“Why do you believe I have an ulterior motive?”
“Princes always do. Like with Tormin. He stood up for me today in the Dining Quarter, but now I know he only did it to get in good with Kyra.” My eyes travelled across the dance floor, where Kyra and Tormin were locked in one another’s embrace. My heart sickened with envy, an envy I desperately fought off. “People think that I’m dumb as a bag of rocks because I’m human, but I’m not. I understand that there’s a lot of politics going on here and I’m trapped right in the middle of it. Just say what you want to say and don’t pretend like you suddenly like me.”
Being used was exhausting. Queen Freia, Tormin, Ariedre, and now the prince were all using me for their own ends. I didn’t want to settle for being a pawn on the chess board. I wanted to take myself off the board altogether. Anatole raised a perfect eyebrow in my direction, probing me.
“So, you won’t even entertain the idea that I actually wanted to dance with you?”
“Why would I ever think that when you’ve made it your personal mission to make me know how much you hate me?”
“I don’t hate you.”
The words came out in a rush, as if he hadn’t meant to say them. I swallowed back a wave of joy at the sound of them. Saying he doesn’t hate you isn’t the same as saying he likes you. Don’t be so pathetic.
I decided that an eye roll was in order. At least that kind of covered up the small smile that had stormed my lips at his tiny declaration. “That’s news to me.”
“I don’t hate you personally. Just humans in general.”
Oh, great. Just peachy. He was just being a total and complete asshole to me because he hates everyone from Earth, not because I’d personally done anything to offend him. Somehow, that didn’t bring me any comfort. Instead, it only piled me high with even more confusion that I had before.
As my mind was distracted, my body settled back into the rhythm of the dance. His body was everywhere on mine. There was no escape from his touch, and I didn’t want one.
“Why? Your brother doesn’t seem to mind us. Your father, your mother. Why you?”
“I don’t believe that’s any of your business.”
“I can’t fix a problem I don’t understand.”
“Listen.” He stopped dancing, but didn’t move his body away from mine. It was as if we were one being, one creature of heat and touch and sparks. His eyes blazed. “I don’t know what my mother has told you, but you are not going to be the savior of our peoples. You aren’t special. You are a threat. An enemy. And I intend to expose you for what you really are.”
“And what is that, exactly?”
Silence. Then, he brought us back into the fold of dancing couples and suddenly, abruptly, refused to meet my gaze. “...I don’t know yet.”
“So, that’s why you were so angry today when you saw me and your brother together?”
“Precisely.”
“That’s it? Just angry that he was cavorting with the enemy?”
I’d found a way to get deep under Anatole’s skin and I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity. Maybe it was going to get me in trouble, but now that I realized his real problem with being connected to humans, I realized how to best mess with him.
He’d spent so much of our time together getting the upper hand. Now, it was my turn. I held him a little closer, watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he gulped.
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
“Why is that interesting?”
I shrugged, pretending to be nonchalant. “Oh, no reason, really. It’s just that back on Earth, when a man storms out of a room at the sight of a woman with another man, it’s because he’s angry someone else got to her first. But, I’m sure the customs are different here in Velkin, right?”
For a few steps, I waited for the inevitable blow-up, for him to deny it and storm off and call me a traitorous human or whatever insult was currently in fashion. But, to my surprise, he didn’t do anything of the sort.
I’d left him speechless.
Eventually, he found his voice again, but still didn’t manage to look me in the eye. “You are a surprisingly good dancer, for a human.”
“And you’re a surprisingly good dance partner, for an asshole.”
His jaw tightened. My heart stutter-stepped a little as I realized how handsome he was when he actually allowed himself to show his emotions.
“I’m only trying to do what is best for my people.”
“And I’m only trying to make it through this year alive.”
That got his attention, but not in the way I had intended. He was now more suspicious of me than ever. “Why? Are you afraid someone might kill you?”
