“You look like you got dressed in Bonnie’s Salon.” She sneers at my royal attire.
“Watch your mouth, changeling.” Brock’s tone is low and lethal. “You address the king of the day realm with respect, or you don’t address him at all.”
“King?” She swallows, her eyes narrowing at me. “You’re the king?”
“Do I not look like a king?” I smile.
“I already told you what you looked like.”
Brock raises a hand to slap her, but I shake my head. “What’s your name, changeling?”
“Just let me go and let all the women you’ve yanked onto your stage go, too. Well, all except Lysetta. Take her with you.”
I laugh. She’s so frank, her words candid in a way that no one in the day realm would understand. Though the sun shines perennially, there are plenty of shadowy deeds occurring, and light doesn’t always mean things are clear.
“I take it you aren’t interested in being my consort?”
She props her elbows on the horse’s side and rests her chin in her hands. “I’m an old spinster and prefer to stay that way.”
“Old?” I look more closely at her face. “You?”
“For changelings, yeah. I’m twenty-eight. But that’s neither here nor there. Let me go, and let all the others go, and then just think how happy you’ll be without night realm changelings underfoot.”
“I’m warning you, girl.” Brock itches to strike her.
I won’t allow it. “Are you saying no one—no one except this Lysetta you’ve mentioned, of course—wants to be my consort?” Why am I teasing her? I’m not known for being particularly playful, but something about her tone and the earnest, if brash, way she speaks is bringing it out in me.
“No way.” She glances toward the guards ahead. “You send these brutes to come and drag us from our homes, put us on display, and then make off with some of us for your …” She winces. “Harem? No, thank you.”
“It’s tradition.” I keep my gaze on her strange green eyes.
“It’s foolishness.”
I tend to agree, but Brock might snap if I say it aloud in front of a nightling.
The guard on the periphery of the square bows at our approach. “They’re all assembled, my lord.”
“Good.” Brock grunts as we continue past them and through the throng of villagers. They’re quiet, but they look at me with open hostility. Brock tenses, then grabs the girl again and sets her onto the stage. “Stay there. Once the selections are over, you can go back to your hovel.”
She fumes, her wild eyes cursing me silently. An older woman with the same striking red hair hurries up to her, but my guards keep her back.
“King Solano has come to grace you with his presence and accept your gift of ten consorts.” Brock dismounts, then climbs onto the platform. “You will conduct yourselves accordingly.” He levels the villagers with a hard glare.
I sigh and slide off my horse, then follow him onto the stage. The women are a mixed lot as I stride past them slowly. Some tremble and look away, some look at me with curiosity, and one in particular beams at me with a bright smile.
“Lysetta?” I ask.
Her smile grows even bigger. “You know me, my lord?”
“Just a guess.” I keep walking past her as my lips try to twitch into a smile.
“The king will choose his females, at which time you will give him thanks. That is the law. That is the tradition, and we will all uphold it.” He throws me a hard look, then bellows for complete silence.
The crowd gives it, all sounds hushed save for the crackling and roaring of the bonfire. Brock’s glare returns as he urges me to get on with it.
I let his insistence roll off my back and continue down the row, doing my duty and inspecting the changelings. When I get to the end, I find the red-haired rebel from the road, her chin up, her lips parted as if preparing to breathe fire.
“And your name?” I look down at her and something sparks inside me. It’s easy enough to name. Lust. This female calls to me. Her racing pulse and pale skin speak to the deep feral fae inside my breast, and I have the distinct desire to know what she tastes like.
“Emma.”
“Emma what?”
“Emma Druzy,” she says it with pride, and her eyes skip to the older woman in the crowd. Her mother, no doubt.
“Would you like to be my consort?”
“Absolutely not.” Her response is like flint striking stone, and the crowd draws in their breath on a gasp.
“No?” I press my finger under her chin, the touch of her soft skin sending heat through me. “You realize I have the right as king of the Daylands to put you to death for your refusal?”
She swallows hard. “No one mentioned that, no.”
I smile, and her eyes go to my fangs.
“I have an offer for you.” I slide my finger down her throat, past her collarbones, and to the neckline of her dress.
She holds her breath as I draw my finger to my lips and taste her. Does the night have a taste? Because if it does, this is it. Rich and strong, bold and fierce, she is the heart of the darkness that destroys every trace of light with a caress of inky blackness.
“What’s the offer?” Her tongue wets her bottom lip.
She probably doesn’t notice it. I do. I can feel her heart beating faster, sense the tension in her body. I’m not the only one here struck by lust.
“If you agree to come with me as my consort, I’ll forego taking any others from the night realm.” I lean closer to her, my voice low enough only for her to hear. “I also won’t have my guards chase down the one you helped over the wall, drag her back here, then carry her off to the Daylands.”
Her breath catches, anger replacing the attraction she was steeped in only moments ago. “You bast—”
“Changeling!” Brock booms, his voice making the horses nicker and the changelings cower. “I warned you not to speak to my king in such a fashion.”
I smile down at her. She scowls up at me.
“Do you consent, nightling?”
She chews her bottom lip, her gaze going to her mother.
“I’ll come with you, my lord.” Lysetta steps forward, her bosom thrust out so precipitously her nipples are one breath away from making an appearance.
“Well?” I keep my gaze on Emma.
She closes her eyes, and I can almost feel her take the next step in her mind. I don’t need to hear her answer. I can already feel it teasing the edges of her plump lips.
Give in to me. I stroke my finger down her throat again, slowly, teasingly.
She warms, her body heating at my touch.
“Come with me to the day, dark changeling. Give me your answer.”
As if remembering herself, she opens her eyes and smacks my hand away with nothing short of a sneer. “Fine.”
5
Emma
“Why would you do such a foolish thing as this?” Mama tears around our tiny cottage, her hands on her hips one moment, yanking at her hair the next. “Why?”
“Didn’t you want me to be a consort? Remember all that ‘bloom of my youth’ talk?” I gather what few things I have into a bundle.