Panic lit up my face. “What aniel?”
Her flickering eyes darted to the two guards behind me, and she hesitated.
“The one that’s either with you or her,” she said eventually and brought her nervous stare back to me.
A frown knitted my brows. “Jasper?”
The girl went paler than the Prince’s moon-eyes. “We shouldn’t speak their names if we’re not acquainted.”
I shrugged boldly. “I’m acquainted with quite a few of them.” A smile took my lips and I tilted my head. “How’s your friend, by the way? Roxhana, isn’t it?”
The threat lingered between us.
I know aniels. I have protection. You don’t.
It turned out I didn’t need to brag or flaunt my aniel guards.
Sarah looked at me blankly for moment. “She’s dead.”
That was all she said before she slammed the door in my face.
21
She’s dead.
Days of that playing over in my mind and I was no closer to knowing if I was a murderer or not.
In my lessons, I pestered Jasper often about Roxhana’s death until he threw power my way that had me on my knees, heart clenched in agony.
Still, he claimed to know nothing about it—and more so, claimed that he didn’t care.
I believed the last part.
I couldn’t talk to Ava about Roxhana, since she continued to avoid me or blatantly ignore my daily knocks on the door.
That left one person to confront. Well, not so much a person as he was a God. And I wasn’t too excited to rush myself into the proximity of the deadly Prince and demand to know all about how his worshipper died.
Maybe I didn’t really want to hear it.
Maybe it was best to be left thinking Monster only had a death count of one. My mother.
Monster’s kill rate couldn’t rise. I couldn’t let it—if the death toll rose, so would the monster within.
So I lived my dull routine within the stardust walls, whose sparkles and glitters had lost their magic. To me, at least. Everywhere I looked, even at the portraits that moved and scowled and smirked, the wonder was gone. Vanished. Wiped away just like my old life.
To pass the hollow time between lessons, tedious walks in the gardens, and silent dinners alone in my room, I wrote letters to Moritz. I handed them off to Jasper or whatever aniel guards were on duty at the time, but I had my doubts.
Jasper always gave me a distant, odd look whenever I handed him a letter for my brother.
Mortiz never received my letters. I was sure of it. As sure as I was of the constant, growing echo of loneliness that filled me.
Even when I walked the corridors of the palace, with two shadow aniels at my back, I constantly stared into dark nooks and gloomy hallways, waiting for someone to jump out and finish the job they started when they attacked me in my old, shabby room that I missed so much.
Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months.
I’d been at the palace too long now. Transferring energy from one artefact to another had gotten a whole lot easier, but that was all I had to show for my time here other than a broken friendship and a weakening grip on my inner monster.
Maybe a murder, too.
I shoved that slippery thought out of mind as I left a particularly gruelling lesson and made my way back to my room.
I didn’t bother trying Ava’s room first. It was late, and I suspected she’d have plans with Jasper or simply ignore my existence again.
I returned to the far wing of the palace.
Soft footsteps padded behind me the whole way—guards, who trod so gently that I was beginning to think of them as savage, stalking cats always on my tail.
As always, one swept into my room first to inspect, and I stayed out in the corridor with the other. The inspection was surprisingly quick that evening. But apparently it was all clear—the guard gestured for me to enter and, with a backwards glance at him, I did.
The guards took their places in the corridor as I shoved into my room and kicked the door shut behind me.
Light flooded the room, and not from the sky darkening through the panelled windows.
The fireplace was lit, roaring up the wall.
It gave me pause. The flames weren’t their usual yellow and orange hues.
Raging reds and blistering blues.
Just like they had been in the Prince’s parlour when I’d been tossed in to meet him.
Startled, I turned my gaze on the armchairs that tucked in close to the warmth of the fire. There he was, the Prince, sitting in my favourite leather armchair, watching the flames.
My heart dropped to my bum and my breath was stolen from me. I stood frozen by the door. Sweat had suddenly sprung to life on my skin, clammy and sticky and much too mortal for the presence of the Prince.
For weeks, I hadn’t seen him. For weeks, I craved a visit from him and feared it all the same.
Now that he was really here in my private chamber, I only wanted him to leave.
Without looking at me, without even turning my way, he lifted his pale, ungloved hand and gestured me over.
I closed in on him quietly.
Hands automatically clasped at my front and I dipped my head as though he could see me in the flames that he watched so closely.
“Sit.”
Nails cutting into my palms, I tucked my lips inwards and slowly sank into the chair opposite him. My wide eyes were gripped onto the side of his face, where the light of the flames licked along his jaw, up to his shadowy cheekbones, and darkened his usually fierce eyes.
In his other hand, I noticed an empty crystal tumbler. He held it loosely.
“Give me your arm.”
Still, he did not look at me.
My jaw tightened. The sudden urge to scratch out at him tore through me.
Where have you been?
Those words danced in my throat, eager to shout out at him.
Why won’t you look at me?
My fingers ached to force his face to mine. Instead, I shivered back my impulses and rolled up the lacy sleeve of my deep purple dress.
I extended my hand to him; my fingertips lazily brushed the sleeve of his crimson coat. He was gloveless; a single touch to his bare skin would kill me.
