King of Battle and Blood (Adrian X Isolde #1)(6)

I froze, fingers poised to slip into my heat.

“My lady, are you in there?”

Nadia, my maid, was on the other side of the door. She’d been my nursemaid from the time I was born, and we’d formed a close bond. She was the only maid or servant in the castle I spent time with outside her usual duties. It was a relationship the court found strange and only the brave would comment on, but I didn’t care. Nadia was the mother I’d never had, and I loved her.

Except right now. Right now, I wanted her to go away. I wasn’t ready to give up the chase for release, so I slipped a finger into my flesh and released a slow breath.

“My lady, I know you are in there.”

If I ignore her, maybe she will go away, I thought.

I was so wet, I could barely feel anything. I needed more girth, needed to feel full and stretched. I added another finger, my head pressed hard into the door behind me, my palm sliding up my body to my breast, squeezing, kneading, teasing through the ruins of my dress. All the while, I thought of that monster in the woods. The one who looked like a man, had held my head in his large hands, stroked my lips with his lithe fingers, pressed his hard body against mine. If he had kissed me, I would have succumbed. I would have let him fuck me, and it probably would have meant my death, but at least I would have known passion on my way to the Spirit.

“My lady?”

By the fucking goddess.

I gave a frustrated growl and withdrew, dropping my skirts. I whirled on my heels and threw open the door.

“What, Nadia?” I snapped. If Nadia insisted on interrupting, then she would have to deal with my mood, except she knew me and didn’t even flinch. She stood opposite me looking very much unimpressed. Her long, dark hair was braided and threaded through with silver, those pieces whispering around her thin face, creating a frizzy halo. Her darkened skin was smooth though, and her only wrinkles were the ones around her eyes, which remained dark and lively.

“I have come to help you prepare for tonight.”

I blinked at her, confused. “Tonight?”

“For the Blood King’s arrival.”

I rolled my eyes and backed away from the door, twisting so my skirt twirled around me. The movement helpfully cooled my legs and released the tension in the bottom of my stomach.

“I do not care how I look for the Blood King.”

“I’d rather not doll you up either, but you are a princess and, as such, should look like one when you stand at your father’s side.” Nadia followed me into my room and closed the door behind her.

My room was small and the bed took up a fair amount of space, allowing for little else save for a trunk full of keepsakes and a wardrobe. I could have had a large suite, but I’d chosen this one because of the view—the window below looked down upon my mother’s garden.

“What were you doing in here anyway? It took you a long time to answer the door,” Nadia said as she stoked the fire in the hearth.

Even if I had noticed the chill, I would not have stirred the embers. I was afraid of fire, even contained. I did not like the sounds, the crackles or pops. I did not like the smell of smoke or even the heat, but it truly was too cold to go without, so I let Nadia keep it going and always made a wide arc around it when I passed.

“Sleeping,” I said, falling onto my bed, staring up at the blue velvet canopy.

I was still insanely uncomfortable, but it was probably best Nadia had interrupted me. Otherwise, I would have continued to masturbate to the monster in the woods—his touch and smell and feel—and would have hated myself even more than I already did for it.

I sighed.

You are a victim, I told myself, though I hated admitting it. We’d been taught from a young age that vampires were sexual creatures, and they often cast spells that filled even the most pious with lust.

It really didn’t help that I wasn’t pious.

“You were not,” Nadia said, straightening from her place before the fire. She pointed the poker at me. “I just watched you run up six flights of stairs.”

“I was in a hurry to sleep.”

She arched a brow and dropped the poker to her side. “And escape Commander Killian, I hear.”

I rolled my eyes. “Commander Killian is needy. I am not.”

“He would make a fine husband,” Nadia countered, and I recoiled at how fanciful she sounded.

I sat up and gaped at her. “Did you not hear what I just said?”

Nadia was forty-one and unmarried—which was perfectly fine, except to her. She wanted to be married, and her thoughts on the subject were very much that of the majority of Cordovians, meaning that anyone over the age of eighteen and unmarried was considered an old maid, and the rush to marry stemmed from the fact that more people were dying young.

I was twenty-six and perfectly content to remain unwed, and I was very vocal about that—among other things—which the royal families and their peers found disturbing. It often led to unsolicited comments about how I needed to be tamed. Although the last man to make that comment found himself facing the point of my dagger.

Needless to say, I had a reputation. But I would not accept a man who thought he could control me. My wish to remain unmarried also coincided with my feelings about love. Love was a risk I was only willing to take for my father, Nadia, and my people.

More love meant there was more to lose.