She did so alone. Tormin, massive and surprisingly delicate in his princely garb and small circlet, accompanied by a familiar-looking Pixie in a white gown, led the charge down the steps, with Carolyn walking behind. Her hair was swept up away from her neck, exposing a long, kissable neck and drawing attention to her bright eyes and pink, full lips. Her dress, thoroughly Velkin in design, clung to every curve of her body; it was a dark, deep blue, as blue as a sea in the midst of a midnight hurricane, and it was dotted with shimmering crystals, each placed in a design that reminded him of the Heavens. It was as if she’d grabbed the sky down and tailored it to her very form. She glowed. She radiated. And in response, I was drawn towards her.
My mind knew that attraction to her was wrong. Losing myself to any feelings for her at all was a kind of weakness and cowardice I couldn’t bear. My people didn’t deserve a prince who lost himself to the beauty of a mere mortal.
But I was, all the same, staring at her as if she were the moon herself.
“The what? Before you had the what, my son?”
“...The chance.”
I didn’t have to look back at my mother to know she was arrogant and pleased with herself. This was precisely what she wanted, for me to slip away under the spell of this little human just as Tormin had. I knew that. And still...I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Carolyn long enough to prove my mother wrong.
It wasn’t just that she was beautiful. It wasn’t even that she was the only human in the room. There was something else about her that grabbed me by the throat and robbed me of breath. She lifted her chin defiantly and met the gazes of nearly everyone staring at her. Here, in a ballroom full of strangers with unclear intentions, in a world from which she had no reasonable chance of escape, Carolyn Connors didn’t cower. She faced the danger head-on, and without ever once flinching.
She was brave. And in a world full of immortal or nearly-immortal beings who were so powerful and so difficult to destroy, bravery was a rare commodity. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen it before, and certainly not so brazenly wielded.
“Would you have taken the chance if Tormin had let you?”
“What?”
I’d been so caught up in my own thoughts and the sight of Carolyn descending the steps that I hadn’t heard my mother speak. Finally, I had strength enough to pull my eyes away from her. But that was the problem with a mirrored ballroom, wasn’t it? You could never escape someone, no matter where you turned. Every time I even slightly moved my gaze, there Carolyn was. Waiting for me. She was intoxicating. She was everywhere.
“I said: would you have taken the chance if Tormin had even let you?”
“She is our enemy,” I answered without actually answering.
“An enemy, I can’t help but notice, that you seem incapable of tearing your eyes away from.”
I scraped the bottom of my mind for literally anything that would make my blatant staring permissible. “I’m visually inspecting her for weapons.”
“And do you see any?”
“Not yet. But keeping your eyes on your opponent is the only way to ensure that you don’t lose track of them.”
My mother touched my shoulder. In the reflection of a nearby mirror, I watched as her eyes travelled between me and Carolyn, who was currently accepting a goblet of wine from Tormin. Heat fanned out beneath my collar at the sight of them.
“I am your mother, Anatole. Do you really think that foolishness is going to work on me?” She tapped her temple, her rings glinting in the candelabras illuminating the ballroom. “Don’t forget. I can see the future.”
“And what’s in that future?”
“I’ll never tell. But what does your heart tell you?”
I rolled my eyes and pulled away from her, choosing instead to look in my goblet. At least Carolyn couldn’t follow me there. “What a ridiculous question. My heart doesn’t tell me anything.”
“Really? Nothing?”
“The silence of my heart is what will make me a good king. It means that I won’t be weak.”
Weakness had driven my father to accept the humans’ peace treaty. Weakness had sent Adric away for his mistake. Weakness would never be apart of my reign as king. I would let my mind and my will and my iron guide us, in a way that the kingdom of Velkin had never been ruled before.
“I hope you don’t believe that,” my mother countered, as though she could hear my thoughts.
“Does it not concern you, what they could do to us?”
“That’s your brother talking,” she said, pulling away from me like I was some kind of poisonous plant spreading my tendrils out towards her.
“That’s just common sense talking. Adric believed the worst in people because it was easier than dealing with his own problems, his own fears. You don’t have to choose that path.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer. Adric’s shadow cast long over all of us...I couldn’t deny his influence, not when I’d been thinking of murdering the humans at The Academy not ten minutes ago. When I didn’t speak, Mother continued.
“Your father has his reasons for supporting their presence here in Velkin. And so do I. Don’t forget your promise to me. You said you would try to get to know her.”
She tipped her head in the direction of Carolyn, who spoke with the Pixie and Tormin as though they were all old friends. If she felt the stares of the assembled nobles here, she did not acknowledge them.
Was she really so strong? Or was she just a perfect pretender? The kind of pretender, perhaps, who would work their way into the arms of the royal family of Velkin only to murder them all in their sleep?
“If I get to know her, it will send a message that the humans are accepted here,” I said, with a shake of my head.
“Then let them be accepted.”
“The people will be lulled into a false sense of security if we accept them into our midst. The Velkin should be vigilant against the human threat always, even in times of peace.”
That was my brother talking too. He’d spent many hours in my presence telling tale of the human menace, of how our people would surely be destroyed if we allowed them to continue existing at all, much less in our halls.
