by May Dawson
Whenever Azrael mentioned our past sex life, my imagination ran away with me.
“Usually, you’d be attended as you dressed,” he said, his voice taking on a warm, teasing edge. “But you sent all the servants away.”
“Did I?” There was a teasing note in my voice too, as I raised my eyebrows at him. The flirtatious tone of my voice surprised me so much that I cleared my throat. I wasn’t used to speaking to males like that, but I felt different around Azrael.
“I’m no servant, Majesty,” he said. His thumb brushed over my cheekbone. “You were right earlier when you said I’m no friend. But what’s between us has always been more complicated…more interesting…than that.”
“Well, I do hate to be bored, or so I’ve been told.” My voice was arch.
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, hesitating. He was so close that it felt as if he might kiss me, and my heart was suddenly racing. It really felt as if my body remembered him, because longing throbbed at my core, and I bit my lower lip.
When Azrael leaned close, my breath stuttered in my chest.
I’d lost my mind, I knew that. This was no fairy tale, and yet part of me wondered if his kiss would restore my memories. I let my eyes drift shut as his long fingers slid across my jaw.
I swayed in toward him, my lips parting as my eyes closed, shutting out the world outside.
Even the sound of the ocean rushing against the shore outside fell away. There was only me and Azrael.
Chapter Twenty-One
“I’ll help you dress,” he said, pulling away suddenly, as though with effort. “Pick a gown.”
My heart was racing so fast that I almost felt as if I’d stumble. Was I blushing? I never blushed, but my cheeks felt hot. God, I’d tried to kiss him. “Are any of them better suited for the occasion than others?”
“They’re all out of season,” he said. “You’ll look out of place tonight.”
“Then I’ll look how I feel, at least.” The memory of my flat t-shirt in the mirror back in my own apartment rose to mind. I was thicker in my mortal guise. “They won’t even fit…”
“We’ll make do,” he said, as if there was a we. As if we were a team.
I chose a dress with a tight rose-gold bodice that shimmered with jewels under the lights. It plunged low to reveal the shape of my cleavage, and a long, tulle skirt would drift around my legs.
I was pleased to find rose gold leather slippers to match, which apparently was what most Fae wore, among all the rest. “Flats!”
“How else would anyone make shoes than flat, for walking in?” Azrael asked, frowning.
“You have no idea what kind of wild stuff humans think up.”
He turned his back before I dropped the towel and slipped the bodice up over my hips. I hauled the bodice over my breasts, breathing in. Why didn’t the Fae world have Spanx? “You can look now. Not like it’s anything you haven’t seen before…”
He turned, his gaze widening with appreciation as if he liked me in any form.
“It’s different when you aren’t comfortable in front of me.” He moved behind me, pulling at the laces of the corset. When his fingers swept against my spine, my back arched faintly. I bit my lip, unable to completely hide the way my body responded to his touch. He added, “And it’s been five years.”
“Did you do this for me often before?” I asked.
He seemed comfortable with his hands on my body, helping me into this elaborate gown. Meanwhile, I fluttered with nerves. I had to get a grip.
“Often enough,” he said. “There’s always some debauched party in the summer court. And you’ve always been…difficult…with the servants.”
His voice sounded amused as he added, “And everyone else.”
Debauchery sounded promising right now. Something about the tease of having him dress me was causing me to imagine him undressing me. I’d asked Azrael if there was an enchantment to make people horny, but I needed the opposite. I needed a cold-shower spell, pronto.
“Do you have some new girlfriend?” I asked, teasing him, using those human words he despised.
He drew the corset tight enough that it squeezed my chest, and I exhaled a huff.
“No.” The playful note had left his voice.
“Why do you say that as if it’s so ridiculous? Was I so amazing…or so terrible…that you can’t move on?” I was teasing, but he fell suddenly silent behind me.
When he didn’t answer, I twisted, trying to see his face.
He yanked on the corset again. “Hold still. I’m barely qualified to lace you up as it is, but since you terrify the servants…”
“I don’t terrify anyone.”
“Nonsense,” he said. “Look at how you scare Duncan.”
I laughed out loud. “It doesn’t seem like anything or anyone scares Duncan.”
“He’d like you to believe that.” His fingers brushed my bare shoulder blades as he tied the ribbons at the back of the bodice. “There. Now you can turn around.”
I spun, the skirt twirling out from my legs. It made me feel silly and alive, just for a second. As if I were a storybook princess, and not the somewhat terrible princess I was now.
“How do I look?”
“Beautiful.” But his eyes were guarded as he watched me. “So beautiful it hurts.”
“That’s funny,” I said. “That’s how I’d describe your face.”
His brows arched. Why had I just said that? But it was true; everything about the sharp plane of his cheekbones, his beautifully shaped lips, his jaw, drew my gaze and left me aching all at the same time. I bit my lower lip, glancing away.
“You’re less guarded than you were before you…left,” he said.
I shook my head, hating how I felt at a loss when he reminded me of a shared past I didn’t remember. “I told you to stop telling me about who I was before. I want to remember for myself.”
