Page 28 of Cinder
“My—” The prince jerked in surprise, his curse half swallowed by a sharp inhale. Then a single, soft laugh left him as he reachedfor Cin. He grabbed Cin’s shoulder with one hand and cupped Cin’s chin in his other, like he had to ensure that Cin was really there. “God, did you just witness all that?”
“It was quite a display.” Cin gave a half-grin. “Someone might have almost gotten the impression that youwantedto see me.”
“I was not aware my parents were cutting down the guest list until they asked for the names of those I’d actually been conversing with most. You have, to be fair, never offered me yours.”
“Cinder-Ella will do.”
“Surely that’s not actually your—”
“It’s close enough.” Cin winked, hoping to move the conversation along.
In truth, he didn’t want to offer a true name, less because he feared the prince might hunt him down, and more because he wasn’t sure what hewouldgive. When was the last time Cin had introduced himself to a stranger who might actually care—might actually remember? He was not Szule—had not been clothed in dresses and hope and his birth-mother’s love in so long; he wasn’t certain anymore that the Szule in his mind had ever been real. But he was not merely Cinder either, not simply that word thrust upon him in spite.
Cin was the house he tended, each decrepit ash-gray mote of dust that he cleaned from it, and the wings of the birds who’d carried him here, and the knife tucked at his back. He did not know how to put all of that into a single name.
“Well,Cinder-Ella,” the prince said, his pronunciation playfully mocking, “I’m sorry to have disrupted your night so. Berit is a fool, but they have a good heart, I swear.”
“Do you know all the guard’s names?”
“I know everyone’s name butyoursapparently. Cinder-Ella,” he repeated with a little laugh, before winking. “My dovehas a better ring.”
With the line now moving again, a new guest had begun ascending the steps behind them. In that smooth way of his, the prince slipped his arm through Cin’s and walked them both down the hall toward the ballroom. One of the nearer watch members broke off to follow quietly, but Prince Lorenz paid them no more heed than he had any of the previous nights.
He leaned toward Cin, his breath on Cin’s ear as he whispered, “How, pray tell,didyou get in here, if not through the gate?”
Cin turned his face, letting their noses brush. “Couldn’t you guess?”
Prince Lorenz’s eyes scanned languidly down Cin’s body, then back up, as though he could possibly have found his answer there. “Did you trespass? You menace!”
It was not a reference to any plumed murderers, but Cin still had to quiet the sudden jump in his heart rate, swallowing down his tension to keep focusing on the prince he’d climbed a castle wall for. The prince who’d been riled by Cin’s exclusion. But what did any of that actually mean for them both?
Cin stopped Prince Lorenz before he could walk them into the ballroom, pulling him back and to the side, until they were both half-hidden by the decor of the elegant hall. The prince took it with a little more passion then Cin had intended, pushing Cin up against the wall, one hand already on Cin’s hip and his other in Cin’s hair.
“Wait,” Cin insisted, and touched a finger to the prince’s lips before he could lean in for the kiss.
He pressed his mouth to Cin’s finger instead, taking Cin’s hand in one of his. “All right, I’m waiting,” he teased, watching Cin though half-hooded lashes as he peppered Cin’s hand in kisses.
“Rake,” Cin grumbled, but he couldn’t keep the smile off his face. This was exactly the attention he’d yearned for the entirewalk away from the castle’s front gates. It was also exactly the attention that would distract him from the conversation they needed to have. Cin cupped the side of the prince’s face in his hand, holding him momentarily still. “Your Royal Highness, what are we?”
“Humans, last I checked,” the prince replied, “Though you’re as radiant as any mythical fae and devilishly handsome as any demon sorcerer.”
“You know what I mean.” Cin leveled him a stern look. “I’m not going to marry you—you still know that, right?”
Prince Lorenz looked minutely less cheeky as he answered, “I am aware, yes.”
“And you’re not going to grow attached to me and ask for my hand anyway, or something idiotic?”
The prince gave the tiniest eye roll at that, before returning to kissing Cin’s fingers between his words. “I’m not going to fall in love with you, or with anyone, remember? I don’tdothat.”
“I don’t meaninlove, I mean… justlove. Platonic affection, or partnership, or whatever you wish to call it,” Cin clarified. “I can’t becomethatfor you either.”
“We’re just here to enjoy each other for the moment, that it all.” Prince Lorenz lifted an eyebrow. “Satisfied?”
“But you do need to marry someone. And when that happens, I also can’t—Iwon’tbe slinking around the castle interrupting your new partnership”—Cin could see the protest in the prince’s gaze, and silenced it with a scowl—“regardless of what your partner agrees to.” Just imagining the scrutiny, the time he’d need to get to the prince and back, not knowing when it might come to an end—Cin could not have withstood that, even if the price on the Plumed Menace’s head was not in play. “Tell me you understand that, too?”
“I understand,” Prince Lorenz said, purposeful as he stared into Cin’s eyes. “This is not my first fling, you know.”
That made Cin flush slightly. “Well, perhaps it’s mine,” he admitted. “I just want neither of us to be hurt after this.” And he meant that, not merely for himself. He didn’t want to break Prince Lorenz’s heart any more than bear that pain himself.
