Page 10 of The Winter Prince

“Very well.”

Revi braced himself. “That also means not joining us for dinner.”

At that Enlo bristled. He opened his mouth and then snapped it shut with a click of his teeth. This time the smile he gave looked a little bit more like a baring of fangs. “What’s missing a few dinners. For ayear. I’ll just eat in the kitchen with the staff.”

Revi sank his claws deeper into the carpet, but before he could say anything else, Enlo stood. “It’s a wise suggestion, cousin. Of course I’ll honor it. I, Enloras, will not seek out the human.” The words threaded with the magic that always accompanied a promise made with a name.

Any animosity that Revi had almost certainly imagined vanished as Enlo gave Revi another sly grin. “I’m glad to see you’re taking this so seriously. I look forward to hearing all about how the wooing goes.”

Revi swallowed a growl. He had no illusions about how anywooingwould go. He’d rather have to fight a hundredzruyeds.

Chapter 6

Revi

Kiennawasalreadywaitingwhen Revi reached the dining room that evening. He could smell her from the hallway. Her spicy floral notes—and her fear. It raked against his beast instincts.

Might as well get it over with. Revi stalked into the room. Kienna sat near the end of the table where dishes of food had already been laid out. It wasn’t a full feast by Elyri standards—the dwindling food stores wouldn’t allow that, but there was more than usual. It seemed the chef wanted to impress the human.

Zoya hovered near the wall behind her.

“You may leave,” Revi snapped in their tongue, and Zoya dropped to a quick bow and hurried from the room. Kienna watched her go with wide eyes. He could hear her swallow as she switched her gaze to him, then her sharp intake of breath. He prowled the length of the room, catching his reflection in the dark windows that spanned one wall. A giant silver-white wolf stared back, his eyes—not those of the canine, but of an Elyri or human—glowing a silvery, icy blue.

He jerked his head away from the reflection and looked back at Kienna. Zoya had taken mercy on her and dressed her in a light dress with short bell sleeves. She was just as gorgeous in the summer dress as she had been in her winter one, and she still smelled of that delicious floral, spicy scent without the tang of elven magic on the tail end of it.

Revi hopped onto the sofa that was pushed up to the head of the table in lieu of the normal chair. Monstrously large beasts did not fit well in normal chairs.

“You were a frostcat,” Kienna said faintly. He didn’t miss the way her pulse throbbed in her neck in time with the pulses of fear in her scent. “And now you’re…”

“Not?” he supplied when it seemed like she wouldn’t be finishing that sentence.

“Do you have a… human form? Or the fae equivalent? Like Zoya?”

He wrestled with the sharp ache her question produced. Until the curse was broken, the answer to that was a harsh negative. Before the curse, he’d been as much of a man as Enlo, but he’d frequently shifted into animal forms when they suited his purposes; it was another layer of insult to the Summer Queen’s curse that she’d trapped him in the forms he’d once chosen for himself. The truth of it mocked him; it felt too humiliating to admit to a human.

“Is your room to your taste?” The cordial question was awkward on his lips, awkward in the air since it was a blatant disregard of her own questions. It had been so long since he had had to make small talk. It had been so long since he’d had anyone but Enlo or the small staff who stayed at the castle to talk to. People visited on matters of business—those reporting to him on the state of the Court and their efforts to stave off the curse’s impending doom—but those didn’t require pleasantries, and they never stayed long. Revi sent them away—away from him and the curse that clung to him. Here, at his castle—or anywhere else he stayed for longer than a few days—the Winter Court was afflicted the worst by the deep throes of summer.

It was paltry, but it was one way he could protect them, and protecting his people was his primary concern. It was what he’d been doing in fighting thezruyedssince they’d first appeared years before, and he wouldn’t stop now just because his foe was a curse he couldn’t fight with blade or claw. He would protect his people to his dying breath.

Kienna nodded, frowning slightly at his avoidance, but she didn’t push the previous topic. “It’s... it’s beautiful.” A smile brightened her features as she continued, “And Zoya is truly lovely. Thank you for assigning her to me.”

He hummed, and it came out as a soft rumble. Kienna flinched, which only made him want to growl further. This wasn’t one of his people, familiar with his ways. Or at least better at hiding their discomfort.

“Shall we?” He cast a pointed glance at the covered dishes.

“Oh, of course.” Kienna rose from her seat to reach across the table to lift the covers protecting the food. Her plate was filled to the brim. Revi pushed back the worry twisting through him. So much food—probably more than she would even eat. A small bowl of creamy soup off to one side smelled of potato, and on the plate itself a little bit of everything was mounded. The staff clearly weren’t sure what to feed the human, on top of wanting to impress her. The thought almost made Revi chuckle. The scents wafting off it curled into his nose. They’d made it bland, at least, as per Revi’s orders—he remembered the stories of the humans who stayed in Elyri Courts solely because after eating the best food the Elyri had to offer, their own human foods were little better than dirt to them. If Kienna chose to stay, it needed to be because of her feelings for him, not for the food.

In front of Revi, of course, was a large plate of meat chopped in large chunks. His portion, at least, had stayed the same. Good. He didn’t need them straining the larders more than they already were for Kienna. It had, unfortunately, been seared on the edges and sides so it didn’t just look like it had been pulled from the butcher’s block. Revi preferred it raw, but he had accepted a long time ago that his chef thought it was undignified for his prince to eat like a beast in front of other people. Which meant Revi’s meat was far more cooked than he liked to eat it these days.

He braced himself for it. The kitchen was only doing what they thought would help ingratiate him to the woman. They wanted the curse over as much as Enlo. He would eat it, somehow, and he would look forward to going hunting soon for fresh meat.

As if stirred by the thought, the quiet predator in his mind pointed out he had fresh meat right beside him, but he shoved it away and bit into the seared steak before him. Hesitantly following suit, Kienna picked up a spoon and dipped it into her soup. They ate in silence, Revi uncomfortably aware of the human.

He tried to be delicate as he forced down the cooked meat, but all that served to do was make him look clumsy as he dropped several pieces back onto the plate and one even onto the floor. A growl erupted from him at that.

Kienna watched him wrestle with his food. She bent over and stabbed the piece on the floor with her fork and offered it back to him. He only stared at it and then at her, and she rested it on his plate instead.

“You don’t yet seem used to eating as an animal,” she said. “How long have you been like this?”

---