Page 12 of Slaying the Shifter Prince
I wouldn’t give him pleasure or fun or whatever else he hoped to get out of me. Whatever he wanted, I would do the opposite. “I understand,” I bit out.
With a soft sound, he nodded and continued to the door. “Bring it to me tomorrow, Celestine…please.”
“Tomorrow?” She approached, her evaluative gaze on me. “And what will you be doing while I make her presentable?”
Arms spread, the prince turned. “Tonight, I need a good fuck.” With that, he stalked out and left us.
Her dawn eyes unnerved me, roving over my face and down my body. “Make her pretty?” She shook her head. “The dear little thing already is.” Smiling, she picked up a lock of my hair. “Hmm, though a little bloody, I see. Are you hurt?”
She circled, and I debated whether to answer. Admitting I was injured felt like admitting a weakness. Answering also felt like weakness.
“Ah, here.” She pushed the hair from my shoulder, revealing the cut between shoulder and neck where the prince had pressed the tip of his sword into my flesh. “You know, Zita, I won’t hurt you.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. As a fae, she couldn’t lie… and yet that didn’t mean I should trust her. I kept quiet.
“I suppose you’ve had a fright.” She gave me a gentle smile, lifting one shoulder. “Come along, then. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
In a room off the parlour, she ran me a bath and filled it with sweet-smelling bubbles. All the while, she chattered about inconsequential things like the coming snows and what colours would suit me best. I didn’t answer.
She poked around the room while I bathed, pulling out different toiletries for me to use. When I stared at a contraption sticking out of the wall in one corner, she followed my gaze. “It’s a shower. I don’t think they have them in Albion. Pity. They’re divine, though not quite as relaxing as a bath.”
The idea Elfhame could improve something as basic as a bathroom grated on my nerves. I scowled and turned away as she returned to her pottering.
At one point, she disappeared and called for a servant. I emerged from the steaming water and searched the room for a weapon. No luck. I tried the windows, but they wouldn’t budge. Though, the cut on my shoulder didn’t twinge too much as I tried to push them up.
When her voice grew louder as she spoke to a maid, I slipped back into the bath and tried to calm my breaths as though I hadn’t been hurrying around.
But as soon as she entered, she eyed the telltale puddles of water.
Shit, I hadn’t thought of that.
I held still, waiting for her to grab me as her prince had. She didn’t. After a long while, I dared to glance up and found her watching me with a wry smile as she ran her nails over the teeth of a jade comb. The softclick-click-clickwas the only sound.
Eventually, she kneeled behind me. “Such lovely hair,” she said as she combed conditioner through it. “Such a rich colour.”
When I was younger, I’d thought it boring and brown. But after my sister had died and I’d taken her place on stage, I’d realised it was the same tone as hers. Using her treatments and oils had brought out the depth of colour, revealing tints of gold and red in its chestnut lengths.
“Thank you,” I muttered. One thing I remembered from the stories about fae that had turned out to be true was their love of good manners. Every year we came to Elfhame and performed in their capital, and the folk we dealt with were always polite.
So they were killers who had barely sniffed in the direction of my sister’s dead body to investigate, but at least they were courteous.
Under the bubbles, I fisted my hands.
“You don’t seem much like an assassin.” She didn’t say it in an accusing way, but a thoughtful one, and when I glanced over my shoulder, I found her head cocked.
“Maybe your prince isn’t as clever as he thinks.”
She guffawed behind her hand—the action at odds with her elegance… and definitely not what I’d expected when I’d made my comment with a vicious smile.
“There, you’re probably correct, but only because Sepher thinks he’s the cleverest person in the world. And the most handsome, strongest, funniest, best at… well,everything.” She chuckled and shrugged, then smoothed my hair behind my ear.
Her gaze snagged on its rounded edge and her eyes narrowed. “Whydidyou try to kill him, then?”
The prince hadn’t bothered to ask, but Celestine was clearly curious. If he was as arrogant as he sounded and she told him I wasn’t an assassin, it would drive him insane to not knowwhy.
He was used to having what he wanted, when he wanted.
Was that why he’d killed my sister? That night, I’d found him standing over her after her usual private performance. It had crossed my mind that they’d been lovers, but now another possibility opened up.
