CHAPTER SEVEN
Vice of a princess:
Thoughts transform when you acknowledge and accept the reprehensible has actually occurred within you.
What was once too atrocious for me to consider, has morphed into a want—a need—and only grows stronger when I break down my own preconceptions. Having a crucial law pounded into my head from the day of my birth, it is eye-opening to challenge it, to understand the genuine reasons for its existence…and its flaws.
I now walk into the tempest with my eyes wide open.
IPEEKED AROUNDa corner and watched a guest who had escaped the ballroom unnoticed—no sentries following in their wake. This individual most assuredly shouldn’t be sneaking about and should have been noticed leaving the heavily guarded festivities. This was a curiosity not to be ignored.
The tiger sauntered down the private hallways of my father’s castle. Its rear end faced me, its furry butt swaying in its casual trek as if it owned the elven space. To add insult, the tiger’s tail was lifted high in the air, the tip of it twitching back and forth to the lively music that softly floated within the castle walls from the ballroom.
What in the Fae fuck was King Athon doing?
He sniffed at each door before turning another corner.
I silently raced down the hallway and placed my back to a wall, glancing around the edge carefully. The tiger had to know I was following him, his sense of smell too acute to miss my scent. This felt like a great game of chase—while he lorded the fact that he was meandering about where he shouldn’t.
My eyes narrowed on him when he stopped.
The tiger leaned his front quarters down, his tail still up in the air…and he shook his ass side-to-side to the feisty beat.
I choked and slammed my hand over my mouth, all of my previous anxieties and fears fleeing in a swift rush, promptly replaced with utter amusement and shock.
The tiger was Fae damned boogying in Father’s castle.
Mayhap he had drunk too much?
The winewasfrom the Shifter Kingdom.
But he had been sober ten minutes ago…
Knowing I was watching, he bopped his butt to the tune a few more times, putting on an entertaining show.
Was heplayingwith me?
The tiger stretched, and then he moseyed down the hallway farther, sticking his nose against another door. The door unlatched from the hard push and swung open. The snooping furball wandered into the dimly lit room without care, disappearing from my sight.
I lifted one eyebrow and tiptoed straight to the room, entering with ample caution. I stopped and stared at the shifter king. He had shifted back into his normal form, and he was currently occupying a large, wingback chair next to a beauty vanity. I shut the door quietly and questioned in exasperation, “What in the five kingdoms are you doing, shifter?”
King Athon smirked and leaned back on the chair. His legs spread wide in their black leather. In his coarse shifter tone, he rumbled darkly, “Tricking my target.”
My mouth snapped shut, and my blink was gradual, realization hitting like a Fae damned week-old brick of bread. I mumbled under my breath, “You lured me here.” It wasn’t a question, the truth evident now.
The King of Shifters chuckled softly, his smile curving up on one side his mouth—flashing his white teeth. “There’s more than one way to capture prey.”
I exhaled heavily through my nose, my gaze traveling around the room we were in. It was a small bedchamber in the private guest quarters.
My attention halted on the bed.
There was no way he would want to…
“Why did you bait me here?” I asked casually.
Simple, blunt words. “You know why.”
Fucking Fairy, he was alarmingly brave.
