Page 27 of To Charm a Dark Prince

She smiled at him faintly.

The moment ended, and he withdrew his hand to serve himself more food. “Eat, firefly.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” Not that she really minded.

“I suspect calling you by your true title will earn me more incredulous laughter.”

Tilting her head to the side slightly, she furrowed her brow. “I have a title? What is it?”

He lifted his goblet to her. “Hail to you, Princess in Flames.”

EIGHT

Snorting in laughter, Gwen proved him right. “Nope, bullshit. I’m not a princess. It’d be cool, but nope.”

“We are given rank and title from our power and the number of those we command. As you are currently the only other true elemental free from the Crystal, that makes you a princess.”

“That’s dumb.” She shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“And yet, here we are.” Mordred impaled a few potatoes with a fork and ate them.

“If I’m a princess, does that get me anything?”

“Not really, no. If you were not my prisoner of war, you would be free to etch out your own domain if you wished. But as it stands, sadly, you are princess in title only.”

“Damn.” She ate a piece of bread and some cheese before she couldn’t resist the allure of the turkey and the potatoes. She watched as Mordred reached over and stabbed a strawberry with one of his jagged talons and ate it from his finger. “Why’re you wearing those things?” She had to know. Even if it was vaguely insulting to ask.

“Wearing what?” He seemed genuinely confused.

She wiggled her fingers at him. “You don’t need them to be spooky or intimidating, trust me.”

“Hm? Oh.” He chuckled and looked down at his hand. “Ah, yes. I forget that I am wearing them. I fear it is simply more natural for me now to have them than to not. I could see how they could be troubling. Or…spooky.”

Mordred lifted his hand, and she watched as the iron claws simply melted away. They dissolved into nothingness, or rather they merged back into him. And a second later, the armor was simply gone, revealing a perfectly normal-looking hand. “Is that better?”

“Whoa.” She blinked. “How—okay that’s awesome. How did you do that? Magic? Or like, is that elemental stuff? Wait. That’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” He was smiling with a strange amount of amusement. As if he had just shown a card trick to a toddler. “I, too, am an elemental. We are shapeshifters, you and I. That is how you transformed into flame.”

“Shapeshifters.” She blinked. “That’s why my hair keeps changing colors.”

“And your eyes. Indeed. You choose your appearance, as do I.”

“Wait—youwantto look like that?” She winced. “Oh, God, that came out meaner than I meant it, that’s not what I—”

He cackled with laughter and slapped his hand on the metal table. It clearly didn’t offend him. “I take it you find me hideous and unappealing! Woe to me, the tragic prince.”

“No! That’s not what I meant!”

“So you do find me appealing then?” Now he had a wicked smirk on his face. He was playing with her.

She glared at him. “Knock it off. Stop teasing me.”

“No, I do not think I shall. This is far too much fun.” He leaned back and hooked his leg over the arm of the chair again. “And to answer your question, to a point, yes, I do choose to look this way. But the face in the mirror is my own. It is hard for our souls to forget who we are, though it has happened to some over time.”

“But your armor isn’t really armor.”

“It is. It is simply part of me, the same way the fire is now part of you.”

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