smell. I could admit I’d been seriously considering getting my new wife into bed, if only to see what that delicious fear tasted like on my tongue, but not now. Not when she was putting out that revolting scent that seemed to cling to her, overriding the tantalizing sweetness that had been there a moment before.
She smelled off. Maybe she was ill? Maybe the meat hadn’t agreed with her? It was nothing that couldn’t be found in the human world, just in different colors.
Perhaps it was the wine?
The Council had assured me she’d be fine with our food and drink. I’d be beyond irritated if I ended up with a dead queen on day one.
″How long does it take to consummate a marriage? Longer than you can hold your breath?” Damen teased quietly, sidling up next to me as we made our way through the brightly lit halls that led to the royal couple’s wing of the palace. I shot him a glare out of the corner of my eye that didn’t perturb him in the least.
What to do about the consummation clause? I rarely devoted my time to thinking about sex—fucking one of my subjects was not a decision I took lightly—but for hours it had been all I could think about.
I wouldn’t have taken Ophelia by force—I wasn’t that kind of monster—but my new wife had looked at me with enough coyness in her gaze to make me think she was open to the idea of coming to my bed—either because she was sent here to kill me and thought I’d stop paying attention when I buried my cock in her, or she was a pretty little idiot who would have changed her mind the moment reality set in.
The Council of Shades wouldn’t consider the marriage valid until we’d both sworn an oath that we’d taken that step, but I didn’t see why I should be forced into bed with anyone because of some Council or another telling me so. Was I the damn king or not? I’d fuck my wife when I was good and ready to.
″What is that?” Damen muttered, his nose twitching. We both nodded to the guards who stood either side of the archway that led the royal couple’s private quarters. The Queen’s Chambers were opposite my own, and the Council had deemed that the most respectful place to put my bride.
With that strange grotesque stench clinging to her, I was questioning how wise that decision was. Perhaps I should put her in the dungeon where she couldn’t make us all ill with her reek.
″Anger?” I suggested, keeping my voice quiet enough that Ophelia wouldn’t overhear. Soren was still walking a step behind her, undoubtedly watching her like a hawk. “It surfaced after we mentioned Meridia.”
Shades who came into contact with Hunters often didn’t live to tell the tale. I’d never faced one in battle, nor had Damen or Soren. If it was a warning sign that she was about to attack, none of us would know about it.
″A pity,” Damen said lightly. “Her fear is potent. I’m impressed you didn’t indulge while sitting so close to her at the feast. Unless you were saving it as a special wedding night treat for yourself,” he added with a mischievous grin.
″Mind your manners,” I warned my insolent brother.
″I mean no harm,” he replied, holding his hands up innocently. “You know we’re all very curious about our new queen. How do you even, you know, consummate with a human? Does it actually feel good? They’re very dainty looking—”
″These are your rooms,” I told Ophelia loudly, ignoring my obnoxious younger brother. Before I could open the door, Soren was there, entering before me and checking the room for any security threats.
This wing of the palace was only accessible by brightly lit halls, and the entrance to the entire wing was guarded at all hours. She’d be safe here. I was more concerned about my own safety now, in case that smell was a sign of impending attack.
″Affra!” I called, striding in behind Soren with Ophelia at my back. She wasn’t producing the reek any longer, but it clung to her skin and clothes.
″Here, your majesty,” Affra squeaked, scurrying into the room from the corridor. She bowed low to the ground, the gesture looking uncomfortable for her. She was ancient—too old to go out and hunt on her own. She was reliant on being fed from the communal stores in exchange for her labor like most of the other elderly in our realm.
″Queen Ophelia, this is your attendant, Affra. She has a room next to you and you can use the bell to call her whenever you require something. Affra, draw the queen a bath,” I ordered, before glancing at the hand Ophelia was still cradling.
There was an uncomfortable feeling in my chest as I noted the way she clutched her wounded hand to her chest, the faint metallic tang of blood present underneath the other unfortunate smell. It was a feeling I disliked and couldn’t easily place.
Perhaps I had eaten too quickly.
″I can deal with the hand,” Ophelia said confidently, giving Affra a kind smile as she hurried past. “Where would you like me after I have bathed, your majesty?”
Damen made a strangled sound at the blunt question. What a strange creature. Not nearly blushing and virginal, nor coolly confident, ready to plunge a silver dagger into my heart at the first moment either. Between the near-constant rush of fear she’d been experiencing, followed by that strange, repulsive smell, I wasn’t sure what to do with this new wife of mine.
I hesitated, hoping she hadn’t picked up enough of my tells yet to notice.
“Here,” I clipped, turning on my heel and striding out, my cloak of shadows whipping the air behind me. There was a pause where Damen and Soren probably bowed, hopefully taking their new queen seriously since she was here to stay for the meantime. I wasn’t going to be the one to break the treaty. While I found the entire arranged marriage concept distasteful, I could recognize that our current methods weren’t working.
