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Handy, that last asset. Truly.
Bronze turned his back on his literal door prize and pushed his punishing verbal weight into the lycan who had offered up his dance card. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you had a crush on me. You know, if you wanted to cuddle, you could have just asked.” Bronze spread his arms wide. “Plenty of me to go around.”
Lord Raff stood at the base of the stairwell, unamused and uninterested. The stony lock of his forearms across his barrel chest was a challenge welcoming anyone to lock horns with him. And if Bronze wasn’t in such a pissy mood, he might have taken the male up on his offer just so Bronze’s body could stay nice and loose.
“Dances bore me, so I’ll not engage in them.” A stone-cold gaze to match the walls around them hardened on Bronze. “You are no demigod.”
Shit. The assertion momentarily took Bronze by surprise, but eons of quick reflexes had taught him to suppress any sort of outward sign in the midst of the enemy. Instead, he stood silent, frozen, waiting for Raff to reveal more so Bronze could evaluate his next move.
Raff stepped away from the stairwell and, with his arms still crossed, began to walk in a slow semicircle around Bronze. “I have known a fair bit of power in my day, and you, my male, have none. Besides, I can think of no reason for a demigod to be seen skulking around the king’s keep, patting down the door to the royal coffers the night before the second trial he is to compete in, or storming out of the princess’s bedchamber moments before his little unescorted excursion down here. Unless, of course, his plan was to never compete at all but nab what valuables he could and flee in the night before the sun rose and no one was the wiser.”
“Do you really like the sound of your own voice that much? Honestly, I know you guys aren’t the techie sort, but you’d save your poor vocal cords so much effort if you could just record your boring-ass monologues and play them back at your leisure.”
“Humor is the weakest of defense mechanisms. Jokes are often made to smooth over the most uncomfortable situations, such as imminent death or the catastrophic heartbreak of broken trust.”
“Nah. You’re just an asshole who hasn’t had a reason to giggle since your second inadvertently tickled your balls. How is Lord Byron, by the way? Still . . . kicking?”
Despite Bronze’s totally obvious and definitely intentional low blow, the icy facade he was hoping to score some cracks in held firm.
“Oh, he is healed. Timber wolf lycan blood is strong. We mend quite quickly, unlike humans and other species.”
Bronze’s veins filled with blood so heated, he was liable to explode and paint the asshole in Bronze’s favorite shade of gore.
Raff raised a palm to Bronze, as if somehow sensing his opponent was on the verge of going nuclear. “Tell me, does the princess know you’re down here, attempting to service her father’s cache so soon after servicing her?”
“Shut your fucking mouth or I’ll do it for you.”
“No need. I’ve got all the confirmation I require, and soon, so will the king and his daughter. There is no reason to bother His Majesty with this bit of nonsense right now. The king and I are like-minded, after all, when it comes to goals and priorities.” Raff prowled closer until flecks of russet twinkled in the torchlight within the thicket of his dark beard. “You see, I have never portrayed myself to be anything other than what I present. Strength, power, the need for an ally to unite the great lycan territories, and a willingness to rut with any royal female who comes with her fair share of land and?—"
The punch split the skin on Bronze’s fist, but the pain was well worth the satisfying crack of Raff’s jaw as it swung in suspended animation from one side to the other, separating from that vital hinge structure that allowed the male to run his damn mouth.
Bronze braced his forearm against the male’s thick neck like the iron bar he willed it to be and snarled at the lycan. “You so much as dream of her and I’ll fucking neuter you with the blunt edge of those ceramic blades your kind is so fond of using . . . after I pummel your stones into flapjacks beneath my boots, you miserable piece of lycan filth.”
“I wonder,” the lycan mused calmly in between subtle coughs, “does the princess know how money-motivated you truly are? What would be if her beloved champion was not entirely the male she thought him to be?”
The knee that found its mark between Bronze’s legs was Lord Raff’s answer and warning to Bronze’s ill-conceived threat.
Shouldn’t have given him the fucking idea to go for the jewels.
As Bronze grunted through his foolishness and fell to his knees, with one hand protecting his groin while the other was fisted and poised to fly at the nearest chin, Lord Raff moved with eerie grace from the wall he’d been held against and marched toward the stairwell. “I’d wish you good luck, but I’ve never much favored the folly of it. I make my own luck. So, I’ll just say this: may the best male win.”
“Fuck . . . you,” Bronze ground out, but his threat was gobbled up by the shadows left in the wake of Lord Raff’s exit, as if even Bronze’s words were too powerless to fight back.
Chapter 25
The morning sun chased away the lingering fog that had settled thickly over the practice arena. Damp dirt quickly had its moisture baked off, leaving a cool yet lightly packed surface on which the second Betrothal Game would commence. Tension heaped its burden onto Clara’s shoulders, and the oppressive weight was beginning to become more than her wolf could handle.
Guilt made for an abhorrent support system. It truly did.
It had taken several precious seconds to realize the fault in her behavior from the night before. Unfortunately, time could never be called back once lost, nor could her words or the penetrating shock they’d struck Bronze with. And like any warrior, he took the hits well, barely letting on how deep the wound had really been.
But oh, she knew. She saw it in the puckered stillness of the lines at the corners of his eyes and how swiftly he armored himself with wit and fled the thing that wounded him.
She was that thing, that awful thoughtless thing, and now she was about to watch him walk into that arena for what may well be the last time, with the knowledge that her actions had already incapacitated him.
The entire situation eluded and confounded her, for her experience in groveling was limited to the profuse apologies she’d offer up to her father when he was displeased with her, regardless of whether or not she was at direct fault. But to grovel to a male who she not only respected but had begun to feel closer to than her own wolf at times?
In all their talk of being powerless, Clara had never thought the term would apply to herself, yet there she sat, primped and poised before an empty arena next to a king who’d rather barter his daughter off than love her. A princess in name only. A symbol.
