Fall of Ruin and Wrath (Awakening, #1)

One side of his lips tipped up. “Does it?”

“Yes,” I murmured. Could he feel the pounding of my heart against the back of his shoulders as I leaned into him? “Your appearance is also mysterious.”

“How so?”

“One would think with us being so close to Primvera, you would simply request lodging there,” I pointed out.

“One would think that,” he said. “However, my needs are better met outside of the Court.”

My brows knitted. What could those needs be? Whatever vague answers I gained from him only led to more questions. I leaned in, biting down on my lip as I drew my hands over his flesh.

“I’m curious, my— ” I caught myself. “I’m curious, Your Grace.”

“Thorne,” he corrected. “And I’m sure you are.”

I arched a brow at that. “What could your needs be if they cannot be met within Primvera?”

“Right now? I wouldn’t have your hands on me if I were there, would I?”

“As I said before, flattery is not necessary.”

“But appreciated?”

I cracked a grin. “Always.”

He chuckled roughly. “How did you end up here?” he asked.

I glanced down at him, seeing the thick fringe of lashes along his cheeks. The sleeves of the borrowed robe floated along the water as I ran my sudsy hands over his lower stomach. The muscles were tauter there, as if he’d tensed. “Archwood seemed as good a place as any.”

“I didn’t mean the city,” he expanded. “But here, in this manor and in this chamber, a . . . favorite of a caelestia.”

Air thinned between my teeth. He wanted to know how I ended up a courtesan, which I wasn’t. None of the paramours truly were, but I was sure the reasons one chose such a profession varied, so I decided to keep the answer simple. “I needed a job.”

“And this was all that was available to you?” A pause. “This is what you chose?”

Heat burned the back of my throat as my eyes narrowed on him. Did he look down on such a profession? Irritation flared to life, and whether I was a courtesan or not, the idea that he thought less of the trade needled my temper. I started to lift my hands. “Is there something wrong with choosing to do this?”

His hand moved faster than I could track, closing over mine and trapping it against his chest. My heart stuttered at the feel of his hand around mine, and there being no thoughts, no images. He kicked his head back, his eyes meeting mine. “If I thought there was something wrong with that, I would not be where I am and nor would you.”

I nodded, watching his pupils expand and then shrink back to their normal size.

The Prince’s gaze held mine. “I only ask because of the way you speak. Your dialect and words. It’s not what you typically hear from one who is not of the aristo class,” he noted. “Or within those of . . . your trade. You’ve been educated.”

I had been educated. Kind of. It wasn’t a formal education like Grady had received before his parents died of a catching fever, leaving him an orphan. Nor had it been one sanctioned by the Hyhborn, but the Prioress had taught me how to read and write and to do basic math, and the Baron had insisted that I speak properly.

But Naomi spoke properly too . . . unless she was angry. The same could be said about Grady and me, and then we’d slip into a less formal way of speaking.

“My education and how I speak don’t make me better than anyone else, nor less than an aristo,” I said.

He huffed. “What a novel thing for a mortal to say.”

I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“From my experience, mortals seem preoccupied with who is better and who is less than.”

“And the Hyhborn are different, Your Grace?”

His lips twitched at the emphasis on his title. “We once were.”

Now it was I who huffed.

“You don’t believe me?”

I shrugged, thinking it was rather ridiculous since they were the ones who created the class structure.

“You do know that Hyhborn cannot tell a lie.” A smile played over his lips.

“So I’ve heard.”

He chuckled, releasing my hand as he faced forward once more. I remained as I was for several moments, my palm still flat to his chest, to where his heart should be located, but I . . . I felt nothing.

My brows furrowed. “Do you . . . have a heart?”

“What?” He laughed. “Yes.”

“But I don’t feel it,” I told him, a little unnerved. “Is it because your skin . . . is so hard?”

“It’s not that,” he said. “My heart hasn’t beat in a long time, not as it would for a mortal.”

I opened my mouth, but I was at a loss as to how to respond to that— at the reminder of how different we were. Drawing in a soft breath, I shook my head as I slid my hand from his chest. I didn’t know why I said what I did next. The words sort of spilled out of me. “This is not what I always want to be,” I shared, and goodness, that was the truth if there ever was one. “This is not the future I planned as a child.”

The finger of his right hand began to tap idly along the rim once more. “What’s the future you planned?”

“I . . .” I had to really think about that. “I don’t know,” I admitted, my voice sounding small to my own ears.

“You said you had a plan, na’laa.”

Brow creasing, I shook my head. I had no idea why I’d even said what I had. I had no future planned beyond this day, this night. I couldn’t when living simply meant surviving to the next day or dreading what could come, which wasn’t really living at all. But that was all I knew. The same for more lowborn than not, even if they weren’t in my situation.

But Hyhborn— especially those like Prince Thorne— didn’t live that way. I knew that because even though I’d never entered their Courts, I saw their gold-tipped roofs hidden behind their fortified walls. I’d seen their richly tailored clothing, their well-bred horses and finely crafted coaches from a distance. I’d never heard of a starved Hyhborn or seen one with shadows of worry staining the skin beneath their eyes. Hell, you barely saw that in the face of a caelestia. I doubted any of them knew what it was like to sleep with mice scurrying over them or found themselves on the verge of death due to some sickness they’d picked up from poor living conditions.

But none of that mattered right now . . . or at all, it seemed, so I shoved those thoughts aside as I soaped up my hands again. “I like plants.”

His head tilted. “Come again?”

I cringed, thinking I could’ve said that a bit more eloquently. “I mean, I have always had an interest in plants— in gardening. I have a bit of a green thumb and basic knowledge of how many plants can be of aid. I know, a botanist is not the most lucrative of careers,” I rambled on. “But that would be a plan.”

“If it is something you enjoy then it is lucrative in a way that means more than coin.”

Said the person who obviously had more coin than they would ever need.

I wisely kept that to myself, though, and neither of us spoke for several moments. In the quiet, I took a moment to remind myself of what I was supposed to be doing, which was not touching him for the sake of doing so. I focused on him until all I saw was the expanse of sandy skin and all I felt was his flesh beneath mine. The wall of white light appeared in my mind. It was endless, one as tall as the sky and wide as the realm. In my mind, I saw my fingers brushing against it. Nothing happened as I brought my hands back up his chest and reached for the soap, noticing the faint glow around his shoulders.

He was feeding.

On my pleasure? I was enjoying this even though I couldn’t read a thing from him. Or was he feeding on his own pleasure— pleasure derived from my touch? I tried not to feel, well, special. Hyhborn were beings of pleasure. I didn’t think it mattered who they were with.

“Is that why you were taking such a late-night walk in the gardens?” Prince Thorne asked. “Your enjoyment of plants?”

“Yes. I find gardens to be . . .” I trailed off, searching for the right word.

“Peaceful?”