Page 46 of Wicked Prince of Carnage
Winter’s manor was quiet with only a few servants roaming the halls. It had been near impossible to sleep despite wanting to rest. He’d tried, but it proved impossible as thoughts of mating Sterling plagued him.
The guard outside Cyan’s room pushed off the wall and stood straight at the sight of Winter. “Your Highness,” he stuttered. “You’re back.”
He didn’t answer, only opened the door and walked inside. The room, which had been sparsely decorated when Cyan first arrived, was now a paper paradise. Strands of folded flowers hung from the ceiling and were draped across furniture. Sterling’s brother sat cross-legged in the middle of the faded carpet among dozens of new floral creations.
Cyan looked up at Winter and blinked. “How’s my sister?”
“She’s alive. I see someone brought you string,” he commented, tapping at one of the strands.
“Amalli said I could use it for my flowers,” the boy said. “She helped me hang them since I couldn’t reach that high.”
Winter made a lowhmmin his throat. String was a potential hazard if Cyan ever got too tired of being held prisoner. Though, he supposed, the string wasn’t sturdy enough to hang himself with, and the boy seemed happy enough.
“So you’ve charmed Amalli, have you?” Winter plucked up one of the flowers and leaned against the wall. “I’m not sure how to feel about that.”
Cyan shrugged. “She doesn’t mind my questions. I like her very much, but she’s not my sister.”
Winter nodded in agreement and spun the paper rose in his palm, examining each carefully made petal. “No one is quite like your sister.”
“Is something wrong?” Cyan asked.
“What?” The flower dropped from his fingertips back to the floor. “Why do you think something is wrong?”
“I can tell by your face.”
Winter chuckled. “Wise for your age, aren’t you?”
He tilted his head. “Does that mean thereissomething wrong?”
“I didn’t come to discuss my troubles with a child.”
Cyan set aside a completed flower and picked a new sheet off the stack beside him. “So you came to work on another creation, then?” When Winter blinked, he added. “You took a sheet of my paper when I moved rooms. I assume you tried to make something.”
He had, and the one Sterling found in his pocket was pitiful. “I only came to see that you’re still in one piece,” he replied.“Since you’re my leverage over your sister, I needed to make sure my father hadn’t harmed you.”
Not a hint of fear shone in his face as Cyan slid a sheet of paper toward Winter’s boot. “Here. Try another.”
“Is he in there?” demanded a female voice on the other side of the door.Talia. “What are you doing? Let me in!”
Winter pursed his lips. “Perhaps another time…” He stormed to the door and flung it open to find the guard barring his rejected mate from the room. Rage rushed up from where Winter kept it locked away. “I forbade you from ever setting foot in my manor again. Yet here you are, not listening to your prince.”
“Winter,” she breathed with a smile. “Someone said they saw you return without Red Riding Hood, so I thought—”
The prince stepped out of Cyan’s room and closed the door behind him. “Thought what?” he seethed. “That you would disobey an order from your prince?”
She paled, her voice a whisper. “I heard what happened at the ceremony. Does the king really want you to mate Red Riding Hood?”
Winter brushed past her and strode down the hall, Talia following on his heels. When they were out of earshot from the guard, he spun to face her.
“What do you want?” he snapped. “I rejected you three years ago. Whether or not you accept, that is your problem. I’ve washed my hands of you.”
“Winter, please,” she begged. “I never told you the full truth about the night with your father.”
“I don’t need an explanation. You were riding my father’s cock the night before our mating ceremony.” The memory of it turned his stomach. Walking in, seeing her face full of bliss, her back arched in pleasure, his father’s fingers grabbing onto her hips to guide her to grind harder against him.
She grasped his wrist. “I only did it because your father said it was necessary. That before the mating ceremony, he needed to make sure I was fit to become a princess, that I knew how to please a man well.”
Winter scoffed. While he didn’t disbelieve her, whatever test his father gave her, she failed. Or perhaps it was a success. She wasn’t fit to be a princess nor his mate if she would fuck anyone else, no matter what the other person claimed. Mates were sacred.
