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CHAPTER SIX

ADOM

H er words followed me like an echo, burrowing into my mind and refusing to let go. Give the people something nice to look at.

She’d meant something other than my face. This cursed, beastly mug I'd been burdened with since my birth. The sight of me sent others recoiling in fear or disgust on a daily basis.

But… looking back… had Princess Charlotte recoiled?

I replayed the moment in my mind.

Yes, she had recoiled. Twice. Once when Jorge had reached for her. The thought of my second with his artificial hand on her made my claws ache even in the dim light of my memory.

Charlotte had recoiled a second time. After I accused her of slighting my face. She'd been smiling before. I remember that so vividly because I was focused on those plump lips—lips I wanted to bite.

I'd promised her I wouldn't mark her. But it was all I could think about as she sat sewing my hair into her dress with that serene smile.

I wanted to bite her. I wanted her bottom lip to scar, right in the center. So all would see it and know that she was mine.

Then she'd winced. At my words. Not at my face.

The only explanation was that she’d been trained well. The daughter of a queen would know how to mask her true feelings. How to hide her fear or disgust behind a veneer of politeness. That was it. That had to be it.

And yet.

Her smile lingered in my mind, soft and unguarded. I shook my head, growling low in frustration. This woman was twisting me in knots, making me question myself. I never second-guessed myself. I couldn't afford to.

“Your Highness.” Colson’s voice broke through my thoughts, steady and measured as always. “Shall I ready your steed for the journey back to Pridehaven?”

“No.”

Colson raised an eyebrow but said nothing, waiting for further instruction.

“We’ll stay the night. Send word to the palace. Have my wedding suit portaled to the Summer Castle immediately.”

The Summer Castle's portal was out of use. Otherwise, I would've used it to travel between here and the palace. But there was enough energy for an inanimate object, like an article of clothing.

We'd stay the night so Charlotte could work on the suit. Once we reached the palace, everything would change. Duty would take over, and this strange, maddening woman would become little more than a pawn in the political game we all were forced to play.

Here, in the quiet of the Summer Castle, I could still question. I could still wonder. I could still look at her and try to decipher the truth behind her smile.

Did she truly think I was something nice to look at?

Queen Indira paced by the front doors, her silks shimmering with each anxious turn. The heavy fabric of her gown whispered against the polished floor, an impatient rhythm that matched the tight set of her shoulders. She was muttering under her breath, too softly for most to hear. My ears caught the clipped cadence of frustration—or perhaps fear.

When I stepped into view, she froze mid-stride. Her wide eyes snapped to mine, and for a single breathless moment, she looked as though she might bolt. Quickly, she recovered, straightening her spine and smoothing the silks of her gown with a forced grace.

“Your Highness, I trust you found my daughter meets your satisfaction?”

“The princess is well-trained. I am satisfied she will meet all my needs.”

“You took the opportunity to… slack your needs with her.”

Her tone wasn't a question. It was a confirmation. As though it was inevitable that the beast I was wouldn't wait for my wedding night to assert my marital rights.

We were two nights out from a sacred celestial event, so people would be rutting all over the land. Only those lovers who were bound, or who planned to be bound the night of the eclipse would share their bodies on the event of the Hunter's Eclipse. Like his twelve brothers, Avarix was a jealous god. He considered it blasphemous to worship another body while his was blocked from Lyra.

"I trust you kept the veil on during your tryst."

The game was already in play. It was all I could do to keep from swiping all of the pieces off the board and crunching them under my heel. “Madam, I am a prince of Solmane and a gentleman.”

"Of course, of course." Her shoulders hunched slightly, her head dipping as though she were trying to make herself smaller. The satisfaction I felt was fleeting.

“We'll be staying the night. Ensure the necessary arrangements are made with your people.”

Queen Indira's hands twisted the fabric of her gown before offering a stiff bow. “As you wish, Your Highness.”

Cool air wrapped around me as I stepped outside. The two suns had long since disappeared below the horizon, surrendering the sky to the moons. Tonight, they reigned in full glory—thirteen celestial sentinels scattered across the heavens like fragments of an intricate mosaic.

Avarix hung low and heavy in the night sky. His pale surface gleamed brighter than the others, appearing unnaturally close. In two nights, Lunaterra would pass between Avarix and Lyra, casting the First Moon into shadow and bringing the long-anticipated Hunter's Eclipse. For now, Avarix burned with a jealous light, as though daring the planet to try and disrupt his eternal pursuit of the daughter sun.

Two nights. Just two nights until the eclipse, when the price would come due. My curse, my people, my fate—it all revolved around that single, jealous moon.

My thoughts revolved around another body of light. Charlotte. Or at least the image of her I had managed to piece together through the veil. I hadn’t seen her face, not fully, but I knew, without question, that I could pick her smile out of a thousand strangers.

It had made me feel light. The feeling had been foreign. Transient, like starlight pooling in my palm.

I gripped the stone railing, claws scraping against the cool surface. The sound echoed faintly, swallowed quickly by the night. My hands were too large, too rough, too beastly for such fragile thoughts.

Her touch. That fleeting moment when her fingers had brushed my cheek, light as a whisper. It had been an accident, a careless slip as she reached for my hair. It had devastated me all the same. A blow more powerful than any troll’s blade. I could still feel the ghost of it, warm and soft against my fur, a sensation that had burrowed deep and refused to let go.

My heart, my cursed, clawed, and weary heart was doing funny things. Things I didn’t understand. Things I wasn’t sure I wanted to understand.

She hadn't flinched at my face. She hadn't screamed at the sight of me. Or recoiled at my presence. She had touched me—not out of duty or pity but with curiosity, even care. She didn’t hate me.

Love, of course, was impossible. No one could love this—this half-formed thing, this beast trapped between forms. But the idea that she might one day…like me?

I exhaled slowly, my breath misting in the night air. Maybe, just maybe, that day would come. Not now, not even soon, but one day. Perhaps it would be on our wedding night after the vows were spoken, after I kissed her lips and then claimed her body with mine. After those sacred rites, my curse would be broken. The next day I could come to her not as a beast, but as a man.

Maybe then she might allow herself to like me. Maybe then I might come to like myself.

The thought lingered until a bitter wind sliced through it. The acrid stench of rot and iron wafted in the breeze. It was faint, but unmistakable.

Trolls.

The horizon beyond the castle walls trembled with movement. A low rumble carried through the night—a sound too heavy, too deliberate to be the shifting of trees.

A small clatter at my feet pulled my focus. I looked down, spotting a loose stone that had tumbled from above. My gaze shot upward, and my breath caught. Against the pale light of the First Moon, a dark figure clung to the side of the castle, scaling it with unnatural ease.

There was no time to think. Only to act. With a snarl rumbling low in my chest, I leapt into motion and launched into the night.