What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(98)

“I’ve not yet seen your mate, Princess,” Rheaghan said, lowering his head into the slightest of bows.

I returned the gesture, making sure to drop my curtsy lower than he had. As the King of the Summer Court, he far outranked me. I could show my manners when it didn’t involve showing deference to Mab herself.

I felt her eyes on my back as Rheaghan’s wide mouth spread into a grin of satisfaction. “Now, where did a human girl learn to curtsy like that?” he asked, holding out a hand for me.

I took it, rising smoothly until my feet were properly underneath me once more.

Rheaghan studied the markings on my fingers, running his thumb across the teardrop mark from my blood oath with Fallon.

“I was groomed to be the Lady of my village one day,” I said simply, swallowing as I thought of sharing the rest of the story. Of how gruesome that grooming had been.

Rheaghan must have read the unspoken words, his smile faltering as he nodded his understanding. “My niece has a mark just like this,” he said instead of answering.

Holding his stare, I didn’t offer the information he sought.

He hadn’t asked.

His lips twitched as if he knew exactly what sort of game I was playing. The Fae couldn’t lie, but I wouldn’t tell him the details of my oath with Fallon. He and his sister, for whatever reason, had some sort of bond. Even if I didn’t understand how the male who radiated sunshine could still love the sister who wanted to plunge the world into darkness.

“Dance with me,” he said, using the hand that clutched mine to guide me into position. He lifted it to place his palm facing toward me, allowing me to slide my fingers until they pressed against his.

“What makes you think I know this dance?” I asked, waiting as the song came to an end. There was a lull in the music as the troubadours prepared for the next song, leaving us to stare at one another in challenge.

“I think you know far more than you let on, Princess Estrella,” he said as the music started.

I would never get used to people calling me princess, but I didn’t protest, knowing it would fall on deaf ears.

The violin struck first, the chords of notes floating through the room as Rheaghan led me into the dance. He circled us, our steps slow and methodical—two opponents assessing one another before a battle. In this case, our battle was a dance floor. In a few days’ time, it may very well be the arena.

We moved in harmony as I went through the steps that had been beaten into me as a girl. The perfectly timed movements were an echo of the other Fae moving around me, leaving me to be swept into the dance in ways I’d never been able to before.

There was no punishment for a hand that wasn’t perfectly positioned, or a leg that didn’t extend straight enough. There was only the joy that came from feeling the music sink into my bones, driving each of my movements with more fluidity than years of practice had provided to me. My only distraction came in the way I watched the throne room doors, waiting for my mate to arrive.

Rheaghan placed his hands on my waist, lifting me and spinning me in time with the others. It forced my attention back to him, to our dance, to find his mouth set in a tight line.

“I suspect he may be a few moments late this evening,” Rheaghan said, answering the unspoken question of where Caldris was. It wasn’t like him to miss any moment of time we could be spending together—under Mab’s watchful eye or not.

“Dare I ask why that might be?” I asked, staring up into the piercing light green of his eyes. The sun-kissed color of his skin seemed so at odds with the coldness of the throne room as he held my gaze.

He glanced toward Mab upon her throne as we danced, our bodies moving from one song to the next as more and more of the Fae arrived in the throne room. He leaned closer, moving our bodies so that they very nearly touched so that his words could be soft. We lost eye contact as he towered over me, everything in me going taut with the sudden tension in his body.

“Did you really believe my sister suddenly stopped torturing you out of the kindness of her heart?” he asked, and my heart plummeted into my stomach.

“Of course not. She threatened to murder human mates if I didn’t behave,” I said, sinking my teeth into the inside of my cheek. It had seemed too simple, and I’d waited for the other shoe to drop. But if she wasn’t getting anywhere with hurting me physically, it made sense to punish me using others.

“And has she?” Rheaghan asked, tilting his head to the side in question. He wrinkled his nose ever-so-slightly, the only hint of his judgment for me having believed her story. Suddenly faced with the reality of how na?ve I had been, I grimaced.

“No, she hasn’t,” I said, swallowing as I glanced toward her throne.

She watched those dancing on the floor that had been cleaned by the Llaidhe, her chin raised high as if she were above her people.

Above the Gods themselves.

“She wouldn’t want to kill a mate for every time you defy her. She’ll save that for the moments when you embarrass her so much that she has no choice but to punish you publicly,” Rheaghan answered, his knowledge of his sister’s behavior coming through in every word he spoke. He’d had centuries to get to know her, her actions and motivations and weaknesses.

If he could be turned against his own flesh and blood, he’d be a valuable asset.

“Then what has she done to punish me in the meantime?” I asked.