Page 9 of Nightingale

A prisoner Princess, that’s what she was.

And that’s what they made her look like.

There were thin bangles on her wrists and three rings on each hand, alternating fingers. A long necklace dipped down the front of her with three pearls that clattered against the chained belts.

She understood why they dressed her like this.

Vrea had been bred for war, honed into a weapon and pounded into a deadly thing like a sword on a blacksmith’s anvil. For once, they wanted to make sure that she was at a disadvantage. There was nowhere that she could conceal a weapon on her figure, not with how much skin was on display. And even if she somehow got her hands on one, the range of mobility was limited thanks to the amount of jewellery they clad her in.

A rap of knuckles sounded on her door.

It opened a second later and the Prince Regent entered, similarly dressed in a garnet tunic that showed off his toned torso, with a weft of blue fabric tossed over his shoulder. Suddenly Vrea wondered if the design hadn’t been meant to show her off, buthisfavourite parts ofhimselfinstead.

He wore the clothes well.

“You look splendid.” Brioc extended his bicep for her to takeand she timidly accepted it. “We’re going to have a wonderful time together, Vrea.”

She highly doubted that.

Four

Vrea couldn’t recall much from the first night.

Or the second.

Everything had gone by in a decadent blur of boring, bland things and she could only drag small things out of her memory.

Castil’s occasional, bored scan of her with a disapproving glare of her clothes as if he found her to be distasteful. She could agree with him there. Rian on the other hand, kept smirking at her for the first hour of the evening, observing every curve to the point where she had a hard time focusing on anything other than the way his blue eyes dipped to her breasts, the thinness of the panel obvious.

Brioc had been true to his word and asked his father for her limited freedom, which he’d unsurprisingly turned down without a second to even consider it thoroughly. He’d apologised to her in return and the rest of the evening had been sat in a stewing silence. In turn, Brioc had spent most of it speaking with the handsome ambassador’s son who had been placed directly beside him.

It gave her enough of a view to see the wandering hands that followed underneath the lace tablecloth and the hardness ofbothmen as they continued their promiscuous activities. She tried her best to ignore it, even if the show provoked a little fire of her own in her core.

It had been years.

With no one to warm her bed.

Vrea took her own pleasure sometimes, in the middle of the night when she was desperate enough. Doing that sort of activity here of all places, turned her arousal into a seedy displeasure that usually doused said fire. Then the occasional nights when even that couldn’t put it out, she allowed a rest. It provided her a bit of a respite, even if she longed for something more. But that was an issue that couldn’t be solved until she was free of this place.

She wouldn’t dare sleep with Brioc, mostly because he held no interest in her sort. He’d told her she was lovely and complimented her often enough that she believed him, but he found beauty in a different way than most men did. Which was why the compliments seemed genuine, instead of the slimy sentiments that some of the guards tried to send her way in order to remove her gown. Brioc wasn’t bad to look at with his ochre eyes that were harsh, and his short black hair that he kept mostly cropped to his skull. His skin was darker, perhaps the darkest out of all of them save for Rian.

His younger brother was a few shades darker than Castil, and it was clear that they all came from different mothers.

Regulus was the very last choice, and she would rather die than let him touch her anywhere. He was known far and wide for his promiscuity, for the amount of women that often left his chambers and the men that soon entered afterwards. It seemed as though the second Prince could never get enough of sex, and didn’t want to. His shoulder-length golden hair varied into the brown side whenever winter came about, darkening it to a shade that was often likened to nutmeg. Even his green eyes were darker, nearing olive.

That left Castil and Rian.

The dusk and the dawn, the moon and the sun in comparisonto each other.

Castil was pale, lapidary in his sharp features and silent ways. His hair nearly reached his tall waist with the long, white-blond length of it and his icy grey eyes were observing, as if they saw everything. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen in her entire life, including his youngest sibling who wasn’t far behind him. He rarely spoke at these events and if he did, it was something quiet and clever. It was obvious to Vrea that his father detested him the most out of all his children, though the reason wasn’t in plain sight.

Rian was a scoundrel.

He often lazily rested incorrectly in his chairs and drank goblet after goblet of wine and water, countering the effects of the previous. Each Prince had brought their own bottle to enjoy as if they never trusted each other to pour them a glass without conflict or poison. He laughed and ate and engaged in silly discussions with those around him. For the first night, he’d slicked his red hair back in a style that didn’t suit him. His warm-toned skin had been brushed with a similar powder to her own and he sent a sly wink in her direction as she’d been seated beside him on her other side. For the first hour, he was brazen, bold with his appreciation.

For the other five hours, he didn’t exchange a single sentence with her, or even look at her again.

It bothered her, for some reason.

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