Page 11 of Lady of Ashes

Arianna brought her eyes back to his, as she asked coyly, “She is not one to share, oryouare not one to share, Prince?”

“I think the feeling is mutual, my Lady,” he answered with a slight bow, “and that is no slight to you.”

“My dear prince,” Arianna said as she sauntered over to a low, coral-colored settee. “I know well that you enjoy everything I have ever had to offer.” She sat, bringing one foot to the cushion beside her. Her other foot dangled to the ?oor, her dress revealing all too much as it hung between her legs.

A giant tiger prowled through one of the curtains to the right and padded to her. She ran her ?ngers through its fur as it rubbed against her leg.

“Jamahl,” Sorin said with a nod of his head.

The tiger gave a nod of its own before sprawling onto the ground before Arianna’s feet.

“You could bring your new bride, and I could bring Jamahl, and we could all have some fun,” Arianna suggested, tilting her head back against the settee. Sorin opened his mouth to decline once more, but she spoke again before he could. “Maybe you should ask her before you speak for her, Prince.”

Sorin crossed the distance between them and sat on the other end of the settee. A woman immediately appeared with a tray of iced tea and red grapes, setting it on the low table before them.

“If you are not here for pleasure, Prince, does my brother need to be summoned for this little meeting?” Arianna asked, picking up a grape and biting it in half.

“Not unless you desire him here,” Sorin answered, ?lling a glass of iced tea and handing it to her.

She scoffed, taking the glass from his hand. “I do not even know where he is. The ports maybe? Or visiting a neighboring town? Alpha business, I am sure.”

“Alpha business but not Beta business?” Sorin asked with a raised brow, pouring himself his own glass of iced tea.

“I do enough business in this territory. Stellan would run me ragged if I did not push back against him,” she said with a frown. A large brown wolf had come stalking in, shifting in a ?ash of light to his human form, and begun massaging her shoulders. She groaned softly as he worked a knot from herneck.

“I need your help, Arianna,” Sorin said quietly, setting down his glass of iced tea.

“What kind of help?”

“The posing as another person kind of help,” Sorin answered grimly.

Arianna sat up straight at the words, brushing the hands of the Shifter away from her neck. “Outside of this territory?”

“Yes. In the mortal lands,” Sorin answered. “To get my wife and queen out.”

“You, a full-blooded, all-powerful Fae Prince of Fire, need my help to get your wife and twin ?ame away from humans?” The doubt and suspicion were stark on Arianna’s beautiful face. “What aren’t you telling me, Sorin?”

Sorin launched into the short, abridged version of who Scarlett was, where she’d been hidden, her new role as queen, how she’d been taken, and what he needed from Arianna.

“You seem to forget I cannot shift in the mortal lands,” Arianna said gravely. “How I enter the mortal lands is how I will stay.”

“You can shift with this,” Sorin said, holding up his hand with the Semiria ring on it. “Prince Azrael will be wearing Talwyn’s to Travel us all out once we have her, if she cannot do so herself.”

He didn’t want to think about what state she might be in. If Mikale had her, her mental state would be shredded. If the Assassin Lord had her, she might not be physically able to do anything. He had no idea what she’d been enduring since she blocked their bond.

Home.

He needed to get her home. When she was whole and ?ne again, they’d have a long discussion about this blocking the bond shit.

“Do you know how long it has been since I have been out of these lands?” Arianna asked, sipping from her iced tea. “Stellan usually takes care of the tasks that require us to go outside of our own lands.”

“Would you prefer I ask Stellan instead?”

“Gods, no,” she cried. “I would do just about anything, or anyone for that matter, to get out of here, even for just a few hours.”

“We will likely be gone for more than a few hours. I am hoping for no more than a few days, but it could be longer,” Sorin replied grimly.

“Even better,” she said, standing from the settee.

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