“It’s just an expression. If I was really worried about being killed by someone, I wouldn’t have agreed to dance with the most likely candidate for my murderer.”
“I’d never murder you.”
My lips twitched upward. I couldn’t help it. For most of my life, I’d fought to keep my emotions under wraps, to hide away everything that I was just in case people started to look to closely. But here, in the arms of a prince, I finally found that I couldn’t hide myself anymore. Sure, there was still a level of danger to being this close to him, but now, I had friends. I had people in my corner. His brother and his mother and Kyra would never let him hurt me because I’d mouthed off to him. “That sounds like something a murderer would say.”
His eyes narrowed. We were dancing so close now that I could feel his pulse hammering against my tender skin. It was racing faster than mine ever had. “You’re trying to distract me, aren’t you?”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“You’re part of the human plot to overthrow or destroy Velkin and you think that your quick wit and batting your pretty eyes and the way your body moves against mine is going to distract me from finding out the truth. It won’t work.”
He’d just accused me of treason, but my mind—and, to be honest, my body—was still stuck on the other stuff, the minor details, really. “You think I have pretty eyes? You like the way I move against you?”
“This dance was a mistake,” he said, but I noticed that he only held me closer. Close enough to kiss me. Close enough that I could feel his breath against my lips.
“Then why did you make it?”
“Because the closer I am to you, the sooner I can stop you if you ever try to harm any of my people.”
Then be closer to me, my body practically screamed. But I held back, swallowed the sensation, and asked the more important, practical question first, knowing full well that I wasn’t ever going to ask him to hold me closer.
“Why would I want to hurt the people who have given me a new life?”
“A what?”
His confusion was genuine and written all over his face. For once, he couldn’t hide what he was really thinking or feeling. He didn’t understand me. Didn’t understand why I loved this place more deeply than I’d ever loved Earth, even after only being here for a few days.
Explaining that, though, proved impossible when the moving crowd of bodies on the dance floor separated, the music died, and a crowd of heavily armed soldiers rushed in our direction. The leader, a stern-faced blonde-and-silver haired man in shining gold-armor adorned with a crest I remember seeing stitched onto Ariedre’s clothes, walked up to us, his hand on the sword hanging at his left hip.
This didn’t look good. I wasn’t exactly what anyone could call an expert in inter-universe relations, and even I knew that a small army running towards me with swords wasn’t a sign of good will.
Since I’d walked into this room, I knew I didn’t belong among the beautiful creatures and their magical, ethereal otherness that made them all part of something I’d never be able to understand. But it wasn’t until now that I felt thoroughly unwelcome.
Weirdly, though, I never felt afraid. Because Anatole’s hand rested firmly on the small of my back, and even as the soldier’s wide, alarme
d eyes flickered back and forth between us, he held me close and didn’t balk. The soldier gave a slight bow, never once letting his eyes leave us or his hand stray from his sword.
“Your highness.”
“What is it, Vertor?”
Vertor’s face tightened and he stepped in close, lowering his voice so that prying ears couldn’t hear their conversation. But since I made no move to leave Anatole’s side and he made no move to push me away, I heard the whisper as clear as day.
“Your highness, you must realize that you are dancing with a human.”
“Yes. What of it?”
This was not the answer that Vertor had been expecting, apparently. His jaw tightened, as did his grip on the handle of his sword.
“They are a cancer on Velkin and she will consume you if given the chance. She spirited herself into this ball, infiltrated our most sacred of spaces to bring us all harm. But don’t worry.” A metallic screech of blade against sheath rang out against the marble flooring and bounced against the mirrored walls. I blinked, and before I could open my eyes again, the cold sting of a blade dug into the soft flesh of my neck. Not enough to pierce the skin, just enough that I knew breathing too deeply would get me killed. Vertor growled, his eyes full of hatred as he leveled his weapon at me. “I will get rid of her.”
