He bowed his head, but knew he failed to hide his smile. “I would say yer circumstances warranted a bit of fractiousness.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Trying to understand.”
“I am trying, lass. Please know that I am trying.”
She patted his hand again. “We had better go.”
Feeling a great deal better than he had earlier, he tucked her hand through his arm. “Stay close to me and dinna trust anything she says, ye ken?”
Lexi nodded. “I am ready.”
He doubted that very much, but knew they had little choice. Onward to battle.
* * *
One thousand,nine hundred, and sixty-one years old.Lexi couldn’t help repeating that amazing number over and over in her mind. As they walked down the hallway, she rehashed everything else he had told her as well. Time passed differently here, he’d said. Did that mean she would live longer as long as she was here? She blinked away the prospect as Jeros’s muscular arm tensed beneath her touch. They must be getting close to the salon.
“Remember what I said,” he told her, his deep voice a raspy whisper that touched her like a caress. “I dinna wish ye hurt.”
She almost shivered, but caught it and forced it away. “I’ll be fine,” she said more to herself than to him. She’d dealt with her share of bullies as a child and later as an adult, and Jeros left her with the distinct impression that Princess Faeniana was a bully. If that was how the woman wanted to be, then so be it. Lexi was ready.
The sight of Aylryd’s rump and slowly switching tail sticking out of what had to be the salon’s double doors made her smile. Good kitty, standing at attention, letting everyone know that no crap would be tolerated.
Once they reached him, she ran her hand along his sleek back, then scratched his ears as a blatant sign that the Fae tiger was her friend. Then she came up short and swallowed hard. The Fifth Kingdom’s princess was so stunningly beautiful that it was almost painful to look upon her. She had the same shining white hair as Mairwen, but this woman showed no sign of old age. Her eyes were an icier blue than Jeros’s and definitely colder, making Lexi wonder if the princess was soulless. Well endowed both in breasts and hips and wearing a revealing gown that left nothing to the imagination, Lexi couldn’t help but remember one of her barn manager Sam’s favorite sayings whenever he saw a gorgeously curvaceous woman: Princess Faeniana was built like a brick shithouse.
The icy Fae gave her such a sneering look of disgust that Lexi should have melted into a puddle of tears, then tucked her tail and run. But she didn’t. This wasn’t her first rodeo with mean girls who got their jollies by cutting down others. Before Jeros could speak, she held her head higher and said, “I am Dr. Lexington Vine. And you are?”
Faeniana’s eyes went wide with indignation. “Prince Jeros, I came to meet with yerself—not yer pet.”
Jeros covered Lexi’s hand on his arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Ye will address my fated mate with respect, or ye shall be escorted out. Understood?”
“Yer fated mate?” The princess hissed a nasally laugh that sounded like a hysterical snake. “Ye would bind yerself with such an ugly, disfigured?—”
Aylryd crouched, ready to spring. A low warning growl clicked deep in the tiger’s throat.
“Some are disfigured on the outside,” Lexi said, “and some are terminally ugly on the inside.” She offered the princess her best smile. “When you speak to Jeros, you speak to me as well. What do you want?”
The princess’s entourage gasped, and the woman’s cheeks flared red with rising ire. “Insolent bitch.”
Aylryd shook the room with a thunderous roar.
“I agree wholeheartedly with the tiger, and this is yer last warning,” Jeros said. “Keep a civil tongue in yer head. This is not the Fifth Kingdom. We do not behave as the Unseelie do.”
The silvery-haired woman charged forward, but the Fae tiger’s bared teeth stopped her. She pointed at Lexi. “Ye would marry her and risk war?”
“Yes.” Jeros squeezed Lexi’s hand again. “The prophecy promised her to me. She is my one.”
“A mortal? And a scarred one at that?” The princess shook her head while baring her teeth, revealing an impressive set of fangs. “She does not belong in our world and will never be accepted as yer consort. Ye know that as well as I.”
Lexi made a mental note to check if Jeros had fangs, too. Was that a Seelie thing or a Fifth Kingdom thing? She noticed the princess staring not at her scars, but at something on her forehead. She brushed her fingertips across her brow, then remembered the mark Pegasus had placed upon her. Deep in her heart, something told her that Faeniana was not only cruel to people but to animals as well. “Stay away from the unicorns, or there will be hell to pay. Understand?”
The princess spat on the floor and twisted her beautiful mouth into an ugly sneer. “I dinna take orders from a mortal.”
“Ye do when that mortal is yer monarch,” Jeros rumbled with a growl of his own. “State yer business or leave.”
