Page 47 of Bride of the Midnight Prince

I groan, resist an extra minute, and then roll up to my knees. “Coming!”

Chapter 14

Rahk

“IcannotfindNat,”Edvear tells me, wringing his hands and eyeing the Fool’s Circle laid out on the table before me. “I will keep looking.”

I grunt. “Look outside. He didn’t leave. He is here.”

She might have been lying about why she needs this position, but she wouldn’t have put up with me today if she hadn’t truly needed it. She would have quit and left.

Iwould have quit and left. There is no chance I would have tolerated that nonsense. Yet she did. I thought for certain that if nothing else did, the back rub would push her too far—or give her an opportunity to harm me if that is what she had come to do. I was proven wrong.

“We found him!” Edvear shouts from down the hallway.

I set the pieces of the game in order until I hear Nat’s familiar soft gait coming slower than usual toward my room. She appears on the threshold, her hair in disarray, a leaf stuck to the top of her head, wearing an uncharacteristically blank expression.

She’s angry with me.

“Come.” I beckon for her to take her spot opposite me. “You get the first move.”

She obeys without a word. She makes her move and then waits for me to make mine. Not once has she met my gaze since she entered the room.

I move my pieces and watch her face carefully. We go six turns, and she claims the first spot surrounding the Fool. I nod approvingly. She doesn’t acknowledge it. Five more turns, and I claim the second spot.

The eager energy and excitement of last night is gone. She is a silent storm cloud, threatening to release thunder and lightning, but refusing to be the one to break first. That restraint is more than I thought her capable of. Then again, she has grit, will, and determination in measures I did not expect from a human.

I’m the one who angered her, so I must be the one to solve the silence.

“You impressed me today,” I say, moving my pieces.

She does not answer.

“You pleased me greatly.”

Still, no reply.

I wipe a hand over my mouth to conceal my smile. She is a little fool to behave so much like a woman. A young boy would have accepted the praise quickly. “I am sorry for asking so much of you today. I do not anticipate having this many unusual needs again.”

Her jaw works, and for a moment I think she might accept my apology, if not my praise.

But no, she won’t accept that either.

“You want me to admit that I was testing you.”

“Yes!” she cries suddenly, the storm finally breaking. “And I want to know why! Was it a cruel joke to see me struggling when I am exhausted and giving everything to please an impossible-to-please master?”

Her words make my hand, holding my piece, go still.

My mind flashes back to the cold hand of Lady Nothril wrapped around my young neck, smiling as she choked the life out of me, whispering in my ear:“You will do as I say, or you will die, my dear heir.”

I move my piece forward and rest my palm on the tabletop. “I wanted to know if you were lying to me.”

She freezes, her eyes going wide. Wide withguilt.

“I wanted to know if this position truly mattered to you, or if there was some other reason you asked your sister to get you this position.”

“And what did you find?” she asks, making her move.

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