Page 96 of Slaying the Shifter Prince
“Hmph.” He pouted as he unfastened the final buckle of my collar and pulled it away.
I sighed at the touch of air, followed by his fingers as he massaged the skin there.
As he worked my neck and shoulders, he asked for more details of my life with Zinnia, and I told him how I’d helped her prepare and choreograph. How I’d washed her hair and smeared special masques onto her face to keep her looking perfect for her performances. He listened in silence, absorbed with the details of our every day life as it had once been.
When I’d talked myself out, he made a soft, thoughtful sound. “Even then, you lived your life for her.”
My heart lurched. “She deserved it. She’d given up so much to look after me, to keep me safe. She didn’t—”
“Calm yourself, little witch. Don’t curse me again.” He smirked and stroked my hair. “I’m not criticising your sister, just making an observation. She sounds like a remarkable woman. You were overshadowed by her, scuttling around behind the scenes.” His smile softened. “I know something about being overshadowed.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You? Who overshadows almost seven feet of solid fae with blazing red hair andstripes?”
His deep laugh rumbled into me, into the darkness, all the more enjoyable because I’d caused it. “Beforesomeonecursed me, I only had stripes when I lost my focus. I reverted to this”—he lifted a finger and pushed out a single claw as his tail curled around me under the sheets—“to my true form in private. My parents banned me from doing it at all, but what can I say? I was always the rebel son.” He flashed his teeth, but something soured his earlier amusement. “No, even when I could hide what I was, I always came second to my brother in every possible way.”
Frowning, I splayed my hand over his chest, like there was some way I could absorb that bitterness and leave him only smiling. My sister had never placed anyone above me. And the parents of the Lightning Siblings had never shown any favouritism or placed one above the other, apart from in their pyramid.
For the second time, I said those two words to him: “I’m sorry.”
“Mm.” He ran a finger from the nape of my neck down my spine. “The golden son of Dawn Court. The firstborn heir. The perfect Day Prince.” He snorted, lines between his brows. “He’s the worst of them all. When we were younger, before I grew taller than him, he was so cruel to me. Little things while our teachers’ backs were turned. A pinch or the rap of a ruler.”
The way his glower darkened, I knew it got worse. It twisted in me, ratcheting my jaw tight.
“When he got away with that, it escalated. I think he wanted to see just how much he could get away with. What is the line for a future king?” His voice had softened, like he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to say these things out loud.
I stroked his chest and squeezed closer to remind him I was here.
“He broke my tail, slammed it in a door repeatedly.” It squeezed my thighs, pulling me closer. “It almost came off—it was a wonder the healers could repair the bones at all. When he saw it, he said they shouldn’t have bothered, practically admitted he’d done it deliberately. ‘Cut out the animal in him.’ That was what he told our parents they should do.” He frowned into the darkness, gaze distant. “They looked away. I think they agreed with him, but didn’t have the stomach to admit it.”
My eyes burned for him. My veins bubbled at his brother and his parents. How dare they? Their own son?
I managed to swallow and finally speak. “Oh, Sepher.” I slid on top of him and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I’m so sorry. They should never have done that—thoughtthat. You are…” I pressed my forehead to his and closed my eyes until they stopped burning quite so much. “I love your tail. Even your claws. And your stripes… They’re beautiful. They remind me of streams down a mountainside after a heavy rainfall.” I slid my fingers along them. “They’re paths converging and splitting, leading to such interesting places. I want to follow them all.”
He opened to me when I kissed him, held me close, his touch gentle.
It was his softness I hated the most, because where all the punishment and the brutal, beautiful sex had failed, this was the thing that broke me.
And I gave back in kind.
41
“I’ve been thinking,” he announced as we ate breakfast at what had become our work table.
“I feel like I should be worried.” I arched an eyebrow. “You thinking usually leads to you doing something unpleasant to me.”
He smirked. “You didn’t think it that unpleasant last night, judging by the way you screamed my name.”
“I’d say that was more of a shout than a scream.”
He shrugged. “Semantics. The point is, I made you comea lot,and I didn’t hear a word of complaint. And all those different ways I fucked you were because I’d thought about it while you draped yourself over our guests. So is my thinking really so bad?”
Ithadled to some quite interesting ways to spend the time. I took a long gulp of fruit juice—that fruity, tropical one we sometimes mixed with spirits. “Maybe not.” I tried to keep my shrug nonchalant.
His smirk said I failed. “On this occasion, I was thinking about our ignoble quest.” He pushed his plate aside and leant forward. “There was nothing wrong with your plan to use performance to get close to me—quite elegant, actually. It’s just you had the wrong man.”
Or the right one.
The thought rang in my mind, clear and horribly bright.