“As vigilant as you are right now? Watching her every move?”
“I’m trying to make sure the human doesn’t come at you with a knife.”
“The human didn’t come at me with a knife the other day in my office.”
“She...what?”
Confusion tore the upper conversational hand out of my grasp. Mother had kept this from me? She’d spoken to the human and thought it wasn’t worth my attention? She could have been killed. The human could have taken advantage of their proximity and murdered her or spirited her away or...
...But none of those things had happened, had they? No. Mother and the human had been alone together. And mother wasn’t harmed. In fact, she seemed all the more devoted to the little human’s cause.
“Ariedre and her little clique of hangers-on brutally attacked her in the washroom. I’ve never seen such cruelty off of a battlefield. I took her back to my office and tried to get her to stay in Velkin.”
My heart stopped. “She’s thinking of leaving Velkin?”
“I don’t know. But I won’t have her even thinking of it.”
Searching mother’s face, I found all of its usual love and devotion there, but there was something hard there, too. Something completely set and serious. Her levity was gone. I found the gravity of this situation in my mother’s eyes, but not any hint as to the truth of Carolyn’s purpose here.
“Why? Why is she so special?”
She was, for all of her beauty and bravery and wit sharp enough to pierce a man’s heart, just a human girl. Of everyone in both of our universe to that with the fate of everyone in our midst, she seemed an unlikely candidate at best.
But, to be fair, I was an unfeeling prince with more cruelty than sense. Perhaps I was just as unlikely a candidate to save the world as she was. My mother pursed her
lips, her eyes focused on one of the thousands of reflections of Carolyn.
“I will say this. We aren’t a people at war yet. But you’re right. The possibility is always there, hanging just over our shoulders, lurking behind us, stalking our people and theirs. War is a shadow that only a very bright light can shake. And there are some people whose lights haven’t yet been awakened.”
“Hers?” I asked, furrowing my brow.
“And yours.”
She spoke with such conviction, such certainty that it was nearly impossible to doubt her. But...but I did doubt her. I couldn’t help it. I’d been a creature of darkness for so long that the thought of awakening any light within my black hole of a soul was nearly impossible.
“You should go speak to her.”
“How many times do I have to remind you that she is our enemy?”
And how many times will I need to remind myself that she’s our enemy before my body actually agrees? My mother tossed up her hand.
“Fine. Then march to her and check to make sure she’s not concealing any weapons. I don’t care about the reasoning. Just go over and speak to her.”
I could have brushed my mother off. The ballroom was big enough to get lost in and never resurface. If I’d really wanted to, I could have disappeared into the ether of the crowd, where she wouldn’t have found me until I wanted to be found.
But then I caught sight of Carolyn in her ballgown again, laughing at something Tormin had just said, and I knew I couldn’t hide away any longer. If she was a threat, then I needed to face her head-on. And if she was as important to the fate of our worlds as my mother seemed to believe, then I needed to face that, too. No matter how much I wished it wasn’t true. But with every step that I walked closer to them, my sensitive ears picked up more and more of the hushed conversation between her and Tormin. I slowed my pace for better eavesdropping, and was humiliated to find that my heart was racing at the sound of her voice.
“...You said he wasn’t going to be here.”
“I didn’t know he was going to be here.”
“I can’t imagine that’s true. Don’t try to lie to me, elf.”
A word that had been an insult to me just a day ago was tossed in my brother’s direction with joking, teasing ease. And I didn’t care for that at all.
Was this what jealousy felt like? No. No, of course not. I wouldn’t be jealous of the affections of a human. Not even one with eyes like midnight and a mouth designed by angels for kissing. My brother answered her joke with some snark of his own.
“Well, technically I didn’t lie to you. You asked if my brother was going to be here tonight. And when I said no, I was thinking about Adric, not Anatole. So...this miscommunication is rather your fault, don’t you think?”
“I can’t believe you did this to me.”
“But what a happy accident! You have an escort and I have an escort.”
A gasp rasped out of Carolyn’s mouth. “You planned this, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t plan anything.” Tormin helped himself to a long sip of his wine. Suddenly, I wished for a glass of my own. I could use the liquid courage. “I just happen to think that some people need a push in the right direction to make them happy, don’t you agree? And anyway, isn’t it all just wonderful?”
If I waited any longer, I would have talked myself out of approaching her, and that couldn’t be allowed to happen. Striding up, I inserted myself into the conversation with a confident, regal air. The Pixie had disappeared somewhere into the party, leaving just Tormin and Carolyn to witness my arrival. Around us, the party’s gaze tightened upon us, as they realized that the two remaining princes were both giving the little human girl some of their time.
My stomach tightened. Anxiety plucked at my emotional strings and I fought to maintain my facade of tightly held control. I can’t believe I’d allowed a human nobody to get under my skin in this way.
“What is just wonderful?’
“Brother! We have a bit of a dilemma. I’ve invited Miss—”
One glance from Carolyn’s thoroughly unimpressed face would have been enough to kill any weaker men. Wrapping her cloak around her shoulders, she made for the door. “Can it, Tormin. I’m going home.”
