Phantom Read online

  Most of my belongings were given to me by the Prince, and the rest came with the boudoir. Still, my face pinched tightly the more he inspected my favourite water goblet and fiddled with my latest letter to Moritz.

  I’d stopped the letter when I remembered he was dead. The thick parchment wore tear stains.

  The Prince’s fingertips, bared without gloves, grazed over my wretched and clumsy handwriting too long.

  A chill ran up me as I watched him in silence.

  Since he flooded me with his toxins a second time, I felt the aftereffects more than ever. It was an ache in my bones I recognised too well. The same ache that clutched my insides after I kissed the opium pipe at the balneum.

  When I first tried opium, I knew I could never touch it again. The itch to taste it a second time had flared in my veins for days. I had craved to have it fill me with its chill, that ran so deep that no amount of hot washes and boiled crabs could thaw it.

  Now, I suffered the same for something else.

  Him.

  The Prince and his poison.

  The urge to reach out for him was getting harder to resist with every passing moment he spent ignoring me in my own room. The craving for his poison carved deeper inside of me.

  My fingertips felt it most.

  Under the stark light of the day filling my room, I studied my fingers—the new tinge of brown on my nails, bruises forming in pin-prick dots at the rim of my prints.

  I dropped my hands to my lap and looked up the Prince with a quiet sigh. He had his back to me as he flicked through the papers on the table. All were blank.

  The Prince finally turned my way, and the ferocity of his striking face sucked the breath out of me.

  It was too easy to forget what the Prince was.

  Sometimes, I slipped into my own emotions bottling up just for him, or saw him as the ruthless overseer of my captivity and lessons. But in that moment, as I slouched on the foot of my bed and fell victim to the hook of his ferocious stare, it struck me like a bolt of lightning from a stormy sky.

  He was a God. Divine yet brutal.

  And I’d pissed him off good. And soon, I would piss him off to a point of no return. I would try to kill him, or hurt him enough for Ava and me to make our escape from Scocie. But today was too soon.

  I dropped my gaze to the floor as he advanced on me, his movements slow and weary like that of a predator who had spent too long basking under the sun before setting off on a hunt.

  Even as I watched his coal-black boots come closer to me, I could almost taste the weariness seep out from his pores, as though he was wondering if I was worth it anymore, worth all the bother I threw his way.

  Before his boots could stop some inches away from my stocking-clad feet, my toes had curled to match my tense shoulders and I fought my gaze to lift back to him.

  His silent fury shimmered down at me from his blazing eyes. I swallowed, hard.

  Still, I didn’t fall to his feet easily.

  “I don’t know what you want from me.” My voice came out in a pathetic whisper, as defeated as I felt.

  His answer came quickly. “Your undying loyalty.”

  “Haven’t I given that?” A pathetic frown furrowed my face as I stared up at him. “Don’t I do everything you order me to? Have I tried to flee or end my life, or yours?”

  His moon-eyes flashed. “You would fail—”

  “I know.” A frustrated groan caught in my throat. “No one can kill a God except a God. I’ve read the skripta, I know I can’t hurt you, but that’s not the point.”

  The Prince stroked his finger under my chin. “What is the point, Valissa?”

  “I meant what I said. I can’t live like this anymore, Prince. You want me alive, I don’t know why, I don’t care why. But I can’t watch Ava be tortured because of some idea or notion you have.”

  As he studied me, his hand drifted from my chin up to my cheek, and the pad of his thumb ran over my skin tenderly. “I am your God. My notions and ideas are the purpose of your existence.”

  “No,” I whispered and shook my head slightly. His cold hand on my face didn’t leave. “I serve you, first because I had no choice, now because it’s all I really have. But I’m not a vilas or an aniel. We both know that.”

  I have no God. Maybe I am one.

  The Prince slowly leaned over me, forcing me back onto the bed. His body soon aligned with mine and his hands dipped the mattress on either side of me.

