Bring Me Their Hearts(102)
“I told you when we first met—I’m after your heart. The prince of Cavanos’s heart.”
Lucien flinches, but a smile forces its way onto his face. “The throne, then. That’s what you’re after? I’ll give it to you. It’s a small price to pay, if it means having you at my side.”
Even “knowing” I’m after him for the throne, he won’t stop looking at me like I’m a feast for a starving man, water for a thirsty flower. He’s willing to give me a seat of power in his kingdom, a precious and priceless thing, just to keep me at his side?
“Why?” My voice cracks. “Why me? What did I do to deserve your heart?”
The world can crumble in so many ways. I saw it crumble when Mother and Father died. I saw it crumble when I killed those five men. I saw it crumble when I had to say good-bye to Crav and Peligli to come here. I saw it crumble the first time I witnessed a purge.
But unlike those times, when my world crumbles now, it gets rebuilt, right in front of my eyes. In front of my lips; his on mine, soft and sweet, his mouth hungry and his hands hungrier—lacing in my hair, resting on my hips. For one golden moment, nothing matters. I can’t think. The hunger is completely, totally silent as he kisses me. A kiss. This is a kiss—strange and tender and wonderful. So very human. If I had a heart, I think mine would’ve stopped completely.
Can he taste the things I’ve done? The things I’m about to do?
We part slowly, Lucien’s expression deadly handsome, glowing from within with pure joy. The hunger rises with a vengeance, reaching its clawed fingers deep into my brain, grasping desperately for him to come close once more.
It’s ready this time.
“I hope that’s answer enough for you.” Lucien finds his voice, hoarse on the edges. “Because I have no words. I can only show you.”
It’s then he sees something by my feet and kneels, picking it up. Father’s sword. I must’ve been so shocked I let it fall.
“You dropped this.” He smiles, offering the blade in outstretched hands. His smile is so innocent. So convinced I’m a beautiful thing, a thing worth being kissed. A thing worth being loved. It almost spills from me, then; that very moment when I’m left raw, when my world has crumbled and been rebuilt in a span of seconds—I almost blurt everything. What I am. What I came here to do. What he means to me.
I take the sword gingerly. For a fraction of a second, I can see myself jamming the blade clean into his chest, right here and now. He’d bleed all over this floor. All over me. He’d bleed, and he wouldn’t stop, not until I pulled his heart off his arteries and put it in the jar, the jar that gleams with an etched snake, the jar I had hoped I’d never see—
“I’m sorry.” Lucien’s face falls. “Was I hasty?”
Outside the tent, I see the long-eared outline of Malachite shift from one leg to another. I can’t. I can’t kill him here—Malachite will know. Malachite will turn on me. He’s always been the problem, hasn’t he? But there’s a way, my rational self insists, pushing down the lovestruck girl deep inside that threatens to ruin everything.
“This is so sudden. I-I need time,” I say. “An hour? Maybe two? That would be enough to get my thoughts in order.”
Lucien nods. “Of course.”
“Could we meet somewhere private, after that?” I dart my eyes to Malachite’s figure to get the point across. “Just the two of us?”
The Crown Prince of Cavanos smiles at me, like a lamb smiles at a wolf.
“I’d like that.”
SO WOULD I, the hunger leers.
Lucien and I agree to meet at the gnarled yew near the eastern hunting trail of the forest at midnight. He leaves with that same golden smile on his face, and it feels like half my chest is trying to cave, the other half trying to swell. Torn. Every bit of me is torn in two.
I briefly overhear Malachite as he and the prince leave—the bandit sighting was a false alarm; the guards couldn’t find any sign of a camp or a single bandit. Whatever, or whoever, the lookout glimpsed disappeared. Or never existed in the first place.
When the threat of the bandits has passed, dinner begins.
It’s a strict affair underneath an open-faced white tent, a hardwood table hauled out here by who knows how many servants, lined with every silver utensil and dish afforded to the palace’s banquets. We seat the same way—according to rank. Nothing is different from the court here, save for the fact that most of us are in more casual clothes. The boys wear breeches and loose shirts and vague airs of nervousness. The girls wear outdoor dresses of simple flax, cotton pants beneath, their makeup painstakingly made to look more natural, glossed lips and bright cheeks. The meal is boisterous—without their parents around, the noble children feel freer, I suppose. They drink and flirt with more vigor than ever before, though beneath Ulla’s watchful eye nothing gets too out of hand. The heady musk of hormones and freedom is sweeter than any summer wildflower, lacing the suffocatingly warm night air. Fireflies flit about the oil lamps strung from the tents and poles of the camp, glittering off the guards’ armor like earthly strings of stars.
Fione sits close to me, teasing me relentlessly every time the prince’s and my eyes meet across the table. I don’t eat much, my nerves dancing too fast, too hard. Y’shennria couldn’t send me with fresh meat, so she packed dried livers in my trunk. It isn’t ideal, but it has to last me only a day. Or less. Midnight is mere hours away.