the safety of that shadow rope. At least behind it, I didn’t have to pretend quite as much. No one dared approach me atop my isolated chair, save for one.

Elowyn.

I’d only just met her, and yet … Elowyn was different from the others. She called to something inside me even when I knew she shouldn’t. She’d been my only safe harbor the night before. My shame was worse for knowing she’d witnessed how I hadn’t fought the queen. How I’d joined her in her bed when she’d asked. How I’d fucked her though I’d feared my dick would rot from the contact with her putrid, nasty-ass cunt.

I’d had enough disappointments to last me, andalready it was obvious the queen would choose Natania to be my bride. There was no point in hoping for anything else—for anyoneelse. What I wanted had no value in the queen’s plans. And so it wouldn’t in mine either.

Occasionally, Azariah would meet my gaze across the great salon. Although he looked away quickly, I still recognized the skittish apprehension of a fellow prisoner. He and I might not be caged as were the captives in the dungeons several levels beneath our feet, but we didn’t have our freedom any more than they did.

Even the king was her prisoner. And Ivar and Braque too, though they trotted after her with adoration radiating off them like freaking sunbeams.

“I think something’s happening,” Malina squeaked excitedly, and though I tried to stop it before it happened, a recollection of how she’d squeaked in the midst of sexual pleasure accosted me.

Quickly, I pinned my attention on the doorways, eerie for their centers, so dark they looked capable of devouring a person’s essence and never returning it. Seeking to banish the memories of so many of these females, naked and eager for me, panting like beasts in heat, I studied every single detail of the doorways as if they were the most fascinating things I’d ever seen in my entire life.

“Aye, something’s moving inside that one,” another of them exclaimed. I hardly knew this one’s name and title, and yet the pitch of her voice, excited as it was, conjured yet another flashback: her, staring up atme with a ravenous smile across a face I’d blurred out even then, hands wrapped around my dick.

Like a languid animal, the queen uncrossed her legs and unfurled herself from her throne. On her way to the gateways, she pointed a predatory smile at me. I returned it but shivered inside. How many times would I have toentertainher and her ladies before she was sated? Before she grew bored of my torment?

Once the queen stood across from the first doorway, Natania emerged from it so quickly I suspected she’d run through it. Her hair, a ridiculous pile of shocking red coils, had come undone in places. Her dress was askew, her skirts separating from her corset, and a bite mark was a bright bloody red along one forearm. Whatever creature had chomped on her, its mandible was no larger than a feethle’s.

Eyes as jittery as Azariah’s, the countess stumbled to a stop in front of the queen to dip into a curtsy.

The queen beamed at her even as she delayed in allowing her to rise.

Eventually the queen flicked lazy fingers at her and said, “I expected you to be first to complete the opening event of our Nuptialis Probatio, and how nice it is to have my expectations met without incident for once.”

The queen looked at me over her shoulder.

Was she … was the bitch implying my “performance” the night before hadn’t met herexpectations?

I actually ached from the effort it required not to react to her insult—taunt?—I wasn’t sure what it was other than completely infuriating. Had she trulybelieved I would be excited about her defiling me? If so, she was more delusional than I’d imagined.

She turned her attention back on Natania, and even facing her back I struggled not to swipe a butterknife from a table and hack at her until she was an unrecognizable pile of parts.

Ivar’s stare zeroed in on me. I schooled my features into blankness in case they gave me away. The man was too sharp. Braque was smarter than he looked, but no real danger. Ivar was a different story. For years I’d tried to take his measure, and still didn’t believe I’d succeeded. If any courtier were capable of surprising me, it was he.

“Come, Natania,” the queen was calling over her shoulder as she sauntered back to her throne, the female following her trailing train at a respectable distance. “Tell me all about your experience so that I may best judge you.”

At least the queen was no longer pretending she did anything but that.

“The rest of you…” The queen addressed the horde of attentive females anticipating their turns. “One of you go through now that a door is open. The rest of you, you’ll retire to the Silver Salon of Rarities and Curiosities to enjoy the exhibit I’ve prepared for you until you’re called.”

I’d never witnessed the countess so nervous as she stood at attention across from the queen, waiting until the other women obediently disappeared. Once she resumed speaking, her hands fluttered—anunladylike habit I was certain her mother, the dowager countess, would condemn if she were present.

“Well, Your Majesty … I’m not sure where to start, other than to say it’s quite lovely on the other side of that door, the one I went through anyway. The darkness intimidated me before I passed through it, but I found myself in a pleasant meadow, the kind common in Bendisantos, where I enjoy taking picnics whenever I’m there.”

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