Chapter 6: The Prince Who Feels Nothing

The walls of the palace were chillier the following morning.

Or maybe it was me.

Or maybe it was how Kael had left me gasping and shivering, and then turned away from me and shoved me aside like I was nothing. Like I was something bought and discarded. Something bought and discarded.

I did not sleep.

I could not.

Whenever I would shut my eyes, I could feel it again—the phantasmagoric rush of the meeting of his lips to the skin at my throat, the raspy tickle of his fingertips, the huff of his breathing promise into the skin I'd never find him to mean to keep.

And so I waited on a dawn that broke at the darkness of the king's bedroom.

Servants buzzed around me like nervous bees, wrapping me in lace and velvet, smoothing baubles, braiding my hair into a crown. They spoke to me in panting gasps, regarding me sideways as if I were a bomb about to explode.

Perhaps I was.

When they were done, I did not recognize myself.

The hunchback girl from the street was no more.

In her stead stood one harsher, colder—a girl in red velvet and silver chains, a choker of shattered metal at her throat announcing her as belonging to the royal court.

Not free.

Not loved.

Owned.

The door creaked open softly behind me, and I viewed him in the mirror—Kael, Prince of the Blood Court, in black and dark crimson, flesh sculpted into shadow.

He did not say anything.

He just gazed.

"Does that suit you, my lord?" one of the servants had the temerity to ask, bending forward so far her forehead was inches from the floor.

Kael's gaze swept over me, icy.

"Leave us," he ordered.

The room emptied quickly.

Now we were alone once more.

I rose to my feet, turned, and faced him, my back straight even as my heart thudded in outrage.

"You summoned me," I addressed him in a formal voice.

"Your job is to stick with me today in court," he said, his voice stiff and unyielding. "You will speak only when spoken to. You will glance at someone only when I tell you it's acceptable. You will smile when I do. You will kneel when I do."

I raged. "I am not a puppet."

No, he said with a hard smile. "You're worth a great deal more than that."

I swallowed hard, the acrid taste of bitterness on my lips.

"Tell me," I taunted, provoking, "is that what you see when you look at me? Servitude and blood?"

Kael bridged the distance between us, his tension-filled body standing me up even though he didn't touch me.

"I want you to hear me, Scarlett," he said to her, his voice low and incisors able to cut through tissue. "What happened between us last night—"

His eyes blazed, for a moment, showing something raw.

And then that was washed away.

"—was nothing," he finished.

Those three words stung worse than any punch.

Nothing.

It shouldn't have gone to my head.

I was a contract. A slave. A tool.

And yet.".

"You drank from me," I wept, cold. "You—"

"I used you," Kael told me, with a snap of his teeth. "Don't confuse need and love."

I gritted my teeth.

He saw that.

He didn't apologize.

He inched forward so there was hardly enough room to breathe between us. His hand rose—to rest upon my chin, I would have guessed—but at the last second he changed and his fingers curled into the silver chain at my throat instead.

Carefully. Almost.

With disdain.

"This tie," he continued, undoing it, "is lasting. You are a commodity, Scarlett. One scarce and fine one. Don't be misguided, however, to think you are something different from a commodity to me."

There was a spark of rage in the corner of my eyes, but I forced it into no form. I would not cry for him. I would not let him have that.

In its place, I jutted out my chin and glared back at his red eye with the defiance left to me.

"Understood," I said, voice silk over steel.

There was a flicker—one—one look flashed across his face. Guilt? Regret?

It was gone before I could read it.

He flung the chain on the ground and stepped away, the dismissal clear.

"Good," he said. "You'll be getting use of that clear-sightedness if you're to survive at court."

The Blood Court had been a terror of gold and marble.

Massive pillars stretched out towards a gilded dome painted with pictures of vampire victories. Red and black cloths of banners billowed on walls, bearing sigils of ancient houses—snakes, dragons, thorns.

Nobles were already seated when we arrived, an ocean of glinting predators in velvet and silk.

They all turned to look at us.

Him.

Me.

I felt their eyes like knives against my skin. Heard them whispering creeping on the wind like corruption vines.

Prince Kael has taken a human servant…

Look at her… little wee thing…

She won't last a week…

Kael did not listen, his hold on my wrist firm as he pulled me across the room to the throne.

He sat.

I knelt.

As he had commanded.

The chain around my neck sparkled in the light of the torch, a quiet reminder to anyone who looked at me exactly what I was.

Property.

I sat head bowed, hands folded in my lap, the epitome of the ideal obedient servant.

But within, I was screaming.

Within, I was already planning.

They had believed they could chain me. Break me. Use me.

They were in error.

I may be trapped today, perhaps, but prisons can be broken.

Chains can be broken.

Even those made of velvet.

Especially those made of velvet.

And one day.

One day soon.

They would regret ever believing they had underestimated Scarlett Hale.

Beginning with the cold, hard prince who thought it was a game he could play with me.

To be continued….