That day, I didn’t find death as terrifying as usual.
That day, I was burnt out.
My arm was suspended between us for a long, quiet moment. Even the crackles of the fire sizzled to faint hisses as if to respect the Prince’s silence.
It was starting to hurt. Holding my arm up for so long, waiting for him to do whatever he needed to. And my gaze drifted to his bare hand a mere touch away from my fingertips.
If I just…moved a little…everything would stop. All the emptiness, the pain, the constant battle with Monster. It would all go away in a blink of an eye.
“My Prince.”
The sound of my voice startled him. He swerved his suddenly bright eyes my way.
I bowed my head and touched my gaze down at the fluffy rug beneath us.
The heat of his stare burned straight through me. My skull ached, my skin felt like it was on fire. And still, I forced myself to keep my damn mouth shut.
It was a mistake to speak. But those words had left me before I could even think about stopping them. If I’d stayed silent, I would have touched him and ended it all.
Survival instincts were such a bother.
After a while, the Prince asked, “Am I?”
I jerked my head up and caught his fierce stare in mine. I blinked, taken aback by the softness of his voice.
“Are…” I hesitated. “Are you what?”
“Your prince.” His head tilted slightly; the glow of his eyes began to settle down until he was studying me with a distance in his gaze. “Am I your prince, Valissa?”
“Yes.” The word breathed from my lips like a sigh of relief.
And yet, relief wasn’t what flooded me. That was something else entirely, and it fl
ooded me all the way down to the growing hot spot between my legs.
I shifted on the seat, feeling my cheeks blaze.
“What does that make you?” he asked.
What does that make me…?
I hadn’t the faintest idea.
Not a worshipper. Not a servant. Not a devoted aniel.
What am I to him?
“A believer,” I settled on.
“Tell me what you believe.” His pale hand reached out for my arm, hanging between us. He inched closer, fingertips breathing down the length of my arm, but never touching.
I glanced up at his face and saw yearning in his eyes. A yearning to touch.
“I believe you are a God.” I chose my words carefully. “I believe I am at your service in your palace. And …”
His eyes snapped up to mine the second my voice failed me. Ferocity flashed in his eyes, and he was looking at me with a hunger that set my nerves alight.
“And?” he pressed.
“And,” I echoed, breathless, too-hot, suddenly desperate for his touch to meet my arm. “I believe you want to touch me as much as I need to touch you.”
A surprised cry tore through me—the Prince was suddenly out of the armchair, and his hand had clasped around my arm, hard. He ripped me out of the chair and pulled me flush against him.
I breathed, hard, and gaped up at him.
His fingers tightened like vines, but his bare skin didn’t touch me. He held onto my bicep, just above where the sleeve was rolled. An inch away from killing me.
The Prince aligned his face with mine.
I arched my neck to meet his heated stare. The heat grew and suddenly, I was sporting red splotches all over my face and chest.
Is this a power of his? Can he spring a carnal need through me like the God, Lover Lust?
Or is this all me, fool enough to desire him?
The Prince’s gaze ravaged me. I could taste the desire radiating from him, and it helped ease my worries some. I wasn’t the only one falling into a fool’s trap. Gods and vilas do not work. Especially not when that God is pure poison.
His eyes dropped to my lips and locked. He held me so firmly against him that I could feel every ridge and curve of his muscles pressing into me. My leg ached to hike up and let him in.
Hell, I almost did.
I almost melted against him like a mortal sacrifice.
But before I could, the Prince shoved me away from him, and I tumbled back. I landed on the armchair, eyes wide and chest heaving.
I watched as he turned his back on me; every muscle in his body fighting him. A smile dared to touch my lips just from the sheer satisfaction.
He wants me. A God wants me.
Prince Poison paused for a moment and ran his fingers through his silvery hair. I had the urge to do the same, to feel those silky strands on my fingers.
“Prove it,” he said; voice low and deep like a hunter’s growl. He lifted a silver knife from the small teatable and turned on me. “Prove to me that I am your prince.”
He offered me the knife, hilt first.
Hesitantly, I took it.
Reality crashed with lust inside of me; a battle of moments ago and now, clashing in my veins. I brought the knife closer to myself and kept my wide eyes on the Prince.
His face was unreadable. “Cut yourself.”
I did.
Hesitation left me in an instant and I pressed the tip of the blade into my palm. A bead of blood swelled; an instant before I dragged the blade down to the curve of my wrist. A long, deep slash that spilled like a crimson stream.
The Prince looked at me long and hard. Then he grabbed the empty tumbler from the floor—it must have fallen when he’d snatched me against him—and pressed it to my hand.
Blood filled the glass quickly.
I thought he might sit down again; drink my blood in front of me, make me squirm. But the Prince tossed a handkerchief my way—I rolled it around my cut—and pocketed the knife in his coat.
“If I am your prince, try harder,” he said, studying the crimson liquid in his glass. “Impress me, Valissa. Conquer your training, else I conquer you.”
I sank back in the armchair.
His eyes swerved to me and I gave a small nod.