“Right,” he said. “I’ll stop. It’s just sometimes I think perhaps you’re a different person than you were.”
He sounded as if the thought troubled him.
“From what Duncan said, that would be a good thing. He made it seem as if I were pretty terrible before.”
He shrugged. He’d liked me anyway, before; maybe he was disappointed by the changes. I tilted my head, staring at him for as long as I could bear to; it felt like staring into the sun. It was impossible to look away, and yet I knew that gazing too long would hurt.
“You’re going to look out of place,” he said, touching my hair and brushing it back with his fingertips. “Perhaps you might as well embrace it. Leave your hair down.”
“Everyone else will have theirs up?”
He nodded. “You’ll look a bit wild.”
“I am a bit wild.” I didn’t know anything about how to be a civilized Fae princess.
He smiled, a real, genuine smile that crinkled the edges of his eyes, and held out his arm. “Time for the princess to survey her chaotic kingdom.”
I hesitated at leaving the room.
“I will be right by your side when you have a question,” Azrael promised me. “I won’t let you look foolish.”
I couldn’t hide my smile. “Well, you can try. And I appreciate it.”
Azrael offered me his arm gallantly and escorted me to the ballroom. Just before the servants swung open the doors, I murmured, “They’re going to go to their knees, aren’t they?”
“Yes, they are,” Azrael said. “Even Duncan if he’s in the crowd, much as he despises it. I try to keep him away from these things, though.”
“Does he despise it as much when he kneels in front of Faer?”
“Oh yes.” There was a fervency to his words.
I wanted to know more about how Duncan—and Azrael—felt about Faer, but the servants were opening the doors and music spilled out and I had more pressing questions. “Do I say the same thing?”
“Just stand there and smile and look like a princess. After a few seconds, the music will start ba
ck up and people will rise and come to greet you until you go to your throne on the dais.” He smiled down at me. “If you need to retreat, go sit up there and look queenly. You’ll have to invite me up, though, so if you want me to come with you, say so.”
“Wait.” I grabbed his arm, and his lips parted in surprise. “Azrael. This sounds like a nightmare.”
“Being a princess isn’t easy.” His words were light and mocking, but I had a feeling he meant them.
I groaned. “Why did I come back here?”
“Just make it through tonight, and tomorrow, we’ll go to work restoring your memories,” he promised.
That was well and good in theory, but I still had to make it through tonight, and apparently, that included talking to half the kingdom. I faced an endless sea of Fae, of tails sticking out of dresses and elaborate hairstyles wrapped between horns, of faces that might be human and mouths with forked tongues.
Princess lesson one: No introvert should ever take the crown.
The noise and lights washed over us, and then the music stopped. Everyone sank to their knees. I stood there with a frozen smile on my face until the music began again.
Being a royal seemed merciless.
For a second, the lively fiddle music that started up again relaxed me.
Then I felt someone bearing down on me like a missile, and I glanced up expecting a threat, only to see a beautiful redheaded Fae bearing down on me.
Azrael pressed his body against mine from behind, and I was acutely aware of all that hard muscle against me. I started to twist to give him a look—not that I wanted him to pull away—but he whispered, “Elena Beure. Autumn court. You need to greet her first, or she can’t approach you without violating proper etiquette—she hates that. She’ll probably pretend to be your long-lost best friend, but you couldn’t abide her. Watch for her little insults. The old Alisa would never tolerate them.”
My mind reeled. He squeezed my shoulder, the gesture strangely comforting, and pulled away.
So this was a mean girl, according to him? What were mean girls like in the Fae world?
“Elena,” I said, imitating Faer’s magnanimous tone earlier, as if she were lucky I was speaking to her.
Annoyance flickered across her lovely features before she cooed, “Alisa, I’m so glad you made it home safely. Were you rescued by this handsome man?” She caught Azrael’s forearm with one hand, smiling up at him winsomely.
Azrael didn’t bother to smile back. “Princess Alisa has always been able to rescue herself, Elena.”
“Oh, so it’s true,” she said sympathetically. “You lost your memories. Listen, you must come to tea tomorrow, and I’ll catch you up on everything that’s happened.”
“Thank you, but I have a plan to catch up.” I wasn’t sure why I’d hated her before, but something about the way she looked at Azrael was like fingernails scraping metal for me. “Perhaps we could socialize some other time.”
“Of course,” she said.
“Why did I hate her so much?” I whispered to Azrael as she left, picking up a dance partner along the way. The two of them began to swirl across the dance floor with a flicker of skirts—oh, and I glimpsed a tail—to the music.
When Azrael hesitated, I was tempted to slap him.
I told him in a fierce whisper, “You lied to me that Faer wanted me to rule alongside him. You’d better get a lot more forthcoming in a hurry, or I’ll tell Faer I need another bodyguard.”
I realized I’d misstepped as soon as I said the words. Duncan would have called my bluff, eager to escape to a warzone rather than spend any more time with me.
Azrael studied my face with his purple eyes, which looked dark under the pulsing lights strung across the ceiling, then sighed under his breath.
