Shame crept up her neck with hot fingers. “Touché,” she reluctantly drawled. Whether she’d meant to or not, she’d offended him. “Then let me ask a different way. From what I’ve read, you, more than any of your brothers, seem different. Why?”
His grin was conceited and alluring at the same time. She coughed, making a pretense of patting a flyaway curl that did not exist.
“Because I am an abomination to my kind.”
“No. Dalia and Giles both speak very highly of you. I doubt that—”
Lip raised, he snarled, and fangs exposed, he set her heart racing . “Do not listen to the prattle of servants!”
And just as she thought he meant to banish her as he had this morning, he took two steady breaths and then a giant step back from her. She stood with her back pressed to a door, staring at him wide-eyed.
“Forgive me again. I fear you bring out the worst in me. Good night.”
And then he was gone and when she turned, she realized she was back at her room. This time she wasn’t angry or annoyed. It was sympathy and tinge of sadness for a man she feared she’d never understand that laced her bones.
Chapter Ten
Rumpel roared as he stomped down to Euralis’ dungeon. Fire leapt to life and the black crow cocked its head.
“Do not look at me.” He pointed at it, pacing back and forth. “I will not have your judgment.”
Beady eyes blinked.
“I can do this. And I will. I vow it.” With those final words, he traced from that room. Because it wasn’t the boy he wished to see.
He’d gone there to reinforce his will, but seeing the eyes and knowing the child looked at him as little more than a stranger hadn’t strengthened him at all.
Back at the room he’d found her in last night, her scent of nightshade still lingered faintly. He’d designed this room to her specifications.
Not the siren’s, but his wife’s. He’d fashioned a room of wood, of soft roses and creams, everything as she’d loved it. But now all he could see, all he could remember, wasn’t glowing ruby eyes that glimmered with love but crystal-blue ones that lit a fire in his dark, shriveled heart.
“Damn it all to hell!” he roared, and where the furnishings were once gone, now they were back.
Caratina had picked each piece out so lovingly, from the bone-china vases on pedestals to the pale blue and-mauve chaises. Returning to his true form, that of Demone Prince, he went crazy.
Blinded with fury, with desire so sharp it bordered on madness, he slashed and tore the chairs into strips of fabric and piles of fluff. Then when that wasn’t enough, he picked up the vases and tossed them into the fire, into the walls, hearing them break into a thousand tiny pieces.
“Sir!” Giles’s voice boomed.
Whirling, still manic with rage, he snarled. “Get out of here, Giles.” His voice thundered with the roll of power. “Unless you wish to spar with me, then go!”
His manservant never took his eyes off him as he methodically shrugged out of his tailcoat.
“Giles.” He growled a warning because with the mood he was in, he felt ready to kill something.
“Sir, you loved and lost. It is not wrong to find something again.”
He snarled again, curling his fingers into fists. “Do not speak to me of such matters.”
Ignoring his master’s obvious threat, Giles took his time rolling the dark sleeves of his shirt up his elbows. “Mistress Caratina would never have wanted this for you.”
In a flash, Rumpel was upon Giles. The first crack of his fist into the man’s face felt satisfying, but not nearly as satisfying as hearing the bone crunch and seeing the blood spurt from his nose. “Never speak to me of her!”
In an instant Giles was not his manservant but the captain of the royal guard, the man of legend and fury, a seasoned warrior. Rumpel’s blood hummed because this was exactly what he’d needed.
With a growl, Giles shot to his feet and landed a blow to Rumpel’s gut that took the breath from him. Smearing the blood from his nose with the back of his hand, he sneered down at his prince. “Do not tell me you’ve grown soft in your old age, Prince.”
With a laugh, Rumpel rolled to the side and hopped to his feet, and the two were upon each other. Evenly matched, they traded blow after blow. An arcing fist smashed into Rumpel’s temple, knocking him senseless for a moment. Stumbling, seeing stars, he dropped his head and charged into Giles like a stampeding rhino, dragging his servant to the ground.
The rush of air expelling from Giles’s lips told Rumpel he’d landed a solid blow. But he was too dizzy to stand, and draping a hand over his eyes, he laughed, a great, booming sound that quickly turned to a groan as he grabbed his ribs.
“You’ve the devil about you still, Giles,” he quipped.
Obedient servant once more, his man sat up and rubbed his sternum. “You hit like a gnat.” He spat out a glob of blood.
And then they were both laughing. After a minute, feeling immensely better and not quite so dizzy, Rumpel sat up and looked around at the chaos he’d caused.
When it dawned on him what he’d done, what he’d destroyed, his laughter turned to a sigh. “I’m a mess.”