Claiming the Prince: Book One (45 page)

She took a step closer. “Look, I am sorry. I can’t imagine that being tied up for two days was a particularly pleasant experience, but—”

“Forget it,” he said, returning to Cae’s dark haired, silver-eyed façade. He brushed the sand from his arms, slightly thicker than his real arms, as was his chest, though he was also a bit shorter. “It’s not important.” He flashed a careless smile, one that was so Cae her pulse tripped at the sight of it. “We have bigger problems, wouldn’t you say?”

Yes, like how his shift from anger to apparent indifference, and from himself to Cae, was tangling her up inside.

“I’m going to clean up,” he said, cutting a slantwise path wide of her.

“Kaelan,” she said, sidestepping to intercept him.

“Cae,” he corrected, gazing down at her with silvery-flashing eyes. “That’s what you can call me today.”

The smirking grin was very Princely, but not particularly Kaelan. It made her teeth clench.

She shifted back from him. “What’s happened to you?”

He crossed his arms. “You mean besides you sending your cousin and a brownie to tie me up with gorgon rope?”

“Please try to understand . . .”

“I understand,” he said with another flash of anger that burned out as quickly as it had appeared. His eyes cooled, turning hard and flinty. “We need to talk about what’s going to happen after.”

“After . . . I vie for Radiant?”

“What happens if you succeed and what happens if you fail,” he said.

“What happens to us, you mean?”

He gazed down at her dully, as if it were obvious.

“Well,” she said, tone hardening to match his, “if I have to fight Lavana and I fail, I’ll be dead so . . .”

His stony exterior cracked. “You didn’t die the last time.”

“Only almost,” she said. “Since I was underage, Alanna was allowed to send me into exile. I was only even allowed to vie because my mother had been Radiant.”

“But you might not have to fight,” he said.

“That’s one possibility. The Crown could name Lavana Radiant. In that case, I’ll probably also be dead, or at least hunted. I’ll probably have to return to exile. It’s very difficult to challenge for Radiant, fail, and survive.”

“And if you don’t fail?”

“If I become Radiant, then . . . Lavana will be the one who dies. And in that case . . . I’ll keep my word. You’ll be free to return to your forest, your family, with Honey, just like we talked about.”

“And what if I don’t want to go back?”

“You can go wherever you want.”

“What if I don’t want to go?”

Her throat tightened. “Meaning what? You’d rather stay at the Spire, as a Pixie?” She shook her head. “Eris’s gift might be enough to change your appearance, but I’m not sure it’s enough to change you from being a Prince. There
was
a reason I had Damion tie you up, Kaelan—”

“Cae—”

“You’re a Prince,
Kaelan
. There are many more Raes in the Lands than there are Princes. Unless you’re claimed, you won’t be able to keep yourself from them . . . and they won’t be able to keep themselves from you, I promise.”

His gaze combed over her face. “And what would you do, a Princeless Radiant?”

She heard the unasked question under his words, the same implication Damion had pressed against her. Always the same.

“If I become Radiant, then I’ll take a Prince,” she said. “I’ll kill Lavana and claim Riker.”

He blinked. Obviously that hadn’t been the answer he’d expected.

“She’s already claimed him,” he said.

“He’ll be free again once she’s dead,” she said.

“But what about—?”

“What about what?” she challenged.

He leaned over her. “My brother will come for you.”

“And?”

He sneered. “Don’t pretend—”

“If I’m Radiant, and if he attempts to harm my claimed Prince, then I will defend my Prince to the death. I told you, I’m attracted to your brother, but I don’t trust him—”

“You are not as heartless as you pretend,” he said.

“Of course not, I have a piece of yours.”

The clouds tracking over his face darkened. “That was a mistake,” he said softly.

For some reason, his words stung.

“Whatever I choose to do in the end,” she said, throat burning with the venom she was holding back, “I’ll keep my word. You can leave now if you wish. Be whoever you want. Go wherever you want. I’m not forcing you to help me.”

