Page 101 of Bride of the Fae Prince

This was all part of Faradir’s plan from the moment I returned with a human bride.

Rahk clasps a fist over his chest. “It would be my honor, High King, my liege.”

“Very well. You both are dismissed.”

Rahk bows. Then turns and drags Hylath after him, her eye tendons wilted and her body shaking in pain. I don’t move for a long moment. Not until the doors are shut. Then I lift my attention to the High King.

“Have something to say to me?” he asks, folding his hands across his stomach and regarding me with the barest hint of smugness in the twitch of his jaw. His long golden hair falls over his shoulder and gleams almost as brightly as his teeth. “You might consider obeying me for once, and then perhaps I won’t send your friend for your wife’s throat.”

I curl my lips at him. “I thought I told you that my wife’s throat belongs to me. No one touches it except me.”

The High King’s chuckle reverberates against me as I stride out of the throne room. Just like that, the castle of my schemes crumbles to pieces. There’s no time to wait for the Nothril Court and the Neverseen King to ally over the Orawyth portal. There’s no time foranything.

It’s only a glamour that keeps anyone from seeing how my hands tremble with fury.

Chapter 36

The Princess

I open my eyes,and it’s almost surprising when they’re clear. I sit upright in bed. This is Ash’s bed. Not my own. I scan the room, find Edvear sitting by the door on a little stool. He smiles at me, bright and relieved.

“You’re awake, my lady.”

I draw the covers to my chest self-consciously, then reach up and touch my matted hair. Thoughts race around my mind, loud like a cacophony of ringing bells, mingling with stray memories. I put myself in this bed. When Ash was poisoned. Or, rather, when Ash poisoned himself. The running around the Aursailles palace—a dream, then. Was the vague memory I have of collapsing against the door, of staring blearily up into Ash’s shocked face, a dream too?

I blink at Edvear. “So it would seem. Where is His Highness?”

The smile falters. “The High King summoned him.”

“Oh.” That’s not good. But the High King cannot kill Ash until he’s sired an heir, which hasn’t happened yet. So this cannot be that bad, right?

“Would you care for a change of scenery? I can help you to sit by the windows in the living room, to give you a little fresh air until His Highness returns.”

It would indeed be nice to get out of this bed. “Fresh air would be lovely.”

He fetches me a thick robe while I use a brush to work out the worst tangles in my hair. My strength hasn’t fully returned, but I don’t lean on his arm as heavily as I expect when he takes me out to the living room. The sunlight feels so good on my eyes, and the sight of the beautiful gardens outside the windows immediately lifts my spirits. I sit in one of the settees facing the gardens and sip the rich, warmed chocolate another servant brings me.

I feelso much better.

Suddenly, the front door bangs open, startling me.

Edvear is there at once to greet Ash, who doesn’t see me at first. He tosses his cloak to the live coat rack. The rack catches the cloak out of the air and goes still. But Ash grips the back of one of the upholstered chairs with white knuckles, his shoulders bowed. My heart falls straight to the floor.

“My lord?” Edvear asks. “What has happened?”

“A new position has opened up on our staff,” Ash replies darkly. “We also need medical attention immediately. Send for one of the low fae doctors. Was Rahk here?”

“No, my lord. No one has come to the door.”

Suddenly queasy, I set down my hot chocolate on the end table near me. The dish clinks against the wood. That’s when Ash looks up—spots me. His flashing eyes pierce mine.

“See to those things,” he orders Edvear, his attention never leaving me as the steward leaves. His face is such a mingling of intensity that I can hardly tell the fury from the relief—the latter, I think, from me being past whatever sickness has plagued me these last few . . . days?

But beneath the fury is something fragile. Something that’s already broken.

My mouth is so dry, but I speak anyway. “Ash.”

A growl bursts from him. He shoves aside the upholstered chair and crosses the distance between us. Then he’s beside me, dragging me into his arms with a long, low groan. He buries his face in my neck.

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