“Why would you do that?” I called after her, hardly even aware I’d done it. My entire body was acting without permission now. She stopped about three steps away, rose to her full height, and turned to give me a piece of her mind.
“Because when I like to go to a party, I like to have fun and be around people that I like and who actually like me. Not people who come across the room to goad me and pick fights with me.”
“I didn’t come here to pick a fight with you.”
She scoffed. “Oh, really? This should be good. What did you come over here to do, then?”
“I wanted to ask you a question.”
“And what is that?”
Why are you so special? What gives you the right to enter my life like this? Why are you here in a room full of people who could kill you using only the magic in their fingertips? A million questions rolled through my mind, each one fighting for dominance and its turn to needle information out of her. They all were questions I needed to know the answer to, all questions vital to the survival of Velkin, of my people.
But I didn’t ask any of those questions. They all slid into the background like white noise, fading until only one question, one impulse, one overwhelming desire overtook me.
“...May I have this dance?”
Chapter Eleven
Carolyn
“May I have this dance?”
He couldn’t be serious...Could he? No. My eyes flickered from left to right, scanning the rest of the hall as I searched for anyone who could have been in on this prank, this scam, this whatever he was trying to pull. In every corner of the room, watchful stares met mine. But there wasn’t anything that told me they were going to destroy me or offer me as a human sacrifice or dump pig’s blood on me any time soon.
I’d just have to be on my guard in case they did.
“Why would you want to dance with me?”
Even if he hadn’t spent every waking second—and probably most of his sleeping seconds, let’s be honest—since we met apparently hating my guts, I still didn’t quite understand what a guy like him wanted with a girl like me. After a lifetime of never once being asked to dance, I didn’t understand why all of the sudden the guy who couldn’t stand the sight of me wanted to drop everything and sashay me across the room, even if his handsome eyebrows were scrunched up in a mask of confusion at my very simple question.
“Why wouldn’t I want to dance with you?”
“Because you hate me.”
Duh. Come on, you’re supposed to be a prince. You’ve got to be smarter than that, right? He offered his gloved hand out to me, a second invitation. I was almost disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to feel his skin against mine, but I shook that desire away as soon as I registered it. Why would I want to feel Anatole’s skin against me anyway?
“That’s not true. I don’t hate you. And I’ll prove it to you with this dance, if you’ll have me.”
Scanning the room, I searched for any escape, any reason to turn him down. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to dance with him. The problem was that I wanted to dance with him. And I knew that it was a terrible, terrible idea to want something like that. Girls like me didn’t get the fairy tale of a prince sweeping me off of my feet as he twirled me around a ballroom, and I certainly wasn’t going to get that from Anatole. The music from the band swelled, then polite applause erupted from the dancing crowd in the center of the room as the band struck up a new tune. It was slow. Sensuous. A song perfect for laying out under the stars or in front of a roaring fireplace. Couples paired off and clung close to one another, moving their bodies in a spinning, dizzying dance that would have been considered totally indecent on Earth.
“I don’t know this dance,” I said, heat puddling in the pit of my stomach as I i
magined Anatole’s firm, hard body against my own, moving as if we were one.
“Really? Well, I suppose that makes sense. It’s a very particular Velkin dance.” He offered me his hand once more. This time, I took it. “I’ll show you how it’s done.”
All stray conversation in the room hushed to almost non-existence as Anatole led me out onto the dance floor and we took our place in the crowd. This wasn’t some hoity-toity waltz that I’d seen in a million romance movies. This was tight and close and unbearably sexy. Anatole pulled me close, so close that my breasts pressed against his chest and his arms wrapped around me, holding me in place.
I didn’t know this dance. But the music moved through me and I followed Anatole’s lead, barely able to keep pace with the thundering of my heart. Could he see my pulse thundering at my neck? Could he feel the way I involuntarily arched my back to be closer to him? Could he sense the heat pooling between my legs as our hips moved in a perfect slow-burn of friction and tension and desire?
Anatole had said this was a very particular kind of dance in Velkin. Did I dare to ask him if it was some kind of mating dance? Did everyone feel as lost in the music and the overwhelming want as I did right now? I searched his gunmetal blue-grey eyes for any hint, any sign of what he was feeling beneath his cold mask, but he gave nothing away.
I swallowed and cleared my throat, trying to wrestle back some of my self control. I couldn’t let myself be swept away by a handsome guy who’d danced with me a little too close. Stiffening in his grip, I stopped letting my body move as freely with his movement, fighting my natural urges and replacing them with calculating indifference.
My body wanted to want him. My mind refused to let me. Getting involved with a prince who hated me, letting him play me, was not going to help me get through this school year. I wanted to fly under the radar and get out of here with a degree, nothing more. I couldn’t let myself want the prince.
“Your highness, you don’t have to pretend to be nice to me. You’re the future leader of this kingdom. Like you said, you don’t ask for permission. We don’t need to dance to get whatever ulterior motive you’re hiding here.”
Magic Exchange: A Supernatural Academy Romance (The Velkin Royal Academy Series Book 1) Page 8