“You’re just so eager to see the back of me,” he said.

“I’m eager for you to be safe,” she said, “and to be as far from all of this madness as possible. Isn’t that what you want? You don’t really intend to join the Resistance do you? Eventually, they’ll want you to reveal your true identity. The King will start hunting you again. You didn’t see what happened to Froenz’s hall. The Resistance couldn’t even protect themselves.”

“Once you’re finished with me where else am I supposed to go? Do you really think I could go back to the forest?”

“Why not?” she asked.

“What about all the roving, lascivious Raes?”

Her head began to throb. “What do you want, Kaelan?”

He looked away, shaking his head. “I don’t know what I want. I thought I did but . . .”

“But what?”

“I keep wondering,” he said, as if thinking aloud, “what it would’ve been like to be him. To have been born first. To be the one who was kept. Would I be like him? A warrior, a true Prince? Would he be the one standing here, hiding behind a dead man’s face? I wonder how it was I escaped. Who was the sylph? And about my mother . . . do you know anything about her?”

She sighed. “No, I’m sorry.”

He leaned in. “Maybe you can ask Endreas the next time you see him. That is, if you spend any time talking.”

Her back stiffened. “What do you—?”

“I’m not really surprised that you’re attracted to him, Magda. After all, he’s a real Prince,”—he stepped back, holding out his arms—“I’m just an imp pretending to be one.”

He couldn’t have known about Endreas, could he? How? Had Meer told him?

“You didn’t . . . while I was . . .” she stammered, trying to come up with a way to ask without arousing suspicion. “After they untied you, you didn’t try to come into my room, did you?”

Everything had been such a blur. She had no idea how long Endreas had been with her or when he had left. Could Kaelan have entered her room and seen something? If he hadn’t been tied up the entire time, he could’ve used the Shadow Realms . . .

Her heart leapt into a gallop.

He folded his arms and cocked his head, gazing down at her with flat silver eyes. “You look worried,” he said. “Do you really think you’re so irresistible?”

“I was in my Shine—” she said through her teeth.

“Oh,” he said. “And if I had come into your room during your Shine, then what? You wouldn’t remember?”

She chewed her lip. Was she unnerved by his hard attitude? Or was it because she feared he might find out she’d been with Endreas?

“Kaelan—”

“It’s Cae,” he said sharply. “Caden. I am a Pixie Prince, and I have been in exile for the last fourteen years, waiting, for you. And since I went through all that trouble, you can do me a favor and forget about the imp and the Elf. You need me and I’m here. Try to remember that, puppy.”

“T
HIS IS ALL VERY EXCITING,”
Flor said the next morning as Damion reached down and helped her onto Anqa’s back. “I’ve never flown before.”

Magda stretched her neck and rolled her shoulders, attempting to loosen the knots.

“How do you find the armor?” Meer asked.

“It’s fine,” she muttered distractedly.

She watched Hero and Honey mount Anqa. She’d hoped that Hero would return to her, but he’d remained with Honey the whole night and it appeared he was content to stay with her. Magda missed the familiar warmth and weight of him on her shoulder.

“Fine?” Meer repeated. “It took me nearly two hours to mend your horrendous lace-work and then I had to clean—”

Magda dropped to a crouch next to Meer, lowering her voice, as Kaelan and Gur strode towards her. “Why was Kaelan released early? I asked you to keep him tied up.”

Meer’s tiny lips puckered. “Your Shine burned out after two days. The rest of the time, you slept. You were quite exhausted.”

She ignored the archness of the brownie’s last words. “Then you know—”

“I did as I was instructed,” the brownie said, crossing her arms tightly. “Fair winds. We will meet you at the Spire.” Then she popped away.

If Meer had done as Magda had instructed, then why did she still feel this unease? Perhaps it was because every time she closed her eyes, flashes of Endreas intruded. She hadn’t slept even a few minutes the night before.