“When we were all younger, Elena was determined to sleep with me,” he said. “I believe she hoped to find her way to serving at my side as queen. You didn’t particularly want to marry me yourself, but you certainly didn’t want her to.”
I frowned. “I meddled in your relationships?”
That was hardly fair. If I hadn’t wanted to marry him myself, I shouldn’t have prevented him from marrying anyone else. I’d encouraged Carter and Julian to move on, instead of hoping our friendship would tip over into something… hotter.
“I didn’t want her.” His voice was clipped, as if he were offended by the implication. Then he softened, his eyes sparking. “You always meddled, Alisa.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, but someone else was already approaching us.
And so the night spun on.
I met person after person who remembered me, but I didn’t know them.
Azrael whispered in my ear, telling me the right royal protocol to follow. He was subtle and smiling and seamless, and I had to admire how smooth he was.
Of course, he’d almost smoothed me right through that portal without an inkling of how wrong things were.
But despite his best efforts, I felt as if my uncertainty was on display. Some Fae stared at me with disappointment, some could barely contain their glee—but either way, I was left feeling insufficient.
“What a lovely party,” I muttered to Azrael. “Can I go yet?”
“Protocol—” Azrael began, then hesitated.
“Let me guess,” I said. “the old princess Alisa didn’t care much for etiquette?”
Azrael said slowly, “The old princess Alisa used it to her advantage. Give me a moment, and I’ll get you out of here without causing any chittering.”
I wasn’t sure what Azrael did, but before I knew it, the two of us were slipping out of the room and back down the halls to my room.
“Thank you,” I said softly when we reached my door.
He looked at me as if he were going to kiss me. But maybe those lush-lashed, deep purple eyes were just bedroom eyes. Maybe he didn’t mean to smolder in my direction.
He stepped close to me, looking down at my face as he came so intimately close that my breath caught, right before he pushed open the door to my room over my shoulder.
“It’s my duty. Goodnight, Princess.”
His duty. Anger tightened my chest. Gods, the beautiful man could go fuck himself.
And I wouldn’t even think about what that would look like, his hand wrapped around a cock that I was willing to be was long and thick, his eyes heavy-lidded as he jerked his hand up and down…
“Goodnight,” I managed, before fleeing into my room.
“Wait,” he said, reaching for me. My heart galloped, but all he did was step behind me and unfasten the damned corset.
Did I really have to tolerate these ridiculous clothes? The tight corset around my chest suddenly released, and I drew a deep, full breath. “This whole place is a trap. Even the goddamn gowns.”
He hesitated, then said, “I’m sorry, Alisa.”
I would have pressed him on what he was sorry for, but he was already moving on silent feet through the door. It closed softly behind him.
I shed the gown and crawled into the thick, luxurious bed. The crisp sheets and soft, thick blankets all carried a faint, sweet floral scent, even better than Tide.
I was exhausted, and I should have fallen asleep immediately. Instead I lay there wishing for sleep, listening to the endless rush of the ocean through the open doors to the balcony.
It sounded as if the old Princess Alisa played a fierce game with no prisoners and no regrets.
I wondered if she was still buried deep inside me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Azrael
Seven years earlier
Our next few months at the academy passed without trouble. Well, without any more trouble than seemed inevitable with Alisa at my side.
She continued to pretend she was a boy. I continued to pretend to be exasperated by him on a regular basis.
Actually, the exasperation didn’t take much pretending.
“You know your junior and mine missed a class together,” Galic stopped me in the
hall. “I intend to find out just what they were up to, in case they need to be punished for more than skipping.”
I stared back at Galic. He had his books clutched in his arm and a smug look written across his face. He’d annoyed me since we began at the academy. His confident smile flickered when I didn’t answer him with anything but an icy glare.
“I’ll speak to Faer,” I said finally, making it clear that I didn’t take anything Galic said at face value.
I was halfway down the hall when Galic called after me, “Are you afraid of what the High Princeling will do to you when he comes to power?”
The hall went silent. It was crowded with students, all waiting to see how I responded. I glimpsed Duncan in the crowd, his brow furrowed as if my own brother didn’t know what to think.
When I turned to face him, Galic had found his smirk once again. The accusation of cowardice sparked cold rage for me, and I wanted to tear Galic’s insolent head from his shoulders.
“Galic,” I said, letting my voice roll through the hall, no longer speaking quietly, “We’re supposed to cheer on our juniors. Your jealousy that both Faer and Keral can kick your ass? Well, you might not have the sense to be embarrassed, but believe me, everyone else feels ashamed on your behalf.”
Galic’s cheeks went dusky. “I’m not jealous of either of them.”
“Right,” I said. “That’s why you live to beat the hell out of Keral not on the pitch, but in your room, when he can’t fight back. What a joke.”
There. I’d staked it out clearly; I didn’t beat ‘Faer’ because I was proud of him, not weak and jealous like Galic. Even before I knew who he really was, I’d had no interest in carrying out the academy’s traditions of punishment. Although ‘Faer’ had told me—twice—that it would be better to take a beating than listen to me talk.
‘Faer’ was really testing the strength of my convictions.
I turned my back on Galic, a deliberate provocation I hoped he’d take.