Now, not even Anatole’s touch could keep my fear at bay. But if he felt even a flicker of terror on my behalf, he didn’t show it. Instead, he stared down the edge of the blade, one distinguished eyebrow raised. Cool as ice and twice as chilling. “Get rid of her?”
“Step aside, Prince Anatole,” Vertor said, then addressed me. “Human girl, as the leader of the Royal Guard of Velkin, I hereby order you to surrender yourself to me.”
“We were just dancing,” I whispered, my entire body shaking now. Fear coursed through my blood like adrenaline, with memories of countless outbursts from my mother flooding back to me. I tried to remind myself that I hadn’t died then; I wouldn’t die now. But the memories were potent and triggering. I wanted nothing more than to disappear.
“A human has no place in the arms of a prince. Surrender yourself or I will make sure there is nothing left of you to surrender.”
My trembling lips parted. I needed to say something to convince him to let me go, but the words got caught somewhere between my heart and my mind. That’s when I heard another clash of metal against sheath.
Anatole has drawn his sword.
My pulse leapt. What did that mean? Was he coming to my aid or offering his services to Vertor to help him kill me? Was it like Ariedre said, where he didn’t want anyone else to touch me because he had much worse plans in store?
Gently, more gently than I’d ever seen him do anything, Anatole brushed his blade to the inside of Vertor’s, and pulled it away from my neck. I dove away, stepping backwards in a hasty retreat.
“Step aside,” Anatole said, his voice measured and all the more dangerous for it.
“Your highness—”
“Stand down or I will make you stand down.”
Vertor stepped back and dropped his sword, but didn’t properly stand down. Instead, he took a spinning walk to take in the staring strangers in the ballroom, before calling out to them. “She has clearly bewitched him. I swear, your highness, we will save you from this creature.”
Then, Vertor raised his sword in my direction again. And with a single, three-word sentence, he unleashed Hell in this one ballroom:
“Guards, seize her.”
Chapter Twelve
Anatole
If you had told me a week ago—hells, even an hour ago, that I would be standing in the center of the Mirrored Ballroom, sword drawn, defending a human from the swords and the rage of my own Honored Guard, I never would have believed you. I most likely would have had your head sent for examination with the kingdom’s finest apothecaries and medical practitioners. Believing you would have been out of the question.
As my blade clashed against Vertor’s, I tried to convince myself that this was an entirely practical exercise, one born out of necessity. Not only would my mother kill me if I let the human die, I knew that if Vertor killed her now and she was part of some plot to overthrow Velkin, then that plot would die with her. He'd never be able to unravel the scheme without her. Defending her was nothing more than a logical decision grown out of a desire to protect my people at all costs, even if it meant keeping our enemy alive long enough to see her plot in its fullness.
That’s what I told myself. But with every thrust and parry I traded with Vertor, I knew that it couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Something primal and overwhelming moved through me, forcing me to act in Carolyn’s defense. I needed to rescue her. My soul wouldn’t allow me to stand idly by and let anything happen to her.
It was instinct. It was necessity. It was need. But above all else, it was a part of me that I could no longer deny, not when a small army had the end of their blades pointed directly at her neck.
Pushing Carolyn back further behind me, I squared off with Vertor as my brother and our own personal swordsmen took to the rest of the Honored Guard. Our swords met, blow for blow, until he was the only thing in my world. My only goal was defeating him, ending him, destroying him—
“What is going on here?”
The clattering of swords and the grunting and howling of combatants halted at the sound of my father’s booming, rage-filled voice. Apparently, in light of current events, he’d foregone the pomp and circumstance of a Royal entrance to this, his birthday party, and decided to just thunder down the stairs with his own sword drawn.
“I said: What is going on here?”
