Page 41 of A Court of Sugar and Spice
It’s a frenzied grasp, one that transmits his panic as clearly as words.
He has ducked back into his hood, so I can’t see his face—but when I look at his hand, I note the change in the quality of his skin. A shift in the color, a faint wood grain beginning to appear.
“Excuse us, would you? We must have a word with the tavern cook about the Prince’s meal. He’s very particular,” I say to the others. “Carry on.”
Finias picks up the flow of conversation smoothly, commanding attention by juggling a few of his candy spells while he’s talking. Thanks to that distraction, the other Fae don’t seem to notice that the Prince has to use my shoulder to pull himself upright, or that his movements are increasingly stiff as he and I move toward the back of the common room.
There are a couple of doorways, so I choose the darkest one, the one that looks least frequented. It turns out to be a short hall leading to a back door—probably the way to the privy or the outhouse. There’s another door in the hall, half-open, revealing a clumsy stack of extra chairs, a few buckets, a couple of mops, and some jugs that I’d guess contain strong soap for cleaning.
“The Fae have to clean?” I ask.
“If they’re not gifted with that kind of magic and they don’t have such spells on hand, yes.” The Prince’s voice sounds different—throatier, raspier as he transitions back to his Nutcracker form. “Some of Finias’s most popular spells are cleaning spells. He can barely keep them in stock. Ah!” His body jerks, and his elbow creaks woodenly as he braces himself against the doorframe.
“Get in here.” I pull him into the closet and drag the door shut. Instantly we’re engulfed in blackness.
“I don’t want to drink human blood again,” he rasps.
“You don’t have a choice.” Fumbling in the dark, I push back the hood of his cloak. “My arm is healed, thanks to Finias’s bathwater. I’ll have to make a fresh cut.”
“It’s happening—faster—this time,” he gasps.
It’s going to take me a few moments to draw my dagger and carefully slice my skin in the dark. Judging by Lir’s voice, he doesn’t have that long.
To buy time, I bite my own lip, hard, until I feel salty blood welling out.
I reach up, find his lips with my fingers, and stand on tiptoe so I can press my mouth to his.
A hungry groan breaks from him, harsh and sudden, as if he’s trying to hold it back and can’t. His lips are stiff and hard, but I keep pressing my bleeding mouth against them, and after a moment they soften again. He begins sucking on my lower lip, drawing it into his mouth.
I’ve been in my share of closets with men. But never have I shared such a dark, close space with a man who needs me so viscerally, yet dislikes me so much.
I’m gripping his shoulders so I can hold myself on tiptoe and keep my mouth against his. He doesn’t touch me at first, just keeps sucking my lip as if his existence depends on it. He’s breathing hard, and each huff of warm air from his mouth is also mine—I can taste the cedar bitterness and the vanilla warmth of him, mingled with the saltiness of my own blood.
My lip pops free of his mouth, wet and swollen.
“I need more.” A shameful whisper in the dark.
“Very well.” I hesitate to try and slice my own arm in the dark. But there’s another option.
I unbutton the top two buttons of my overdress and pull the furry collar aside, off my shoulder.
“Here.” I cup the back of his neck and pull his mouth toward the curve of my shoulder, above my collarbone. His body creaks as he bends. “Just bite me here. I can cover it easily.”
“No,” he growls.
“I know you have the teeth for it. Do it now. We need you at your best.”
“My best.” He scoffs lightly, but he lets me pull his head closer, until his lips brush the warm skin between my neck and my shoulder.
“The scent of you,” he murmurs raggedly, and the words send a shiver of yearning through my whole body.
Then he bites.
Pain spears through my shoulder, and I gasp. He clamps his jaws firmly into my flesh and sucks, and sucks, while I instinctively clutch his upper arms. I can feel their stiffness receding as he gulps my blood.
His hand slides around me, across my lower back, pulling me closer.
Savoring the swollen bit of my wounded lip, I let my hips sway against his. And just as I suspected, there’s another kind of hardness poking against the fabric of his cloak, his uniform jacket, and his pants. He must have very fine equipment for it to make that much of an impression through all those layers.