Kaelan and Gur stopped a few feet from her. Flor laughed, sandwiched between Damion and Honey as Anqa lifted off the ground.

Once they were in the air, Kaelan gripped Gur’s mane and hoisted himself up. The brownies had done a spectacular job of outfitting him in a Princely fashion: long sleeveless cloak, brown jerkin cinched at the waist over a silvery tunic and fitted trousers, scintillating Pixie-cloth greaves, and tall boots. But the clothes and his utterly convincing disguise as Caden weren’t as compelling as the way he moved. As though by donning Caden’s visage, he’d also acquired Caden’s fluidity of grace—so relaxed as to be on the verge of uncontrolled. Why was it so disturbing for her to think that he’d grown accustomed to living in Cae’s body?

When he looked down at her, she couldn’t see Kaelan under Cae’s face, not even remotely.

“Ready?” he asked.

No.

He held out his hand and she took it.

Nothing. No emotions of any kind. How had she gone from hearing his thoughts to feeling absolutely nothing from him?

“Did you need to wear the armor?” he asked as she attempted to find a comfortable position.

“Yes,” she said. “Until I’m certain Lavana has been dealt with, I’ll be sleeping in it.”

Gur growled at her continued squirming.

Finally, Kaelan wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her back against him. She stiffened, her fists clutching in Gur’s mane.

“You’re too tense,” he said. “You’re making Gur nervous.”

Gur
ywarled
in agreement.

“We have a long way to travel,” Kaelan went on. “Are you going to be like this the whole journey?”

She inched from him. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” His fingers touched the back of her neck lightly. The taut muscles cording her spine loosened, her breath came easier, the barbs of worry drew back, and her chest warmed.

He slid closer so her backside fitted snug against him.

“What did you just do?” she asked.

Gur picked up speed across the meadow, stirring fairies and butterflies as his wings flapped.

“Healed you,” he said, “in a way.”

His thumb grazed across the back of her neck before his hand fell, settling high on her thigh.

But his healing felt more like a subduing. The anxious thoughts attempted to push back in but failed, as though repelled by some invisible barrier.

“When did you learn to do that?” she asked.

Gur took flight into the bright and clear morning sky. The chilled air rushed by, numbing her nose and ears.

“Flor taught me,” he said in a vaguely disinterested tone, as though his mind was elsewhere.

“How?”

“She gave me a book,” he said. “It had been Cae’s. It speaks to the nature of Princes.”

“There’s a Prince instruction manual?” She frowned. Why hadn’t there been a Rae how-to book? Then again, she’d had so many people around always telling her what to do and how to be, she wasn’t sure that if there had been a book, she would’ve wanted to read it.

“I guess you could call it that,” he said, the sound of a smile in his voice. “Much of it was a history of great Princes. The rest, a bit of this and that.”

“And it taught you how to . . . do what you just did?”

“No,” he said. “It made me realize that I’d been underutilizing my abilities. That I am capable of much more than I ever imagined.”

“Like what you just did,” she said, refraining from using the word controlling. But that’s what it had felt like, as though her emotions had been taken out of her hands.

“It’s not so different from what I did before,” he said, “when you were afraid.”

Her anger abated. He was right. It really hadn’t been different, except then the anxiety he’d taken from her had been directed elsewhere, not at him. But she supposed that it didn’t do her any good to be anxious around him, especially since she couldn’t pinpoint the source of the tension.

“You seem tired,” he said. “I could help you sleep, if you wanted.”

She chafed again. “You could put me to sleep?”

“I don’t know that I could put you to sleep, but I could make it easier for you to fall asleep.”

“No, thank you,” she said, though the mention of sleep brought a sudden heaviness to her eyes. “Tell me more about this book.”

“Aside from the historical biographies, it spoke to the varying abilities of different Princes. It even spoke of traveling like I do, but not through the Shadow Realms.”

“That’s because you’re an Elf,” she muttered.