Page 13 of Cinder
The thought repeated in Cin’s mind: could he chance saying yes? This man’s family did have a price on Cin’s head, even if no one had connected the Plumed Menace’s actions to Cin yet. The ball had been a risk, but this...
ThePrince of Hallin.
Attempting to leave would raise just as much suspicion, wouldn’t it? There was surely the ornamented watch member just outside the balcony.
“Please, sit,” Prince Lorenz repeated, tapping the bench again. Cin found his body following orders, and he wasn’t sure which of his questions that answered.
The submission earned him a dazzling smile, which faded into a distant thoughtfulness—cold, not for lack of warmth, but for the depth, like looking down through the darkest water and seeing nothing shining back but a reflection.
Even in the low light, Cin could make out just enough of Prince Lorenz’s face to tell that the couple of renderings Cin had seen of him were wrong: they barely did him justice, but Cin could understand why. No part of him was particularly outstanding on its own: his lips were on the thinner side, his mouth wide, his nose thick but straight, his eyes narrow and his cheekbones strong, eyebrows even stronger. But his beauty came not from any or even all of his features, but the way he used them. It was the light in his narrow gaze, the little quirk that never left his lips, the way his hair fell as though his simple, chin-length brown locks were eternally touched by a gentle breeze.
Potential Queenship or no, Cin could see why the woman had wanted to fuck him, even if Cin didn’t. But Cin’s problem with the fucking had nothing to do with Prince Lorenz at all, if he was being honest. That was just not a bridge he was ready to cross yet, particularly on a balcony with a royal he’d known for sixty seconds, who’d be married to someone else in a few months time. There were things he did want, could probably even want from someone like the prince, but...
Prince Lorenz broke their silence with a chuckle. “Did you really just come up over the side, or am I even more daft than previously believed?”
“No, I...” Cin hesitated. Making up an excuse would just seem all the more like he had climbed up here to spy on them. He tried not to look too guilty as he said, “There’s someone down there I wanted to avoid, and this just seemed like the easiest way. I had no idea you were up here, really.”
“Climbing fifteen feet of ornamented wall, in awful lighting, then over a banister, was your idea ofeasy?”
It could have been a tease, or it could have been a taunt instead—climbing ornamented walls; isn’t that something thieves do?—but Cin couldn’t tell beneath the cold mask that lay just under the prince’s joviality. Prince Lorenz didactjovial, at least, so Cin decided that responding in turn was his safest option. “My other thought was to fake my own death.” Cin tried out a smile as he said it. The expression felt wrong on his face. “But you saw how poorly that sort of ploy works out for me. Too many heroic princes at these kinds of parties.”
Prince Lorenz laughed. He nudged Cin’s shoulder with his own. “Cuteandfunny. It’s a shame you won’t let me fuck you.”
The comment returned Cin’s flush in force, his decision to stop blushing be damned, but in the back of his mind, he could not help thinking of all the times in the recent past when the people he’d been keeping tabs on—mostly feminine people,people like him in body, if not in identity—had been sneered at like that, made into a joke meant for only one side of the party, then forced to comply with the wish regardless. He didn’tthinkthat was Prince Lorenz’s play.
But he didn’t know itwasn’t, either.
“It’s not you,” Cin said, choosing his words carefully. “Having sex with anyone—even you—is simply... well, it’s not what I’m here for.”
To Cin’s relief, Prince Lorenz looked intrigued by that. “What are you here for then, my dove, if not me?”
“The ball,” Cin replied simply.
“Ah, there you and I differ.” Prince Lorenz leaned a little closer, and Cin could feel one of his hands resting on the bench behind Cin’s ass. Not touching, just there. Waiting. “Do you want to know a secret? I found someone to fuck just to escape the party for a little while.”
“But this—” Cin gestured toward the ballroom below, where music still wafted, couples dancing and laughing. “This has to be the most lovely celebration in the kingdom. And it’s foryou.”
The prince snorted. “To get me hitched.”
“That wasn’t your idea then, I take it.” He was still preposterously aware of how close Prince Lorenz was, and how Cin had continued, despite his own better judgment, to not avoid him.
“Hardly.” The prince smiled, a little sharper then before. “Do I look ready to settle on a life partner? Tocommitto someone who will rule the fuckingkingdomwith me someday?” He turned slightly, and still he didn’t touch Cin, but he was somehow even closer, like they were friends. Friends, or lovers. “It’s not simply the sex—I could find someone who doesn’t care who else I fuck—but what’s life when you’re bound to stay with someone regardless of the pressures or pains they place on you?I’ve dealt with that enough already with my family, thank you kindly.”
Pressure and pains: though he didn’t dare say it, Cin knew those well—far better then a pampered prince with his guards and servants, whose parents threw him lavish city-wide balls to find a partner.
“Did I overstep?” Prince Lorenz leaned back, and the shift bumped his knee into Cin’s. “I find that in the dark I best preoccupy my mouth with other things, or else my tongue overtakes my better judgment.”
Cin felt the heat of the prince’s skin as though the layers of cloth separating their knees wasn’t even there.
He didn’t know whether or not to pull away. He hadn’t wanted to fuck—still didn’t—but perhaps just this, a touch of knees, a little flattery, was no different from the short-term relaxation and exhilaration he’d sought from the ball.Ifhe knew it wouldn’t lead anywhere. But he wasn’t sure how to ask a question that most people seemed to know the answer to on instinct.
So, instead of moving, Cin shrugged and said, “No, no I was merely thinking.”
“Ha! You think, I talk; we make quite a pair,” Prince Lorenz purred. And he looked, in the low light, like maybe he was going to do more than that. But the prince only nudged Cin with his shoulder again, soft and friendly. “What doyouwant from the ball?” When he didn’t receive an immediate response, he continued, “I haven’t seen you at any of my parent’s other parties, though by the looks of your outfit, you’re of a status to be invited into the castle without too much hassle. I don’t catch any accent from you, so you’re local, and yet...”
“I suppose I’m just a mystery.” Cin leaned a little: not away, but toward. This was just a pleasant distraction, he told himself, noticing the instant it worked as Prince Lorenz’s quick gazedropped hotly to Cin’s mouth. His heart pounded between his ribs. “An unfuckable, balcony-climbing mystery.”
“You’re taunting me,” Prince Lorenz concluded, though he seemed entirely unaffected by the thought. The hand behind Cin shifted closer, and the prince’s arm bumped Cin’s, so light and momentary it might have been a mistake. “You know, it’s generally considered a poor choice to be rude to a prince.”
