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“I can give you what you know you always wanted.” His eyes are alight with amusement. “A new world, a better one. One where Arcanists are free to do as they please.”
“Change your name—your destiny. Give up the Oricalis Kingdom entirely when you remake the world. Shatter it.” “Give me the World, and I will. Gladly.”
“Now let’s find you something to eat.” “What?” The change in his demeanor has me startled. “You still look like a breeze might blow you over.” He must really believe everything I said and see us as a partnership. “I prefer my women with more substance.”
“I don’t care how you prefer your women.” “The way you looked at me just now said otherwise.”
“You can’t sweep a year of Halazar away with a few words.” “I never wanted you to suffer there. Were I able to remove you sooner, I would have. But I couldn’t risk it before the Fire Festival. The engagement alone wouldn’t have been enough. You needed the protections of the academy as an initiate, then student.”
“To ink cards is to channel the primal forces of nature on ink and paper. “To read cards is to surrender to the fates that guide your hand. “To wield cards is to make the true power of the undercurrents of this world unquestioningly your own.”
Kaelis tilts his head, dark eyes trailing slowly over my body. One look brings the sensation of unseen hands on my exposed skin. Tiny bumps rise along my flesh, and I am glad for the dim light of the room so he can’t see what he can do to me with just a look.
“I bet you say that to all the women you keep imprisoned for a year and then decide to marry.” “Every last one.”
Kaelis is a ropy, lean creature. A man of hard contrasts, with a body that looks…aching. It’s the only word that comes to mind to describe him. It’s as if he aches for a nourishment food can’t give him. He aches for a comfort deeper than the velvets and furs he surrounds himself with. Aches for the touch of something kind…or at least of a pleasure deep enough to forget himself for a while.
have you,” he whispers, fingers slipping between my own. There’s something in his eyes that makes me feel…safe.
Kaelis’s tongue is in my mouth. He kisses me like he’s been waiting years for this. My leg rises to wrap around his upper thigh, my skirt hiking up dangerously high. The prince bites my lower lip with a low growl.
“Aren’t you a lucky one for it?” His eyes narrow slightly. “A young woman pulled from obscurity thanks to a fortuitous history and a prince’s love.” “A lucky break, I guess.” “Lucky, indeed,” he says thoughtfully.
Whenever Arina would read, her eyes would flutter closed, and she’d sway slightly as her hands moved over the cards. As though she were conducting a symphony of whispers from the universe itself.
“Call her a wench again and you’ll answer to much worse than her fists.” Kaelis’s words are like cold fire. Bitter and biting. Little more than a deadly snarl.
“Let me go.” “Trust me when I say, that’s the one thing neither of us wants.”
“You look quite content ruining my sofa with all your blood.”
“It’s not just my blood.” “That makes it worse.” He grimaces. “The only place I want Eza’s bloodstains are on the floor. And maybe my knuckles.” “I didn’t take you for one to resort to blows.” “I’m not, usually.” I glance his way. “Am I to believe you’d get yourself dirty for me?” “Believe whatever you like,” he says aloud. But his slight smile says simply, Yes.
“I don’t give a damn about your father,” I say bluntly. Kaelis snorts, and his eyes shine with what looks almost like fondness at the remark. “Perhaps not. But I give a damn about keeping his attention away from that which is mine.” That which is mine…He’s talking about me.
For the first time, I realize his apartments are the only place in the academy where I feel safe. That Prince Kaelis, of all the people in this world, for reasons I don’t want to fathom, is a balm to my frayed nerves.
