Page 61 of To Charm a Dark Prince

“Oh, God.” She turned her back to him.

“No one has called me that before,” he teased. She was so much fun to torment. And it seemed to be an effective way of lightening the mood. He stepped out of his shoes and trousers, and into the hot water, keeping his distance from her. For now. The pool was a few yards wide and twice that distance in length, so there was plenty of room for him without crowding her.

Though he very much wished to crowd her. And do far more to her than that. But he did not wish to find out what happened when a fire elemental ignited in a pool of water. He imagined it would go poorly for both the state of his spring and the elemental in question. He was once more glad for the necklace he had made her.

“You’re not mad at me for hitting you?”

Sitting on the bench that ran around the outside lip, he groaned and tilted his head back, enjoying how the hot water loosened his tense muscles. And the Ancients knew he had enough knots in need of being worked out. “Men of my ilk can rarely be reasoned with in words.” He chuckled. “My mood was not your fault, yet I sought in you an outlet to release my frustrations.”

Gwen finally peeked over at him. Seeing him submerged, she turned back around. “What happened?”

“Percival sent me into something of a rage. You are right—it was wrong for me to take my ‘shit’ out on you.” He rested his arms on the side of the pool, stretching out. “Will you forgive me?”

“Yeah. I get it. Things are complicated here.” Gwendolyn was cleaning herself with the soap, having wedged herself in the far corner of the pool where the excess ran off the quickest. She was currently running some of it through her orange and crimson hair. “Complicated and miserable.”

“Less so since you have arrived. Miserable, I mean. Certainly, no less complicated.” Watching her was certainly distracting, for more than one part of him.

She smiled faintly. “No kidding.” Her expression faded to sadness. “Why don’t you let them go? Your knights, I mean?”

“And with whom should I replace them? No one is loyal to me, Gwen. No one. If I allowed my knights their final rest, all I would be left with would be my metal amalgams. How terrible that would be.” He cringed at the notion of it. He was lonely enough as it was. “And that is before you consider how brilliant they are as fighters.”

“I can’t imagine what it’s like, though, living every day worrying who is plotting against you.” She dunked herself under the water for a moment, smoothing her wet hair back.

Distracting indeed.

“Such has been the nature of my life for as long as I can remember it. One becomes adjusted to a suspicious way of thinking. I will admit that it is not precisely what I would call an enjoyable way to live, but it is simply the way of it.”

“Yeah, but…I don’t know, don’t you think it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point?” She ran the soap up over her arms.

He distinctly wanted to do that for her. But he would not. He also did not wish to scare her with how his body had reacted to her presence. She was like a young doe—curious but wary. He did not want to frighten her off.

“Are you implying that some part of my inherited personality or my actions have caused me to be in the predicament I am in?” He grinned. “Are you insulting me, firefly?”

“I—no, I mean. What I mean is—” She flinched.

Laughing, he stood to walk across the pool closer to her. The water reached his waist as he moved, saving her from any sort ofuntowardshow. But that did not stop her eyes from going just a little wider. She sank another half inch into the water. “Oh, be still.” He smiled at her, doing his best to be reassuring. But he knew there was likely a wicked twist to it that was not helping matters. “I simply do not wish to shout across the room.” He sat on the bench opposite her.

“I didn’t mean to insult you. I’m just saying that if you go looking for traitors everywhere, you’ll find them one way or the other.” She placed the soap on the tray. “That’s all.”

“You are not wrong.” He shrugged and leaned his elbows on the side of the pool. “Sadly, I fear I am what I am. And when one is accustomed to constant plotting and scheming happening around you to your detriment, this bias you say I have is often proven right more often than not.”

She watched him curiously for a moment. “Aren’t you going to rust in here?”

Laughing, he shook his head. “No, dear. You needn’t worry.”

She ran her fingers through her hair, combing out the strands and picking at some tangles. “What do you do for fun?”

“Pardon?”

“I mean, you have to dosomethingother than sitting around in a chair and brooding in front of a fireplace.”

“Is waging war upon the nature of Avalon, ensuring that magic remains within my control, not a hobby enough for you?”

“That’s not a hobby, that’s a job. A tyrannical job.” She laughed. By the Ancients, he loved the sound of her laughter. It reminded him of the rays of the sun in the early morning.

Not that he had seen the sun in Avalon in three hundred years. But that was neither here nor there. Or was it? Was that not the entire issue at hand?

“I find ways to pass the time.”

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