  “I should kill you. I should have killed you the day you were brought to me.” He breathed his threat with a touch of danger and want—the same want that flickered in his eyes as he started his climb over me. “Do you know why I did not end you?”

  In answer, I parted my lips and froze, like a dead fish. I couldn’t think straight, not with a God climbing on top of me as I lay on my bed.

  “I have ... guesses,” I muttered as the muscular weight of his body pressed down on mine, and he brushed his soft mouth so close to my own. I added, as though his thoughts didn’t completely rattle me, “I think ... maybe because you can—”

  The Prince drew back enough to leave a wedge of thick, tense air between us, and studied me with a dark smile on his face. His eyes sparkled white and silver, urging me to speak the truth.

  “I think it’s because you can touch me.”

  Those mortifying and definitely arrogant words burned my cheeks with a fierce blush.

  I turned my face away and fixed my stare on his hand still pressed into the blankets.

  The Prince shoved himself away from me in one fluid movement.

  I looked up at him as he stayed kneeling between my spread legs. I tried to close my legs, but his weight was too heavy on the sheer gauzy fabric of my skirt.

  I was trapped.

  I watched as he drew something out from his trouser pocket, something that winked and sparkled at me like threads of silver and drops of blood. It was a mess of crimson jewels and silver chains and white hoops, like a necklace all tangled up in finger-rings.

  The Prince gestured to my hand. “Take it off.”

  I peeled off my black lacy glove and shifted to sit upright, facing him. “What is that?”

  “A gift.” He clasped his bare hand around my wrist. Instantly, my milky skin started to bruise in ugly, blackened splotches. “Wear them always,” he said as he slipped the small hoops onto my fingers, then fastened a clasp at the bone of my wrist. “More will be delivered to your chambers.”

  With a frown, I lifted my hand and inspected the strange piece. Threaded around my fingers, fine chains led from my knuckles to the clasp at my wrist, and looped over my palm.

  Fleetingly, I thought of a glove made of silver and rubies and crystals.

  I noticed that the black spots of the Prince’s poison on my pale skin started to fade. I slitted my eyes and watched as the toxins fled my body and slipped away into the gems.

  I hadn’t even tried to shift the poison. It did it all on its own.

  A question furrowed my face as I looked up at the Prince. He was watching me already, his eyes alive with a curious wonder.

  At the sight of that look on his face, my stomach flipped and twisted. It was quite a thing to have a God behold me like that, as though he cared even a little what I thought of his gift.

  Hesitantly, I reached out for his face. The hand-bracelet glistened on my pale skin, like blood stars in the day. I touched my fingertips to the Prince’s marble-like face; his lashes fluttered for the shortest moment, a crack in his composure.

  Bruises glided down my fingers and disappeared into the gems without so much as a thought from me.

  Wear them always.

  The Prince wrapped me in total protection. With these ancient, hollow stones on my hand, I was safe from poison, from the power of the Gods.

  More will be delivered.

  He wanted to keep me safe. Today, at least.

  Was this an apology?

  Was he, the God Prince Poison, sorry for what he’d done?<
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  It’s not like a God would ever say sorry…

  My voice came out in a breathy whisper. “Thank you.”

  In answer, he watched me silently.

  My fingertips glided over his hard, smooth skin, down to his cold mouth, and a small smile touched my lips.

  I’m wretched.

  Always have been. But this surprised even me.

  When I waited for the Prince to come to my bedchamber that morning, the last way I expected his visit to go was to the sheets.

  But that’s exactly where it went.

  10

  The Prince’s stare cut down at me. Ravenous eyes, burning brighter than falling stars, captured me—and each time he earned a raspy whimper from me, his eyes only burned brighter.

  It was all I could see. His eyes, blazing with a primal hunger that his power couldn’t let him satiate. But I felt everything.

  His mouth was cold against mine, his warm breath soothing the frosty bite of his lips on my skin. I shivered under him, feeling the slick head of his shaft brush against my core.

  A hoarse sound choked in my throat and, losing the grip I had on my leftover scraps of control, I bucked my hips off the damp sheets to invite him in.

