“I… spoke… to… you?” A cold prickle rushes across the back of my neck, and my voice threatens to give out.
I’d always talked in my sleep and rarely remembered doing so. How many times had I been abruptly awoken by Seraphyne poking me with the stick she had specially commissioned to stir me from what she called mysleep mumblings?
“Would you like to know what you said to me?”
The Stone Fae King’s dark voice smokes across the table like a noxious killing gas.
“No, not particu?—”
“You told me you wished I was not…” He taps a taloned index finger to his jaw—exactly like I’d done the night before. “What was your exact terminology? Ah, yes. You said I was ‘so freaking sexy.’ You also lamented kissing me because it was, and I quote, ‘the hottest thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life.’”
Then he leans in. “Tell me, princess, were you referring to my body heat… or something else?”
“Something else.Definitely something else,” I immediately answer while dratting my loose, half-asleep tongue.
He holds my gaze. “There was also another lament about not wanting to die a virgin.…”
Moist! Moist! Moist!I actually said that? Out loud? I’m so buried without seeds.
Salvation arrives in the form of an interruption before I have to come up with a plausible response.
“Son. I require a word with you.”
We both turn to find a man I can only assume is Veyrion’s father. He has the white hair of an older male and the same glowing red eyes as the Stone Fae King. Also, there’s the whole calling Veyrionsonbefore requesting a word.
Anyway, the older male doesn’t introduce himself or even look at me as he clarifies, “Aprivateword.”
A Private Word
VEYRION
My father’stiming could not be worse. I was basking in my triumph, having finally gotten my little Oblation on the sharp side of my conversational dagger after taking several cuts from hers.
But with my father standing there, visibly fuming, I’m forced to cede my hard-won ground and dismiss her.
“You will return straightaway to the room, without dilly or dally,” I tell her.
Fortunately, Sallie Rose seems eager to escape our conversation and refrains from saying or doing any of the many things that might provoke further questions from my father.
Unfortunately, her departure leaves my father free to ask me questions.
“What is this I hear about you aborting a raid and letting an entire group of trespassers go with their lives intact?”
I assumed that bit of military gossip would find its way back to him eventually. I had only hoped thateventuallywould not come so soon.
“They were but a click from the Solmane border. Having almost made it, I did not wish to bother my horde.”
“Since when has demonstrating our might been considered a bother?” my father demands, stepping to the side of the table where Sallie Rose previously sat. “Does this have something to do with that Eryx Oblation?”
I do not reply, but apparently, my silence is answer enough for him.
“Have you forgotten the point of these three nights? It is to prove she holds no sway over you.”
“She does not. I will sacrifice her to the Eryx moon tomorrow, happily,” I assure my father.
And myself.
“Naturally, you will. I only mean to offer whatever assistance I can in conquering your bride for Eryx—and then getting on with the business of having an heir.”
