Page 30 of A Palace of Smoke & Mirrors
For a High King of a land as vast and encompassing as Faerie,I thought,his circle is small, and he doesn’t seem to have a very robust staff. And for a palace so hollow and spacious, there doesn’t seem to be enough bodies in the entire damn world willing to fill it.
It was perplexing.
Lucais’s frightful carriage was waiting for us within the stony gloom in front of the palace. It was clouded in wisps of fog, six almighty unicorns snorting and scuffing their hooves against the cobblestone impatiently.
With a great deal of alarm, I recognised there was no driver. The carriage door simplyopenedfor us as we approached as if at the behest of a phantom footman. I glanced at my companion for a blink of reassurance or a word of explanation, but the High King merely bowed his head to me and pointed to the interior with one long, demanding finger. Regarding him with suspicion, I did as he bid me to—after a fleeting look inside to assess the risk of being chained and cuffed to my seat again.
There were no chains, no handcuffs. The floor was smooth and polished, bearing no evidence of the bolts that had been secured to the wood only a day earlier.
Claiming the same seat, I crossed my arms over my chest, firmly tucking my hands away behind my elbows. Lucais did the same, reclining back at his leisure, his legs spread widely apart in the most crude fashion. He hung his head, eyes heavy and half-lidded, the gold smouldering in the dim lighting so fiercely the placement of his gaze could have burned a hole straight through my head. I felt the touch of an invisible hand trickle down my throat like spilled blood, and with a rush of deep-seated panic, I remembered the body of the faerie I’d—
“We have time now.” His voice was a seductive purr, his downcast glance an illicit suggestion laced with temptation.Lucais sent me an image in my mind from his perspective the day before—the back of my head, my face hovering in perfect position between his legs—and even as my traitorous mouth watered, I thought my eyes were about to pop out of my skull.
Blushing furiously, all I could think to shoot back at him in reply was, “How do you turn you off?”
My regret for my choice of words was dealt swiftly and justly.
“I don’t know,” Lucais crooned, a brazen smirk playing on his full mouth. “You really only seem capable of turning meon.”
I tried so hard not to look, but his words were like a tangible force tugging my gaze down, and the subject matter was beyondevident. Memories of the way his erection had felt pressing into me the previous night and the hot flare of basic, instinctual need that had been lit inside of me as a result started to creep into my mind. Hastily, I shut them down, shoved them away, and locked them back up.
As soon as I regained one measly ounce of self-control, I ripped my eyes away.
If the carriage had not been in motion, I would have leapt out of it. Even though we were already on the bridge, and the thick fog floated like impenetrable clouds outside of a plane’s window forty thousand feet in the air, I still considered throwing myself out. Impaling myself upon a sharp, jutting rock down the side of a ravine was surely better than impaling myself upon…that.
Reverting my focus to the mysterious, low-lying clouds, I risked straining my eyes as I sought another glimpse of the crumbling exterior of the palace, but it was impossible. Adamant.Deliberate.
To my displeasure, Lucais’s gaze was on me like a hawk, and I had an inkling that he was the reason the mist had suddenly become fixed in place like a quantifiable substance. We weretaking one step forward and two steps back, and it seemed like we were due for another blind retreat.
“What is it with all the fog?” I asked, pouting at him.
His simpering expression remained, but he shifted just asmidgein his seat. “Privacy?”
“Can you be serious for a moment?”
“I can.”
“Willyou?”
“One day.”
“Oh, spare me.” I groaned, eyes circling the interior of the carriage as I demanded, “How far away are we from this Map?”
The carriage bounced as the High King puckered his lips and lowered his gaze, feigning bashfulness as he gestured towards his lap with his eyes. “I did already indicate that to you.”
Steadying myself with hands splayed to the sides, I gave him my best deadpan look and retorted, “Close then, are we? A few minutes away? Yeah, that’s not even surprising.”
“Feisty little thing.” Lucais clicked his tongue and pointed to the floor between his legs, one hand placed with his palm flat against the ceiling to help him remain seated as the carriage jostled us around. “Would you like to get on your knees for me and find out for certain?”
Another bump in the road sent me bouncing on my seat with a small yelp. I clenched my thighs together in an attempt to block out the rocky vibrations of the carriage beneath me. Lucais was certainly doing it on purpose, but he was nowhere near as funny as he thought he was.What petty sort of person abuses their powers like this to manipulate a carriage ride? And what’s he going to do if I actually—
“Bookworm?”
“If I do,” I managed to say around a heated knot of nerves and desire, “how will I know when to stop? Do I just count to thirty, or will you let me know?”
He scoffed and averted his eyes. “Beastlywoman.”
“Arrogantprick.”
