Chapter 9: The Court of Monsters

If the palace was a cage of gilding, then the Solar Room was the den of the monster.

When the giant doors groaned open, a moment of cold, hunting glances cascaded down on me.

There were hundreds of them in a huge sunken room with only a dim wobble of chandeliers and the warm light of magic crystals embedded in the walls to light it.

They sprawled across velvet sofas and leaned over metal stools, their laughter wild and foul, blood-stench foul over them.

And at the center—Kael.

He stood leaning in lazy, kill-beauty cat fashion, a bowl of dark reddish-brown cradled in the palm of his hand, crimson-eyed regarding me step forward.

I thought well and goaded my legs into motion.

The maid who had brought me here vanished with a swift bow, leaving me standing alone under the burden of so many old, powerful eyes.

I had never felt smaller.

Or more vulnerable.

A silver-haired woman with black lips leaned forward to whisper something to the man beside her, and both of them laughed—sharp, cruel sounds that skinned my face.

"Is that all?" one slurred. "The wee blood price His Highness so dearly paid?"

"She's weak enough to break," another one joined in, a voice full of sarcasm.

My face was burning with anger, but I stood tall.

Don't react. Don't give them the satisfaction.

I struggled hard to maintain my gaze on Kael, willing my eyes to remain fixed on him.

But he did nothing to protect me.

He simply stood there, an impassive mask on his face.

I wasn't sure if he was interrogating me, or allowing them to sharpen their claws on me for his amusement.

A chair scraped hard across the marble.

At the far wall, a man stood—a more handsome and more malevolent man than any of the others.

His hair was a streak of white against sun-sunk flesh, his smile a vicious slash across his face.

Varyn.

I had already heard his name before anyone else.

Kael's cousin.

And if the rumor was true, a prince of nothing but ambition and cruelty.

"Well, well," Varyn sneered, striding towards me with the sinuous, deadly ease of a snake.

"So this is the little human our noble Kael has been slaking his thirst on."

The court erupted into laughter.

I didn't stir, though every fiber of me wanted to flee.

Varyn moved slowly around me, his fingers tracing lightly along the exposed flesh of my arm.

I jumped but didn't move.

He leaned forward close enough for me to catch the chill touch of his breath on my ear.

"You stink of fear," he said. "And something else. something secret."

I tensed.

His smile hardened.

"You're not some trembling mortal, are you, little one?"

I curled my fists deep into my sides, nails digging into my palms.

Varyn's hand on my chin, forcing my head back.

"Say it," he spoke loudly enough for the whole court to hear. "When Kael steals from you. Does he whisper pretty lies? Does he pretend to care?"

Laughter again.

Kael's face didn't flicker. It was a mask of frozen indifference.

I wanted to scream at him.

To plead with him to do something.

But I gritted my teeth until I savored the metallic zip of blood.

I would not beg.

Not here.

Not in front of them.

Varyn sneered, shoving me loose with a little push that sent me half-stumbling backward one step.

"She's quite pretty, I suppose," he said, gazing now at Kael. "But fragile things shatter so easily. One misplaced bite, and she'd bleed all over your lovely floors."

Another burst of cruel laughter.

I struggled to calm my breathing, to quiet the fear rising in my chest.

Kael sipped from his goblet slowly before finally speaking.

"Enough."

The word cracked like a whip across the room.

Silence descended.

Varyn's sneer never wavered, he was untouched.

"As you wish, cousin," he bowed. "But you must excuse our curiosity. It is not every day our innocent prince brings a human to court."

Kael's eyes snapped to mine, and for a moment something flashed across his expression.

Regret.

Guilt.

It was gone in the next breath, replaced with the same frozen distance he ever presented.

"Scarlett," he growled, his tone low and imperative.

"Come here."

I stepped once, and then once more, my legs shaking beneath me, each step as though a thousand razors were cutting through my skin.

Kael put his goblet down and reached for me, his hand wrapping around my wrist.

Not cruelly.

Not kindly.

At the same time. Possessively.

"This man," he announced, his voice echoing from the court, "is mine. His blood is mine. His silence is mine."

He turned my wrist over, revealing the white veins beneath my skin.

"If any of you so much as lays a hand on her without asking," Kael said, his red eye roving across the court, "you will answer to me."

The threat was suspended there, heavy and killing.

Deadly.

Absolute.

Varyn raised his hands in pretended submission, grinning.

The others spat over their shoulders, growling and cursing into goblets.

Content, Kael pulled me nearer, his hand shifting from my wrist to my waist, keeping me pinned against his side.

I could sense the warmth of his body through the gentle silk of my gown.

Feel the unsafe rhythm of his power.

Concern was something that I didn't have time for.

I had no idea whether he was protecting me.

Or merely taking me.

It wasn't rational.

To them, I was a thing.

Something to play with.

Something childish.

I held up my head and braced myself to be looked at by them.

Make them realize that I would not break so soon.

Make them try.

Kael cinched his arms around my waist—a silent threat or a silent promise, I didn't know.

Varyn snorted and walked away quietly.

The court swept into their business, and the moment was lost, but I was intelligent enough to think that I was still in peril.

This was a snake pit.

And I was a hare in the middle.

But I had lived rougher.

I'd love this one too.

No matter what.

To be continued…