Page 23 of Bound to the Shadow Prince

Carefully, I put the candles back down and decide to search the tower again. I go over my room as best I can, handspan by handspan, shaking out every dress and blanket. Still nothing. It’s not until after I head out of my quarters to go search the kitchens that a new idea occurs to me.

What if Nemeth took it?

He was indignant that I touched his food, after all. What if he stole my knife as some sort of petty revenge? I pause on the stairs and then sit on the landing to his floor. I’ve never explored it or even stopped here, not after that first day. He made it clear that the first floor belonged to him, and I’ve done my best to honor that and give him space.

Not today, I decide.

Hands out, I feel in the darkness, hunting for the door to his quarters. His floor should be laid out similar to mine?—

A squeak of distress escapes me when my hands run into something hard and unyielding…and warm. Skin. Nemeth’s chest. I draw back, biting my lip.

“What are you doing on my floor?” he asks, tone ominous.

“I’m looking for my knife. Did you take it?”

“Why would I take your knife?”

“Because it’s magic. And because it’s mine, and you know it would bother me if you stole it.”

There’s a pause. “You said you didn’t have magic.”

“I don’t. I do, however, have a magic knife.”

“What sort of magic?”

I sputter. “I’m not going to tell you.”

“Then I’m not going to tell you if I have it.”

Infuriating, horrible man. No, not a man, acreature. “So you did steal it. Why?”

“I didn’t say that.” He puts his hands on my shoulders and spins me around. “Ten steps ahead of you are the stairs down. You should go. You don’t belong on this floor.”

I brace my feet, my stubborn nature rising. “I’m not going anywhere until you give me back my knife.”

He tries to guide me forward, but I push back. Nemeth clearly wasn’t expecting that response, because I smack into his bare chest again, and he grabs my shoulders, pinning me in place so I don’t topple in the darkness. It’s like he’s pinning me against his body, and I breathe hard, thinking about the naughty questions I asked the knife. If Nemeth touched himself to me. If Nemeth touched himself to me often.

Yes,andyes.

“Is this all a ploy to get me here to your chambers?” I ask, voice wobbling. “Are you so lonely that you can’t simply ask for company? You have to resort to stealing?”

With a disgusted sound, he pushes me away from him. That warm presence at my back is gone, and I’m adrift in the endless black. I automatically put my hands up in front of me, trying to find a wall. “You flatter yourself,” Nemeth says. “And I didn’t take your paltry knife.”

“Fine,” I call out. “No need to be nasty about it. Prick.”

I take a step forward, only to be lifted off my feet as if I weigh nothing, and then am set back down again, facing a different direction. A low, silky voice murmurs in my ear, “You’d fall down the stairs if you kept on as you were.”

Oh. My skin prickles with awareness at his kindness in moving me, at the easy way he hauled me into the air, but most of all, that deep, decadent voice in my ear.

Then he ruins it.“A smart woman would be looking for her lost belongings with a candle lit, instead of accusing her neighbor.”

Disgusted, I make a face at the shadows and find the wall, leaving with as much dignity as I can.

Chapter

Seventeen

Isearch all day and still don’t find my knife. I give up at bedtime, a candle for the briefest of moments so I can administer the injection of my medicine, and then blow it out again. That quick glance shows me that I’m low on my potion, and I’m going to need to make a fire. I’m going to have to burn my sled, and then I’ll be out of wood, just as I’ll be out of candles.

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