I didn’t want my people to starve.
I crossed the hallway into my own chambers, leaving the door open for Damen and Soren to follow.
″Leave us,” I instructed my attendant, Cyr, who immediately disappeared into the servant’s entry, having worked for me enough to know when not to bother with bowing and scraping.
″What an odd wife you have,” Damen chuckled as he entered, heading for the bar in the corner.
I grunted in agreement, turning to face Soren. “Do you think she’ll run now that she’s alone?”
″Before your ceremony, I would have assumed so. Now, after that strange reaction to Meridia, I’m less certain,” he admitted.
″That smell,” Damen agreed, pouring himself a glass of wine without bothering to offer anyone else one. “After she’d been so deliciously tempting in her fear all through the ceremony and the feast.”
A whip of my shadows flicked out, catching Damen’s cheek hard enough to sting. He grinned, unrepentant.
″Possibly it was some kind of attack reflex,” Soren warned, his thoughts mirroring my own. “I’ll talk to some of the elders, see if they’ve heard of such a thing. At least Meridia can hold her own, I suppose.”
She could more than hold her own, which was what had me worried. After a few too many wines at dinner, Meridia hadn’t been able to conceal her hatred when she looked at Ophelia. She hadn’t even tried.
″Tell Meridia that if she kills the queen, I’ll send her bound and gagged into the Pit without second thought,” I said coolly, catching Soren by surprise. “Aside from the fact that there is a treaty relying on this union, it would be the height of disrespect to me to attack my wife.”
″And you would have ripped off your own horns before marrying Meridia,” Damen snorted, toasting his drink towards me.
Soren bowed his head, immediately acquiescing. Meridia had been shameless in her desire to be crowned queen, and I knew that he’d been worried her overtures would put his own position in jeopardy.
It was an unnecessary concern. Soren was too good of a captain for me to dismiss him just because of his ghastly sister.
″Of course, I’ll make it clear to Meridia,” he assured me.
″Good. As for Ophelia…” I mused, elbowing my brother out of the way to pour my own goblet of wine and swirling it slowly around the cup. “She didn’t look afraid. She smelled so tempting, but there was no trace of fear in her face or posture.”
″Perhaps the Hunters sent their most accomplished actress?” Soren suggested mildly.
It would make sense for them to send someone who was more than she appeared. That she would spy on us and report back to her people was a given, but it was whether she was more than that. It would void the treaty if she killed me, but I’d already be dead by that point and perhaps that mattered more to them?
The whole situation was infuriating. I’d given my Councilors leave to negotiate the finer points of the treaty on behalf of the realm, and it had been them who’d pushed the marriage point, wanting a Hunter here as a guarantee. A hostage, a quiet voice in the back of mind that I tried to ignore pointed out.
How easy it must have been for my Councilors to arrange this when they hadn’t been the ones forced to give anything up.
″Perhaps she’s an evil, vicious wench, sent here to destroy us all under the pretense of peace. Or perhaps not. Truly, we don’t know as much about Hunters as we should,” I pointed out before taking a swig of my wine. “The unidentifiable scent only proves that point.”
Soren opened his mouth to object before closing it again. He had scores of books on Hunter weaponry, the way they fought in groups, and their less-than-human attributes. We knew they could see us when regular humans couldn’t, and we knew from the treaty negotiation process that they could travel between realms using portals, a practice that we believed used to happen with more frequency but had stopped hundreds of years ago. Probably because in our realm, we were a far bigger threat to the Hunters than they were to us.
Perhaps there was more that separated the Hunters from their purely human counterparts. More knowledge that had been lost over hundreds of years of pure survival on our parts.
″Does no one smell their fear when they fight them?” Damen asked. “Surely, we would know that it is an addictive scent. Someone would mention that.”
″Not many live to tell the tale of those encounters,” Soren reminded Damen. My brother could be the smartest of all three of us, but he lacked direction. Perhaps one day he’d find something productive that captured his attention, but until then, he seemed content to spend his days drinking and getting into mischief. I must find something to occupy him. “Those who survive the silver throwing knives tend not to speak of the encounters.”
I pursed my lips, pacing back and forth in front of the bed. “I don’t think the little huntress was afraid when she smelled so tempting.”
″What else would she be? In a room full of monsters, binding herself to the biggest one?” Damen scoffed. “That she didn’t piss herself when you made Garren eat his own tongue was a small miracle, but the scent grew stronger then. It had to be fear.”
Idiot baby prince or not, I was inclined to agree with him.
″You’re probably right,” I sighed, tapping my claws against the black goblet in my hand. “But until we know more, perhaps consummating the union would be… unwise.”
If Ophelia was dangerous and sent here to kill me, then getting in bed with her would be the height of stupidity. Plus, not consummating the marriage would give me an escape clause if I needed it…
Damen made a strangled noise. “But what if she lets you feed on her fear while you’re—”
″Enough,” I growled. “The treaty explicitly forbids feeding on her fear, and I don’t need you rubbing it in. I’m as eager as anyone to know what it tastes like. But my prudence is why I am king, and you are not.”