Despite the fact that about twenty soldiers and nobles had joined the fray, he directed his ire at me. I searched for the right thing to say to explain how we’d all gotten here, but there was no way to say I think I’m starting to have feelings for this little human, despite my best efforts, and when your soldiers tried to kill her I put my own life on the line to make sure she wasn’t harmed without sounding absolutely mad and confessing my weakness to the world, which was something I wasn’t at all willing to do. “Father—”
“Your Majesty, your sons have been taken in by this—“
Father held up a hand. Vertor shut his mouth immediately. The sight would have been thoroughly satisfying if Vertor didn’t have the honor of some of my blood splattered upon his cheek. Tricky bastard got me during the scuffle. Father’s face reddened and his eyes widened. “What I see is my own Honored Guard raising their swords against their future king!”
“We were trying to extract the human for questioning and confinement. The humans are a danger to us all.”
“You fool!” The tension in the room tightened as my father slowly, ever so slowly, walked in a long, calculated circle around the perimeter of the dance floor, making deliberate eye contact with everyone he could as he spoke, letting them know precisely how he felt about this turn of events. Even though I’d been on the side of right in this dispute I couldn’t help but hang my head slightly. I’d encouraged all of this. I’d let hatred of the humans fester not just in my own heart, but across the kingdom, too. “Hear this. And all of you, hear this. The humans are under our protection. Anyone who raises a hand to them raises their hand against me. And the punishment for such a crime is death.”
With that, my father made a cold dismissal of the Honored Guard, promising that they would all be met with swift and decisive punishment. A king had to make many difficult decisions, but I knew my father wouldn’t see the sentence of banishment as a difficult one in this particular case. He’d told the people of Velkin that the humans were to be looked after. The terms of our treaty with them was clear. And he’d been disobeyed in the walls of his own castle. The guard were lucky that this birthday party hadn’t turned into an execution viewing instead.
As the music began again and the party slowly but surely returned almost to normal, I scanned the crowd for Carolyn, only to find her wrapped up in my mother�
��s arms in the farthest corners of the room. Tormin scuttled away to look after Kyra, and my father and I moved towards Carolyn and Mother.
I’d never seen Carolyn look so small. Or so terrified. She’d always been made of the sternest, the bravest stuff. Yet, as she shivered in my mother’s arms, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze, I didn’t think less of her.
She’d almost been killed. All I really wanted to do was make sure for myself that she was alright, an impulse I chalked up to a battlefield reflex rather than anything too complicated. As my father approached, I watched his red face sink into paler, more sympathetic shades. He didn’t dare to reach out to her, not when she was shaking so badly, and I followed suit, keeping my hands on the hilt of my sword just in case anyone got any ideas about attacking while my back was turned.
“My dear, are you alright?” Father's voice rumbled.
“Yes, your Majesty,” Carolyn stammered. Then, her eyes glanced up towards mine, and I could see brimming, anxious tears welling up, tears she didn’t let herself shed. My prejudice told me that this was an act, a helpless maiden trick pulled just so I wouldn’t suspect her any longer. But the rest of me rejected that theory. There was no way any human could be such a convincing liar. She really was terrified. And she really did look to me as if I’d rescued her from all the terrors of the universe. “Anatole, he...he saved me.”
That hung in the air. I shifted uncomfortably. I wasn’t sure how much I liked being the human’s savior.
I didn’t hate it. But I knew that the declaration shouldn’t have made me swell with pride, so I furiously tamped down that feeling. My mother nudged her out of her arms and towards me.
“Take her outside, Anatole. Get some fresh air and some wine in her before she passes out in front of all of these prying eyes.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Again, there was that battlefield instinct to make certain that Carolyn was alright. Delicately, I wrapped my arm around her shoulder, pulled her in close, and led her out of the ballroom, not caring who could see us or what they were thinking. Fresh air. Yes, fresh air was what we both needed. The chilled night air would snap Carolyn back into herself and it would free me of all of these confusing, disorienting thoughts and feelings.
Magic Exchange: A Supernatural Academy Romance (The Velkin Royal Academy Series Book 1) Page 9
