Page 28 of A Taste For Lies (The Apex Kingdom #1)
Chapter 28
TARAN
A s always, her wild jasmine scent teases me well before she enters the room. I didn’t think anything could be more enthralling than that. Until I finally catch sight of her.
She glows like candlelight, an amber flame lit from within. Off-the-shoulder sleeves frame a tight bodice that hugs her curves in golden fabric. My chain winks around her neck, disappearing down the gown’s neckline where I know the charms hide. A little smile plays on her plush mouth; her eyes, framed by kohl-darkened lashes, look more liquid gold than amber. Loose chestnut curls spill down her back, and I long to wrap them around my fist and pull her close, just to inhale their scent. My hands flex at my sides.
“Careful, you’re drooling.” Carter’s voice is filled with amusement, but his warning is real. I can’t be caught staring at her. But how the hells am I supposed to look away? Half the lords in this room are turning their heads to admire—
“This is fucked.”
Carter’s attention snaps from the Lynx to me, his frown immediate. “What do you mean? ”
I can barely grit the words out through clenched teeth. “I’m going to kill the first man who talks to her.”
My friend laughs, but it dies when he realizes I’m serious. “Stop staring,” he urges me under his breath.
I can’t. My eyes are locked on her, my beautiful thief. Mine. Minute trembles rush down my body, and the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
Carter steps into my line of sight, blocking my view of the dangerous creature, and an involuntary low rumble starts up in my chest.
“Shit. Tare, you’ve got to pull it together. Your father can’t see you like this with her, do you hear me? It’s for her own protection.”
The rising growl tapers off as I blink out of a possessive, lust-filled fog. “Her protection?” I repeat slowly.
“Yes.” Carter’s words are low and urgent. “If any of them see you go berserk over the wildcat, the first thing they’ll do is look into her. The king, Lord Winters—hells, Victoria will try to poison her tonight if you so much as dance with her.”
My eyes squeeze shut unwillingly. They want to drink their fill of her, then strip that golden gown off her luscious body and—
“Fuuuuuck.” I push out a breath and force myself to take small sips of air. It doesn’t help—her scent laces everything, even across the packed grand ballroom. My fingers slip into my pocket, curling over the talisman secreted there.
My eyes fly open. “Get over there.”
“What?” Carter looks genuinely worried, which is an expression I don’t often see on him.
My hand shoots out, gripping his bicep hard enough to make him wince. I immediately lessen the hold, but the urgency in my voice is razor sharp. “Get over there and make sure no one talks to her.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to manage that?”
“Carter,” I growl, my eyes starting to warm, my voice deepening.
“Fuck! I’m going alright?” He yanks his arm free and rubs at the spot, glaring at me. “Go…go get yourself together or something. Remember, this is for her protection, alright? You’re keeping your distance for her.”
I know he’s right. But I don’t have to like it. I clench my jaw hard enough to break. “Get. Over. There.”
After one last pleading look, he obeys me. Even letting him get close to her is physically painful. Especially when he fucking smiles at her—
“Your Highness.”
I turn blazing eyes on the unfortunate page trembling before me. His voice tight with anxiety, the page chokes out, “Um, the uh, I mean, His Royal High—I mean, His Majesty…”
My head whips to the royal dais and I take in my so-called family. Vorrick and Tazira, the queen’s guardian, stand to one side in matching formidable stances. The king and queen sit in the two large central thrones. To their right is the crown prince; beside him is an empty chair.
The queen is her usual bedazzled self, her face alight with the triumph of the event. My gaze softens when I see my half-brother. Understandably bored, the little prince is lounging so deep in his chair he looks in danger of falling to the floor.
I always wanted a sibling. Mine was a difficult birth, and my mother was unable to carry more children. That was one of the few bright spots of my emergence—Carter. Another new Apex grappling with how emergence had irrevocably changed his life. Training beside me, sitting with me in lessons—it felt like being gifted a brother. As my parents’ relationship continued to deteriorate, he was a lifeline.
But there was guilt, too. He’d been ripped away from his own parents, his own siblings, all because of a gift from a goddess that must have felt more like a curse. I know it did to me. And that was before my mother—
I shake my head to ward off dark memories.
At least the melancholy trip down memory lane has wrested me from my creature-induced trance. I deliberately turn away from the source of that distraction and stride towards the dais, the relieved page scrambling behind me.
“Your Majesties.” I dip my head in the barest approximation of a bow and slide into my seat on the other side of the crown prince. Prince Leo straightens, visibly mimicking my posture, which makes me smile and his mother frown.
“Glad you could make it, my boy,” the king booms. I manage not to cringe at the endearment. Here we are, just one big happy family. My stomach churns with rage. Every day it gets harder to hide my true feelings.
I spy Lord Winters, deliberately stepping into my line of sight, an unsubtle move to block his daughter from my view. A cruel smirk lifts my lips. At least tonight has its uses.
But unfortunately, Victoria is on her way to accost another guest of the ball, and once my gaze has found her again, I’m riveted. The Lynx’s eyes shine, not like an Apex, but with anticipation. She’s eager to get her answers.
I very nearly kissed her last night.
The thought still burns through me, equal parts frustration and self-loathing. I’m so close—so godsdamned close—to getting the thing I’ve wanted for eight years . The only thing that’s kept me going. And I almost threw it all away, acting like a schoolboy unable to control himself.
She’s already proven her worth—with the blueprints, connecting the wards to the key master. For the first time in a long time, I feel a flicker of something I thought I had lost.
Hope.
I can finally end my father’s secret reign of terror. Finally secure my vengeance.
What would I have done if she left? Especially once she gets those records tonight, there’ll be nothing but her honor to stop her from taking off. And why did I think she’d be open to advances from the beast?
I wasn’t thinking. That was the problem then, and it’s the problem right now because, try as I might, I cannot tear my gaze away from her in that golden gown .
“Lady Thorne dressed for the occasion,” my stepmother remarks, tone nonchalant. “It seems she has taken my advice to heart.”
“What advice was that, my sweet?” the king asks.
“How to win an advantageous match,” she simpers. “She may be from a little no-name border town, but if she plays her cards right, Lady Thorne will do quite well at court, I believe. As long as she keeps her priorities in line.”
My eyes shift with the strength of my stoneclaw’s emotion, and I still can’t seem to rip them away from the Lynx. Especially as Victoria approaches her and Maeve, a calculating look on her face.
The king chuckles. “She could find no better tutelage than yours, my dear.” The queen squeals, and I know he’s grabbed her without bothering to look. He married the young Aquilon girl almost scandalously soon after my mother’s gruesome death, and he’s been foisting himself on her ever since. It’s a wonder I have only the one brother. I’m sure they’d love to knock me further from the throne if they could.
“Let’s have Lady Thorne over here so I can get a look at her,” the king decides. It’s enough to break my attention, my gaze swinging to my father. My stepmother pouts. She doesn’t like competition.
“She’s nobody important, My King,” the queen whines.
“Nonsense. She has the queen’s favor. We’ll see that she makes a match befitting that gift.”
And I try, I honestly try with every scrap of my remaining humanity to suppress the growl that slips from my throat, but I can’t quite manage it. My father’s emerald eyes narrow.
He snaps his fingers, and a page runs to his side. “Get Lady Thorne over here,” he commands. “Now.”