Page 21 of Tall Dark and Evil

“I missed the part where I need to justify myself to you.” He moves to a dresser filled with hundreds of jewels and chooses cuff links. “Could you?”

I want to tell him to fuck off, but I am his servant. Indentured, in all but name. I drag my feet to him and slide the white gold links in place.

He smells like white musk, cotton, and the depth of the northern sea. A scent I’m intimately familiar with. It disconcerts me enough to lose my train of thought.

“I don’t get you,” I admit. “Your entire country hates my family, mykind. Why would you pretend to be interested inme?”

“The world loves a tinge of scandal. If I don’t give them something to look at, they’ll dig until they find what they want to know,” he reasons.

“And you don’t want them to know who you are actually seeing,” I guess.

Maybe he’s gay. His court wouldn’t blink if he were anyone else, but he is the sole male heir, and to Anderkanians, having a penis, and shoving it into a vagina, matters. They need him to sire an heir.

“I’m not seeing anyone in particular, Frejr. I’d just rather not have my every step under further scrutiny.”

“Then you were born in the wrong bloodline.”

He snorts. “Don’t I know it.”

He chooses a leather necklace with a light and shade pendant—intertwined Vs, one upside down, the other, right side up. A controversial choice, for him. He clearly doesn’t care much about his country’s prejudice against magiks.

“Well, I’m not a good shield. No one would actuallybelievewe’re together.”

“They already do, according to you.”

I grimace. “I just said people might be talking—I don’t know what they’resaying.”

“They are saying we’re fucking like rabbits right now, I’d wager. And when invitations to my club are sent out in your hand, they’ll say I’m quite set on you. Which reminds me.” He opens another drawer, also bulging with jewels, but these are different—more feminine.

He doesn’t really look, picking the first thing his hand falls on. A black velvet headband stitched with gold thread and studded with diamonds. It’s glorious, and it doesn’t suit me at all. I’ve seen crowns less grand than this.

He places it on my head. “There, Frejr. You look quite the princess.”

I remove it immediately and put it on top of his chest of drawers.

“Must you be difficult?” He doesn’t seem surprised, though he sighs.

“Must you be unreasonable? I’m a terrible fake mistress.” I cross my arms on my chest, intending to be as difficult as I must to make him see reason. “Besides, I’m not wearing a dead girl’s things.”

“None of this belonged to Blythe.” He gestures at the drawer. “These are just trinkets my mother grew tired of. She gives them to me so that I may have gifts on hand for the occasional forgotten birthday or angry lover.”

His mother is a royal concubine. Somehow, it makes things worse. “Well, I don’t have a birthday, and I’m not one of your lovers.”

“I believe everyone at Five will disagree with you there.” He smirks, positively smug.

I shake my head. “Why me, of all people? You could have anyone play the part. Someone your type.”

“I have a type?” he asks me.

I have no idea where his tastes lean, and he knows it.

“You’ll play the part because you belong to me, remember? Unless you would prefer to settle the matter of the regalia between our families.” He laughs. “If you think me unreasonable, wait until you meet my father. Quite the delight. He’ll settle for half of your land and all of your treasures.”

He’s stolen almost all of the fight out of me, because he’s right.

Really, he made a terrible deal—eleven million, and he got himself a girl far too contrary to make a half decent servant. I have a will of iron; it was necessary, growing up among the Frejr.

I make myself nod, my jaw set.

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