  It was the Prince’s turn to moan, something soft and course, like a distant whisper of a wild growl caught on the wind.

  Yet he wasn’t ready—his hands weren’t finished exploring every inch of my naked body. He took his time. Fingertips danced lightly around the cusp of my breast, as if savouring the touch of warm skin.

  I arched my back and tilted my head enough for our mouths to meet.

  I ghosted a kiss over his lips, luring him closer.

  He lowered himself onto me, his mouth chasing mine and he moaned into my mouth.

  My core swelled at the sound.

  Between my legs was a God. A divine creature, the first of any on this world. He was on me. Kissing me as though I was his life source. He wanted me, and my body was thrilled.

  Desperation clung to my every nerve. I locked my legs around his waist and pulled him closer. I needed him. Not as the Prince or a God, but as someone to need me back, someone who understood me and my darkness and desired me anyway.

  I reached my hand between our bodies.

  The Prince stilled, hesitation cracking through the room. The force of the shift was so powerful that I froze, sensing the danger shuddering through his body.

  Still, I took my chances and clasped my hand around the thickness of his cock. A hiss escaped him and he dropped his forehead to mine.

  The Prince closed his eyes, lashes tickling my face.

  I waited for the moment to pass and for the Prince to come back to me. Not a second after I felt his lashes move against me and his eyes opened, I lined him up with my slick core.

  The Prince might not have fucked his way through the isles, but between two heartbeats I learned he was far from inexperienced. He knew what to do.

  Before I could give much thought to that, his lips left mine and found my neck. I moaned as he pushed into me, slow and smooth. He growled a low sound at my neck.

  His hard, cold body tensed against me. I grazed my hands along his back, feeling every muscle jump under his skin.

  With a sudden jut, the Prince slammed all the way into me, and a guttural groan shuddered me.

  Buried in me to the hilt, the bitter touch of his power seemed to radiate off him. I felt the licks of pure divinity lashing at my skin.

  The Prince shuddered and, with a groan that rippled through his body, he dropped his head to my neck.

  For a moment, he was just still.

  I let my hands roam his back in lazy strokes. The Prince drew back enough to look down at me with his fierce, blazing eyes. Hunger had seized him. And I felt foolish for thinking a God was anything less than that, even for just a few seconds.

  That ravenous look he wore was anything but detached.

  I grinned and dug my nails into his back, pulling his closer.

  I’m ready.

  And so was he. A wicked smirk stole his lips before he brushed a soft kiss over me.

  Something wild flashed in his eyes, an ancient unquenched hunger uncovered. His hands shot to mine and held, tight, pushing me further into the plush mattress.

  The Prince thrust deeper into me.

  I clenched around him. Tingles sizzled at my nerves as he picked up the pace and started pistoning into my silky folds, his teeth grazing my jaw.

  Writhing under him, I let my eyes flicker shut and my back arched. I needed to feel him against me; every muscle and punch of his heart on my skin. Yet I couldn’t face him.

  By shutting my eyes on his porcelain-white skin, I could forget the horrors of yesterday that he reminded me of. It wasn’t about what he’d done to me or what I planned to do to him.

  It was about this. Him, inside of me, filling me; his hot breaths trailing down my neck, the rough sound of his growls tickling my skin. It was about finally feeling something real. Even if he was a God, he got me. No one else did.

  And, fuck, I’m lonely.

  I needed him.

  “Harder.” I grunted out the command and threaded my fingers through his. “Faster.”

  His body hardened against mine. Any more weight pushed down on me and I would have been crushed.

  My nails cut into his knuckles. If he was mortal, he would have bled. Instead, he ravaged me.

  Every thrust was harder, faster, deeper than the last. Pleasure was building inside of me, higher and higher, climbing up my body to my writhing heart.

  The Prince’s moans turned desperate.

  Hooking my legs around him, I jutted with him until it hit—and I felt like a hundred starbursts were exploding inside of me.

