“Stop it,” Lilah told him. “Get out of my face.”
“I said silence!” the king repeated.
“I heard you the first time.” Lilah said but looked at the “decipherer” while she said it.
The translator leaned into her face. “Talk to only me. You are not allowed to speak to His Highness.”
“Why am I not allowed to speak?” Oh right, she’d forgotten he was her lawyer, and she was the client who was supposed to be quiet in front of the judge. But why was he repeating what the king said? She wasn’t deaf.
The translator’s eyes popped wide to her question. He gave her a look like he could not believe she had asked such a question. “For the same reason you must wear the coverings. You are female.”
Whoa. Hold the fucking door. He did not just say what she thought he said! Her eyes narrowed on him. Through clenched teeth, she ground out, “Are you saying I cannot talk to the king because I’m a woman?”
“Correct.”
Her injustice radar kicked into high speed. She heard Daphne chuckling behind her. Her cousin knew her rather well. And soon, all of these chauvinistic males would too. She propped her fists on her hips.
“So,” she started loud enough for everyone to hear, “Mr. Translator, please ask the king, if I had a dick like you…” The men gasped; their interpreter’s face went pale from its sunburn color. “…then I would be allowed to talk?”
Her guy swayed on his feet. She reached out a hand to steady him, and he yanked his body backward. “You are not allowed to touch a male.”
Her brow raised. She had the feeling the women here were not allowed to do a lot of things that were God-given rights. Daphne cleared her throat loudly. Yeah, Lilah would get herself in trouble. One more smart-ass remark. “Let me make one thing clear for you and your king. Where we come from, the females let the men think they are in charge. Nobody tells us what we can and cannot do.”
She fixed her eyes on the king’s and pointed at him. “And people like you and your kind were destroyed because you are too stupid to see how things really work.”
The royalty’s face became tomato red, and his hands balled into fists. “How dare you speak to me.” His face twisted into scary anger.
Right, if he thought she was afraid of him, he was dead wrong. If she could handle the grumpiest, meanest, asshole-ish judge in Carrollton county, then this guy was ground meat. With quick, long strides, she was in the royal’s face. Just to piss him off more and to make a point, she poked him in the chest with a red lacquered nail.
“I am not scared of you. I have dealt with so many of your kind in my job that I eat them for breakfast.” That wasn’t entirely true, but it sounded damn tough. “I demand that you release us to go on our way before somebody does something you will regret.” She had always wanted to say that phrase. She had read it a hundred times in her romance novels, and it applied so well here.
The king stared down at her as his body began to shake, and his face got darker. Somebody had better do something before her bravado from being treated unjustly faded with her adrenaline.
Movement in the shadows caught the corner of her eye. A body dashed out toward her. The frame was not any larger than hers, so she knew it wasn’t a soldier coming to kill her. She didn’t think they would really hurt her. Put her back in lockup, maybe.
Lilah didn’t dare move her eyes away from the monarch. Her boss had taught her one thing in her first week on the job—don’t let anyone intimidate you. Never look away first.
“Father, My King, let me take them and show them our ways, so they learn to be proper females.”
Okay, this little surprise warranted looking away. So, the daughter of the king was allowed to speak to him, just not the commoners. Her indignation fired up again.
The king lifted his arm toward his daughter. “Go with her before I leave you in the dungeon with the spies to rot.”
There was that spy word again. There wasn’t anyone else in the cell with the four of them. In response to his order, she raised her chin.
“I choose to leave because this room disgusts me with its ugly hardness and irritating occupants.” She reached out to Daphne and pulled her along. “Come on, Daph. We are so out of here.”
The daughter ran toward an archway. Lilah was on the girl’s heels before anybody could really do anything else. Her boss had said she was the best faker he had ever seen. Yeah, she could fake her way through anything. Most women could. Of course, the “freaking out” came later—
Probably in just a few minutes.
Chapter Five
Stepping into the hall, Ferrus closed the side wall to the throne room and laughed his ass off. Oh, Mother of the Mountain. That female was the feistiest he’d seen since he was a small child. Before his mother died. In fact, the female reminded him a lot of his mother.
A pang hit his heart, tears burning the back of his eyes. He sucked in a deep breath to keep it together. His mom had left them long ago after a strange illness. His father, the king, thought a witch had poisoned her, but he never could prove that or knew which witch was the culprit.
That was when everything began to change. His father became a man he didn’t recognize anymore. The loving dad who doted on his wife and two small children turned cold-hearted and uncaring. His heart had changed to stone as hard and enduring at the mountain they lived in.
No longer were mates allowed together, with the threat of death if caught. Males would train with males and learn to fight, and the females did their duties serving the males and having children. Though Ferrus didn’t wholly understand his father’s decrees, he was powerless to change them. Until the time he became king, he was to carry out the directives.
But he had found his mate. If he let on who she was, then his father would give orders for her to be killed. What was the big deal about a mate? Yes, she was absolutely stunning, with a body he would enjoy very much, but what else was there? He was a warrior, and she could not protect the clan if she had to. She depended on him to keep her alive.
Oh, Mother of the Mountain, she was his mate and as brave as a dragon spewing fire from its mouth. Fitting. They had been born for each other.
No female had spoken to the old king in two hundred sun peaks. The dictate disallowing communicating between the genders, Ferrus thought, was inefficient and unpractical. What did it hurt for a female to talk with a male when needed?
How would she deal with him as her mate? He did not have to tell her, but he had a feeling she already knew, based on the look they shared earlier in the main cavern. She was not of a fae race he was familiar with. He had never smelled anything like her. Was her clan powerful? She said, “where she comes from.” He would have to find out where that was. The females in her clan and his could not be more different. She had a lot to learn and adjust to.
They would have to keep their relationship secret like the others did. He did not think he would want to spend much time with her once his animal had his taste of her and could move on. He needed to find a way to be with her at night without raising suspicions. Maybe it was time for him to have a personal female attend to him.
“Ferrus!”
His father’s voice carried through the throne room stone wall into the hall leading to his own royal rooms. The man was irritated, all right. He wiped the smile from his face, opened the wall, and stepped into the room.