Page 17 of Bound to the Shadow Prince

Frankly, I’m bored enough to let him look.

“I’m not here to play your games,” the green-eyed shadow tells me.

Sure you’re not.I shrug and cup another handful of water over my breasts. Why is it that I feel in control of my situation and in my element for the first time since I’ve arrived to this hellish tower? Is it because he’s a man and I know how to manipulate men? Or have I truly lost my wits?

Both, I decide.

I continue to bathe myself, rubbing my limbs with the cool water. When I glance up, the shadowy form is still there. “Forsomeone who claims he doesn’t want to play my games, you aren’t doing a very good job of convincing me.”

“You said I am not a man,” he all but snarls at me. “When you spoke to your friend, you implied I was not a man. You think I am a demon? A monster? A malevolent creature who will suck your soul out if you meet my gaze?” His tone changes to insulting and dismissive. “Like the rest of your backwards kingdom?”

“I confess I don’t know what you are,” I admit cheerfully. “Seeing as you’re always hiding in the shadows and looming. What am I supposed to think?”

“I think you’re an immodest, immoral creature.”

“Says the creature interrupting my bath,” I retort. “How many times have I interrupted yours?”

He snarls at me, his clothing rustling with an angry flap, and for a moment, I’m afraid. Whoever this Fellian is, he has a temper. And yet, he’s still here. Perhaps I’m not as safe as I thought. Goosebumps prickle over my skin and I rub them away with a brisk motion of my hand. He watches that motion, too, and when I look over, those green eyes are still watching me from the shadows.

I arch a brow in his direction. Well?

The eyes narrow and I get the impression that he’s angry at me. “We are a people of the shadows,” he finally says, tone stiff.

“Well, I am not,” I say, sitting up in the tub. It makes my wet breasts bounce and sway, and his gaze dips to them again. Truly, all men are the same wherever one goes. “So come into the candlelight if you’re going to talk to me,” I say. “Or else go away.”

I truly expect him to disappear. For those eyes to just wink out and vanish and to leave me alone with my bath.

Instead, the Fellian’s gaze hardens, his eyes gleaming bright, and he takes a step forward. Then another.

And he comes fully into the flickering light of my candle.

I swallow hard at the sight of him.

I’ve never seen a Fellian for myself. I know their kingdom exists on the edges of ours, and that there was once a thriving trade agreement back in the days when the Vestalin line was upon the throne. I’ve heard that the kingdom of Darkfell is mostly underground, inside hollow mountains and winding caves. I’ve also heard that they are devils, so hideous and unholy to look upon that they avoid the Absent God’s light. I always thought those were foolish rumors, but as the stranger steps forward, I realize that not all of the stories told are lies.

He does look like a monster.

The green eyes glittering in his face are the only hint of color, and even those are almost drowned by the black sclera that surround them. The Fellian seems to be made entirely of grays and blacks. His skin is nothing but deep gray muscle, and his features are not entirely human. His oversized hands are tipped with thick, deadly claws and his feet are bare, tipped with the same claws and formed awkwardly, a bit like an eagle’s. His knees bend backward, his thighs heavy and obscured by the leather kilt at his hips—the only piece of clothing he wears. He crosses his arms over his chest and glares down at me, and his upper body is far more massive than any human knight’s.

Not even his face is truly human. His features are hard planes, his nose large and prominent and jutting down from his heavy brow like a blade. His jaw is heavy, too, his mouth wide. If he was a sculpture, I’d say he’d been carved with a heavy, angry hand and instead of using soft marble, he went for unforgiving granite.

There’s no hair upon his head, either. Instead, rising from his scalp where his hair should be, dozens of curving horns arch back, like a mane blowing back from his face into an unseen wind. Something ripples behind him, heavy and dark, and the sound of fabric rustles again…except I realize now that it’s not fabric at all.

He’s not human. Not even close.

“Behold,” he says flatly. “Your enemy.”

“Are those wings?” I ask, leaning over the edge of the tub and my breasts plumping against the metal side. Here I thought he’d had a cloak and all this time he had strange, leathery-looking wings. “Are you part bat?”

The snarl he directs my way is utterly scathing. “Why would I be a bat?”

“You have leathery wings and you live in a cave. “Shouldn’t that make you a bat?” I taunt.

He focuses his angry gaze at me. “You live in the sunlight and walk on the ground. Does that make you a pig?”

My jaw drops. I splash at him, indignant, but he simply steps aside. “That was insufferably rude.”

“Don’t ask stupid questions and you won’t get rude answers.”

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