Page 97 of Thirst
I’d been wrong. Cain didn’t look bored. He looked hungry under that relaxed façade.
My throat bobbed. My fingers tightened on the charcoal stick, laying a dark slash across the fae prince’s shoulder where he lounged on his throne, jewel-studded crown tilted, shark tattoo curling up the side of his throat, hands resting on the worked-silver arms.
I rubbed the slash with my fingertip, softening the edges, then deepened the crescents beneath his eyes, making them darker. Less glamour, more danger. The kind that would never fade, that lived in the bone.
“Maybe I’ve already met her. Maybe I’m waiting for her to catch up.”
The way Cain had said that, low and raw. Like he meant it clear to his soul.
I swallowed hard and switched to a pencil, adding embroidered leaves to the prince’s velvet sleeve.
“Maybe she doesn’t want to be caught,” I said when the silence had gone on too long.
Cain leaned in, elbows braced on his thighs, gaze locked on my face. “Maybe I can change her mind.”
I stilled, the pencil loose in my fingers. For a moment, neither of us moved, the air between us charged, expectant.
He drew an audible inhale. “Nyx?”
I shook my head. “You can’t. I’m done, Cain.”
The spell broke. His eyes shuttered and he sat back, resuming the first pose.
I started the embroidery on the prince’s other sleeve.
Cain watched me draw, jiggling his knee. He wasn’t upset, though. It was a measured, thinking-it-over bounce.
Several minutes passed. “Whatever names you’re calling me, I’m calling myself those and more.”
That got under my guard. My lips twitched despite myself. “I don’t think so.”
“That bad?” he asked, so deadpan I couldn’t help grinning.
“Don’t ask.”
His gaze moved over my face, settling on my mouth like he was drinking in my smile. “You know I have to ask now.”
I added a pair of horns to the prince’s platinum-blond head. “I can insult you in two languages. Gives me an edge.”
His eyes crinkled, and my breath caught in my throat. Unfair, how he could still do that—slip beneath my defenses and jab me right in my soft, unprotected parts.
He studied me while I pretended I didn’t notice. “You’re not what I expected,” he said finally. “I figured you were vampire royalty—a princess. You don’t walk into a party, you arrive—like it’s your stage and the rest of us are only there to admire you. But I was wrong. You play a good game, but that’s all it is to you, isn’t it? A game. And if you didn’t have to play, it wouldn’t bother you at all.”
“Because I don’t give a damn about the game.”
“So it was all for your father.”
I went still. “We’re not talking about him.”
“You’re right.” His voice softened. “I’m sorry.”
I picked up the charcoal stick again and added a shadowy tiger curled at the prince’s feet. “You’re not what I expected, either,” I admitted.
“What did you expect?”
“An entitled lieutenant.”
“Meet a lot of those, do you?”