″I disagree,” Damen replied with a mischievous grin. “It is because you’re bigger than me. Were the crown determined by brains—”
″You would still be second best,” Soren interjected drily. “I should return to the feast, try to catch Meridia before she does something regrettable.”
″Too late for that, many times over,” Damen laughed, while Soren shifted his weight awkwardly, trying to hide his embarrassment.
While Soren tried to avoid the details of his sister’s attempts at seduction wherever possible, everyone knew that after a particularly public rejection from me, Meridia had made a fool of herself in front of Damen instead out of spite. Or perhaps desperation.
I’m sure it was a piece of information Soren desperately wished he could unlearn.
Knowing that I hated formality when it was just the three of us, Soren quickly excused himself without bowing, making his way back into the hall. Hopefully, he’d check the guards were still in place and at attention on his way past. They were to keep others out, not to keep Ophelia in, and my new queen would be safe from Meridia’s spite if she was in her room at least.
″Shall I send someone to your room to entertain you if you’re not going to bed your wife?” Damen asked. “Who was it that was begging and crying last night for you to fuck them before you were a married Shade?”
″Shut up,” I grumbled without any real heat. “That was mortifying.”
″Yes, how you suffer,” Damen agreed gravely, eyes twinkling with mischief.
″And no, don’t send anyone. I’m not spending my wedding night with someone else.”
I’d be spending it with my wife, she just didn’t know it.
If she was an assassin, she was a terrible one, I thought wryly as I slipped into Ophelia’s rooms before Affra could shut the door behind her, carrying the silky wedding dress in her arms as she left, presumably for laundering. All of the orbs of silvery light within the palace walls were under my control, and I’d deliberately left the ones around the furthest corners of the room unlit so I could slip into the darkness and watch her if I needed to.
For security purposes.
But given that she was a huntress and had grown up knowing that light was one of our greatest weaknesses, I’d expected her to have brought candles and matches as her first line of defense to keep herself safe. Affra had to know I was here—the palace was kept brightly lit at all times specifically so no Shade could hide in the darkness within these walls.
I watched silently as Ophelia arranged some of the things she’d unpacked atop the vanity, wondering what all the strange colorful potions she’d brought with her from the human world were. She was arranging them with great care, and it was clear that she was fidgeting. How curious. With a long look at the closed door over her shoulder, Ophelia sighed and unbelted the knee-length dark robe she’d been wearing, pulling it off slowly and hanging it over the back of the chair.
The shadows only cloaked me, they didn’t mute me. I almost gave myself away with a groan like I’d never seen a woman’s naked thighs before.
I’d never seen naked thighs like that. Not that I found women of my own kind unattractive, but I was attracted to my wife to an inconvenient degree.
Was she wearing that for me?
Of course. I had told her to wait for me here. That’s why she’d dressed in a tiny, pale pink scrap of fabric that barely brushed the top of her thighs and dipped low on her chest, revealing the swell of breasts. The revolting scent from earlier had vanished, and she was back to smelling like the most mouthwatering buffet of fear I’d ever encountered.
How terrified she must be, to be emitting that scent so strongly when she was alone in her room. That she could hide her feelings so easily on her face was a little unsettling, though I had to wonder why she even bothered? Surely, she knew how sensitive our noses were. Hunters hadn’t gotten so good at killing Shades by accident.
A shiver of unease ran down my spine at the idea of her lying here filled with fear. I wasn’t the kind of monster who accosted unwilling women in their beds, and it bothered me that she thought I was.
Had I been too hard on her? There had been moments at dinner where she’d seemed almost compassionate, but I couldn’t let myself be fooled by that. We all had our roles to play in this marriage, this treaty, this entire arrangement going forward.
With another sigh that seemed to border on impatience, she padded over to the dresser, pulling open the top drawer and taking out a few items that definitely weren’t clothing. I tensed as she made her way back to the bed, climbing into the center of the luxurious gray and black silk bed, and settling back against the cushions. She unrolled some kind of fabric holder, and I held my breath, expecting silver daggers or something worse, exhaling silently when I realized they were just… drawing supplies? She carefully unbound a leather sketchbook, bending her knees so she could rest it against her thighs before picking through her pencils.
I couldn’t see what she was drawing from where I was sitting, but I could see the smooth backs of her thighs and the slight curve of her ass.
My mouth watered with the need to feed, and I almost released the shadows cloaking me and dove onto her. She was waiting for me, why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I see if she tasted as good as she smelled? If her delicate little body could accommodate me.
Because she’s a Hunter.
Because once you consummate it, you’re stuck.
Because she’s an unknown quantity. Because she smelled repulsive just an hour ago.
Because she’s dangerous and addictive and temptation incarnate, and you’re fucking married to her.