The Prince made to leave, but he paused at the edge of the rug. He was so close that I could reach out and touch him—or grab the knife from his coat and plunge it into his back.
So many options.
I chose staying still and silent.
He kept his back to me. “Your attacker has been discovered,” he told me. “Roxhana was not to be underestimated.”
I stiffened in the chair. “Is … that how she died?”
Did he kill her or did I?
“She was destroyed for what she did to you.” The Prince’s voice had hardened; all business and distance, so different to the gravelly, desire-fuelled way he spoke to me before.
But that wasn’t what seized my thoughts.
Roxhana wasn’t the one who attacked me. Not in my room, at least. I remembered, right then, my attacker had been built from pure hard muscle. He was a man.
“She sent someone to do it?” I asked.
The Prince turned to me with a frown on his regal face. “Roxhana attacked you,” he said. “And she paid the price.”
Liar.
It was a man. I’d never been more certain of anything. Black hair, muscular, tall. Even when he’d spoken foreign words to me, his voice had sounded like rough paper, the kind used to sand down wood.
The Prince was lying to me. And I couldn’t decide why.
I should have shut the hell up, but I couldn’t. I had to probe harder. “She confessed?”
He blinked, his long thick lashes casting shadows over his face. “Yes. In her words and her blood.” He lifted the glass of my blood to emphasise.
Lies, lies, lies.
I nodded, then turned my pinched face down at my clasped hands.
The Prince stood there for a moment, watching me.
Eventually, he shattered the thick silence.
“One day, Valissa, I would like to see you dance in person.”
My stare shot up at him.
Again, he lifted the tumbler full of my fresh blood. “Not just in your memories,” he added, wearing a cold, icy smirk that chilled my spine.
A horrified look snatched my face as the Prince strode out of the room.
The doors shut behind him, and I was left staring at them with wide, ashamed eyes.
He really did see everything in blood.
And so, he really must have known—Roxhana didn’t attack me. The one who did was still out there, likely lurking in the shadows of the palace, waiting for another chance to strike.
And for whatever reason, the Prince didn’t stop him.
22
My guards knocked to tell me the Prince summoned me to the saloon.
My cabin back home had three rooms all up—one sleeping chamber, a cook area, and a front room with a sooty fireplace. The only time I’d seen a saloon was at the balneum and I doubted that the Prince’s was anything like the shabby old joint I worked at two months ago.
Still, I had little desire to go.
Rightly, I harboured a lot of anger towards the Prince. And I had many reasons to nurture it. His lies, his almost-kiss, his mind games, generally keeping me captive in a dangerous palace. All of that—and yet, I was most angry about one thing.
The Prince hurt my pride.
For days after that moment in my boudoir, I waited to hear from him, expected him to be sitting in the armchair by the fireplace again.
I didn’t hear a word from him. Not a letter or summons or a message sent through Jasper. Nothing to fracture my training days until now, nearly a week since I last saw him.
To make it worse, I was dressed for training. Bone-white breeches, a long-sleeved pink blouse bound in a pale corset that didn’t rob me of breath, and a determined look pinned to my face.
The guard
s took me to the window corridor, where I first met the Prince in the parlour room. But we passed it by, and headed to the farthest reach of the corridor.
The guards stopped at a set of doors that had my veins frozen in seconds. It was out of place with its faded black paint, chipped enough to see the orange hues of wood. Crystal doorknobs pulsed red like beating hearts, and already I could smell a familiar blend of smoke, booze and blood.
For a moment, nostalgia blossomed in my chest, sweeping me back to the balneum. It was short lived when I realised, only my worst nightmares could imagine the difference of a lowly brothel and tavern, and a saloon belonging to the Gods. I didn’t think the coppery tang of blood in the air came from hands cut in silly brawls—the source would be much grimmer; I was sure of it.
Fear trickled through me like rainfall down a window. My belly was churning, and a light glaze of sweat started to dampen my head.
After the last time I saw the Prince, I wasn’t sure I would survive. He was as unreadable as ever, as deadly as I feared, and more volatile than I could handle on my own.
Setting my shoulders, I took a long breath and grappled for Monster. Holding her hand somewhere deep inside of me might feed me that little boost I needed, make me feel stronger than I actually was.
My mind barely had to graze her before she took over in a single sweep, moving through me like icy water floods down a rocky river.
She was in control now. It was all over my hard features as I gave the guards a curt nod; I didn’t so much as flinch when they opened the doors.
The stench of blood and ink hit me first. It stained the air like the Prince’s own brand of poison. Monster was tickled; a small smile took my lips and my lashes lowered into devious slits.
Blood and ink, pain and secrets.
A scent tailored to my monster.
The look of the saloon wasn’t a whole lot better than its dangerous fragrance. Beyond the doorway I lingered in, lay a spread of shadows and lurking silhouettes.
There were no windows to let in natural light; only dim lanterns, flames turned down to the minimum. In their faint kisses of orange light, mortals fluttered about, moving from one patch of dark to another. The ordinary fit of their dresses and suits gave them away as vilas.
Gods and Monsters, Books 1-3: A Dark Gods Bully Romance (Gods and Monsters Box Set) Page 14
