The prince isn’t taking his usual route through the forest, which is perfect. I’d rather play a spy than an assassin.
The second he senses me, he straightens incredulously.
“Good morning,” I call, slinging a saddle over the edge of the mare’s stall.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he demands.
I lead the white mare out of her stall and tie her up. “I’m coming with you. You’re the one who insisted that if I wanted to ride, then it had to be with you.”
“You’re the one who refused,” he comments coolly, his eyelids half-shuttered as he takes me in. “You’re up to something.”
“What could I possibly stand to gain?” I roll my eyes as I swiftly saddle the mare. “I’m bored. Your company is better than none. And I want to feel the bitter wind on my face and see something other than the inside of this cursed palace.”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “I would rather you didn’t.”
“I would rather I did.”
“And if I refuse?”
I pause. “Why would you refuse? I thought you wanted me to come with you.” I pretend to notice his sword. “You’re up to something.”
He stares at me for such a long time, I swear he’s going to deny me. “Fetch a cloak, a bow, and some warmer clothes. I’ll make a bedroll for you.”
“A bedroll?”
“Unless you want to share mine?”
When the Horned One walks the mortal realm again….
“I thought so,” he replies smoothly, as if my expression isn’t a complete insult right now. “I’d hurry. You have twenty minutes before I leave without you. And pack for a couple of days.”
Freedom.
I don’t waste any time.
Sprinting back to my rooms, I swiftly lace myself into warmer clothes, and then pause with my velvet-lined cloak in my hands. I don’t have anything warmer. I was expecting to be locked away in a palace when I packed, not invited to ride into the snowy wilderness.
And I was so furious at my mother that I hadn’t thought ahead.
By the time I return to the stables, I’m dressed, but not as I’d like to be.
The prince tosses a bedroll toward me, then arches a brow at my cloak. “You’ll freeze.”
“Some of us weren’t prepared for sub-arctic temperatures.”
“Then use your magic to ward yourself,” he says, leading his enormous stallion out of the stables.
My cheeks heat as I hurry after him. “I’ll be fine. Where are we going?”
“Beyond the range of Valerian’s warding spells,” he points out. “You may be warm now, Princess, but you won’t be warm where we’re going.”
Plenty of opportunity for him to suggest I curl up nice and close. I thought he’d like that. “Asturians have fire in their blood. We run hotter than most fae.”
“I know.”
It’s such a suggestive comment, I can’t help but arch my brows at him.
“Ward yourself,” he says, “or you’re not coming.”
The mare tugs at her reins as I stare at him.
Magic and I have never been close allies. I spent years trying to master the basics, only to have it slip through my fingers at the most inopportune times. It’s there, within me. I know, because I can feel it. But accessing it is like trying to capture pure moonlight in my hands. The only thing I have any success with is creating fire.
Sometimes.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I can’t, curse you.”
The prince turns to stare at me. “What do you mean, you can’t?”
I hate having to divulge my worst weaknesses. In Asturia, I shouldn’t even have them, let alone admit to them. Never show your underbelly. Never reveal your throat. And never, ever grant your trust to someone who hasn’t earned it.
“I can’t… ward.” I shrug. “It’s not one of my abilities.”
“Warding is one of the earliest magics we learn,” he says.
“Well, I can’t.”
And if he wants to cursed well push me for more information, then I’ll stay here.
Thiago gives me a sleepy-eyed look. I hate the fact I can’t read it. “Fine.” He steps closer, bringing both hands up to touch my face.
I bat them away, instantly on guard, and he holds them up in surrender.
“I was going to ward you myself.”
My hands hover in the air. He’s up to something and I need to know what it is. Does this have anything to do with that Unseelie spy he met in the woods the other day? Where is he going that’s going to take him away for a night or two?
But I also know that letting him touch me like this is a mistake.
Because his touch is another weakness I don’t like admitting to.
Every night I grant him the kiss I bartered, and every night I have to fight the instinctive response that begs me to lean into his touch.
“Warn me next time.”
It’s consent enough. The second his thumbs brush my cheeks, I feel a warm caress glide over every inch of my skin. It’s intimate and sensual and makes me shiver. His magic feels like silken sheets whispering against my skin, and the cool embrace of moonlight. Mine is a gush of hot, electric summer storms, but Thiago’s magic is a dangerous, smoky lure.
“Done,” he whispers.
I shake his hands off me, trying not to shiver again. “You just wanted to touch me.”
“Perhaps.” With the faintest of smiles, he grabs his horse’s reins again. “But consider, if you will, the fact I wasn’t the one who refused to try.”
“You think I wanted that?”
Incredible. His arrogance knows no bounds.
“I think you like dancing around the truth. You’re awfully defensive for someone who merely doesn’t know how to ward.”
“Maybe I just don’t trust you with the truth.”
For a second, his eyes darken, and he turns to me. “Are we going to spend the next three days stabbing at each other with words? Because I need to keep my wits about me and not focused on you. So here are the rules: If you intend to come, then you’ll need to keep your mouth shut at all times. And if I tell you to do something, then you don’t argue. You do it. Agreed?”
Three days?
“Where in the Underworld are we going?”
“Iskvien,” he growls.
“Agreed.”
He mounts up. “You’re the one who was listening to my private conversation the other day. You tell me where we’re going.”
I think about everything the Unseelie said, and the breath rushes out of me. “You’re going to Mistmere?”
The ruined keep was once the capital city of Mistmere Kingdom, which borders Thiago’s territories. During the wars, the castle was ruined and the lands blighted by the backlash of magic. Most of the territories were divided by the Seelie Alliance—including the disputed borders between my mother’s kingdom and the prince’s—but the north was never claimed. It holds direct passage to the northern half of the continent where the Unseelie kingdoms reside, and anyone who claimed it would need to be able to protect it.
“I need to know what Angharad is up to. Cian claims she’s poking about the ruins. I want to know why.”