Page 6

Chapter Six

THALIA

B ryony was dead.

She was gone.

Eaten…

No…No, no, no.

Grief shook me, burning my eyes and my throat until I was spent and dry-eyed.

Stop it, Bryony’s voice whispered in my mind. Get up and fix this. You have to fix it.

I sat up, panic a fist around my aching heart, because what now?

Without my sister, the alliance was ruined. Only royal blood carried the gift of fertility. Only she could have blessed the Northern Sea Kingdom through marriage to Prince Dylon, and now…What now?

Think, Thalia, think. I would not let Bryony’s death be in vain.

King Vaarin’s gravelly voice filled my head . “You’re safe, Little Princess.” And just now too, he’d addressed me as Princess.

He thought I was Bryony. Of course he did. I’d been wearing the royal crest, after all. My eyes welled again, and I dashed away the useless tears. Crying would serve no purpose here. Best to save the tears for a more opportune moment because the solution was so obvious, so deviously possible, that it stole my breath.

I’d become the princess.

Pretend to be royal blood for as long as it took for the alliance contract to be sealed. I’d marry the prince and consummate, thus sealing the alliance, and once it was sealed, it could not be undone.

Knots formed in my belly because a lie such as this…A betrayal to a crown meant death. But only for me. For not even the king could blame my father for this. A man so far away that he couldn’t possibly have known what happened to his true daughter or what his adopted one chose to do.

Bryony was dead, and once I’d saved our people, then I would gladly join her.

I took a deep breath and exhaled.

It was time to become a princess for real.

* * *

My dress was ruined, but King Vaarin had left me with fresh clothes. Soft britches, a baggy cream shirt, and a thick tunic to go over it. There was a large jacket too. My boots were still damp, but there was a pair of long black socks laid out to keep my feet dry.

I dressed slowly, mindful of the dressing pressed to my side, of the throb and burn of the wound that would no doubt take days to heal. I was warm now, swelteringly so, as if King Vaarin had infused me with an everlasting heat.

King Vaarin…

I would not have imagined him so. A century old, I would have expected him to be physically aged, gray-haired, and wrinkled, but it was obvious that the sea folk aged differently than we humans. The king was toned and large with eyes like a gathering storm and a scent to match.

I bit down on my lip as an image of him half naked and gleaming in the candlelight filled my mind. He was a powerfully built male. Broad across the shoulders, tight and toned down his torso so that the muscles made cobblestone that led down to the tantalizing V of his hips. I’d heard tales of the sea fae, of their prowess and carnal hunger. Heard how they shifted form when beneath the waves, had read tales of their undersea city. I’d imagined them to be lithe and light beings. But King Vaarin was a monolith of a man, and when he’d wrapped his body around mine, heat had ignited deep in my belly, blooming outward from there.

If his son had inherited his attributes, then bedding him would be a fine send-off to the afterlife.

As I pulled on my boots, still damp from the storm, a thought occurred to me, one that should have occurred to me sooner. The blue coral route was supposed to be a protected stretch of ocean, free of brigands and marauders, but we had been attacked, and although the men who attacked us had certainly looked the part, they had been accompanied by another. A cloaked figure with power to command the storm. I needed to tell the king of this.

I scraped my damp hair up into a knot and left the chamber in search of the male who would help me save my people.