  The Prince jerked against me, our bodies tense and rattled and sweaty. Then, as though we were puppets suddenly cut from our master’s strings, we slumped together.

  The Prince’s face stayed buried in the nook of my neck.

  As I slowly caught my breath, I stared up at the swirls of blue paint on the ceiling and ran my hands along his arms, over his shoulders, then traced the definition on his back.

  The Prince’s moans had quietened but I heard their soft whispered against my neck. He was enjoying this part too. The ‘come down’. The moment right after, me touching him in perhaps the most intimate way one can be touched—

  Tenderly.

  Lovingly.

  I barely had the energy to think much on that. I only knew in my heart of hearts that love wasn’t for people like me. Never for someone like him. In love, we would never be. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t feel.

  And I was afraid, right then in that bed with him, I was letting myself feel too much.

  Propped up against feathery pillows and tangled covers, I hugged a silk sheet to my chest and watched the Prince dress by the foot of the bed.

  His quartz eyes were hooked onto me as he fastened the buttons on his black shirt. His long lashes were lowered in a blend of exhaustion and suspicion.

  I guessed this was his first time...ever.

  Maybe he’d been with a God at some point, one who could withstand his poison. I didn't know. But I detected a distant uncertainty in him, as if this almighty God was unsure how to act after sex.

  I almost laughed at the thought—just like men, did he put so much thought into the sex itself that the ‘after’ became dangerous territory?

  “I invited you to the Season Festival,” he reminded me, and I was the one caught off guard now. “With what just occurred between us, I presume you still accept my invite.”

  I blinked at him, fingers twisting in the silky sheet. “Yeah.” My shrug was tired and lazy. I still had no idea what a Season Festival was, but I was damn excited to find out.

  “It begins tonight at dusk.” The Prince smoothed out his crimson cravat before fastening it in place around his neck. I eyed his long fingers, their ministrations on me flashing in my mind.

  “Ok.” I bit the inside of m
y cheek and turned my attention to the damp spots on the sheet. Nalla needed to clean this bed immediately, I decided.

  A light knock on the door rattled me, and I burned my gaze through the white wood. The Prince didn’t call for the knocker to enter, and no one came in.

  I waited for the door to swing open. When it was just me in here, no one waited for me to invite them inside. They just waltzed in and out as they pleased. But with the Prince in here with me, that door remained firmly shut at the sound of our silence.

  With a sigh, I slumped back on the pillows and asked, “Why do I still have my guards?” I figured that since we’d fumbled only minutes ago, I wouldn’t be struck down for questioning him.

  The Prince pulled on his crimson coat and looked at me with questioning eyes. “Precaution,” was all he said.

  “Precaution or nuisance?” I muttered.

  His coat was buttoned, he was dressed as pristinely as when he entered my bedchamber, and I felt a sinking feeling in my gut as I realised he was about ready to leave.

  A part of me didn't want to see him go. That day was the first in a long time that I’d been close to anyone—physically, at least.

  Still, his voice was as crisp as the Frost Season as he said, “I could arrange a cell in the dungeons if you prefer.”

  A moody pout took my face. “I’ll stick with the guards.”

  Prince Poison reached across the bed and snatched me by the ankle. In a swift, hard pull, I was yanked to him, our faces aligned. I could taste my lips on his, he was so close.

  He surprised me and brushed a kiss over my mouth. Soft skin grazing mine, he murmured softly, “I will send you a gown for the festival, and I will wear a ribbon of the same shade.”

  Moths erupted in my stomach.

  A ribbon.

  He might as well let me brand him with my name. A ribbon was a terrifying gesture from a God, and though a sick lonely part of me was giddy to see my ribbon around his wrist, I knew it wasn’t something that would end well.

  The Zealot and the foolish lady came to mind.

  “Don’t I have enough dresses?” I asked, just to fill the heavy silence between us.

  With a brisk, firm kiss to my lips that sent poison sweeping through my veins to the hand-bracelet, the Prince stood and paid a long look down at me.