What if he knows why I was truly brought here? What if he knows about my affiliation with the exiled witch? What if he kills me before I kill him?
“You’re going to be his bride!” Zilo says happily with a big clap of his hands as he walks in behind me followed by two more less than excited hellhounds.
“You should tell her the plan,” Avian says suddenly.
The smile shining in his friend’s eyes drains away rather quickly. “No. It’ll put her in danger.” Zilo skims past me and takes a seat on the settee, making it seem tiny beneath his enormous frame. His legs spread wide as he makes himself comfortable, but he doesn’t look at all comfy really.
He’s tense. The hard lines of his shoulders and chest are deep cutting.
But I can’t focus on any of them.
“I know the plan,” I whisper.
Roman’s dark eyebrows slowly rise, but he says nothing. No one does. They’re too afraid of repeating their plans, and I’m too exhausted to even have this conversation. There’s a weight on my shoulders that’s grown real over the last several minutes.
I came here for a reason. And now the time has come.
“I have to get ready,” I tell them, and the tragic emptiness in Avian’s eyes isn’t from his blindness at all. It’s like he wants to steal me away from all the things he’s thrown me into.
It’s too late for that.
“Yeah,” Zilo agrees with an uncertain nod of his head. He might be uncertain, but I know he’ll fake his confidence until the day he dies. “Yeah. And…take a bath. I could smell you all the way down the hall.”
Great.
Good talk, Zilo.
Roman and Avian are still staring at me, and it isn’t until Zilo nudges them one after the other that they follow him out. A sort of aching pain pulses through my heart with the sound of the door clicking closed behind them.
I stand in a daze long after they’re gone. My body goes through the motions of a life worth living. Of a future Princess in the making.
I bathe. I comb my long blonde hair. I slide into the sleek dress my Prince gifted me. I glance only once at the beautiful, blue-eyed woman staring wide-eyed at me in the reflection of the inky bathwater.
And then I know I’m ready.
I’m going to kill my future mate.
* * *
The dinner that evening is finer than I’ve seen in this hellish realm. The meat is tender and seasoned, and some of the patrons even have the decency to use utensils from time to time. I spy Zilo and Avian holding the food in their hands, and a small smile almost pulls at my lips.
I suppose you can’t always teach old dogs new tricks.
The Prince’s hold on my hip tightens, and when I gaze up at him, he’s watching me closely. I’m seated on his lap as his legs dangle over the ledge of his favorite little perch. We’re sitting high above hundreds of tables. A quiet chatter of his people enjoying a delicious meal scuttles below us.
And he’s watching me with piercing dark eyes.
“What are you looking at, my lovely?” he asks, wafting hot air against my ear in a clammy uncomfortable sensation.
“Nothing,” I whisper along his neck, teasing his flesh while distracting his mind.
If he thinks too hard on the way I look at his High Hell, would he kill them?
Would he kill me?
A clatter of fine china clinks against the table set behind us, and from over Ravar’s shoulder, I lock eyes with the pale irises of the next heir to the throne.
“Thank you, brother,” the Prince drones without looking back at Roman. “Leave us.”
