Page 27 of The Song of Sunrise (The Prentice Teller #1)

Desperate for something to say to distract myself from watching his mouth, I say, “You… should take your cloak back.” I fiddle with the clasp.

“Let me.” Castor walks directly behind me. His long arms encase my body, gently brushing my shoulders as he works to unclasp the buttons.

I’m keenly aware of how close we are standing. If I were to step backward, even just one small step, our forms would press into one another.

“I’m glad you forgive me, Akemi. I was thinking about how I upset you all solstice break,” he says softly. “Before the Presentation, there is a celebratory luncheon with the royal delegates. My father requested that I attend, but I would love it if you went with me.”

“Oh?” I say breathlessly. The warmth in my cheeks is definitely not from blushing. The air is just extra chilly tonight.

“You don’t have to answer—”

“Yes,” I whisper and turn once again toward him. He towers over me. His eyes flick to my lips as he leans in.

I sway to my toes, closing the space. He presses his lips to mine, and we kiss. It’s the opposite of what I would expect. Sweet and warm and soft and over far too quickly .

Castor pulls away slowly, releasing his hand from my hair. He watches as my dark tresses fall reluctantly out of his fingers. “Goodnight Akemi,” he rasps, then strides out the door.

I flop onto my bed and toss and turn with excitement, the echo of our kiss still lingering on my lips.

Castor, asking me on a date? If there were princes in the human territories, he would be one.

I’m too restless to sleep. Too tense to relax.

I would have let him kiss me longer, explore more places, I realize.

I would have let him… and I would have liked it.

The thought has me pacing. I leave my room, ride the glass box down to the first floor.

The fireplace is still cracking. Turning, my feet take me down a familiar pathway along the empty corridors.

My thoughts race with pictures of Castor in my room.

Castor leaning over me. Castor’s fingers laced through my hair. Castor’s gentle kiss, sweet as honey.

I walk absentmindedly as my thoughts continue to spiral until I’m standing next to the edge of one of the larger glowing springs beneath the library.

I pull off my cloak and night dress and set them aside, placing my dagger neatly on top of the pile. Eagerly, I step into the hot, bubbling water and moan. Once the water is to my shoulders, I tuck my knees and drop beneath the surface, fully submerging myself into the bubbling current.

I almost cannot believe that water—the same element that used to be a source of fear—is now a source of pure bliss.

The image of Castor finally fades from my mind.

Beneath the water, it is just me. I float, free from my past, free from the pressure of the Presentation, the Summit, being someone worth weaving into Marrow’s patchwork cloak.

I release the tension in my body, submitting fully to the spring, letting myself float until my lungs sting and I can no longer hold my breath.

I rise to the surface and wipe the water from my eyes.

“Hello, lovely,” a low voice grumbles in a smooth, lilting accent. “You are in my hot spring.”

The Underling warrior I saw a few days ago sits at the other end of the spring.

I am going to die. I am going to die. I am going to die.

Yep, that seems like a totally rational thought to strike through my brain over and over like a damn motif in one of Marrow’s Tellings.

I wheel around, grasping for my small pile near the water’s edge. My heart lodges into my throat.

“Looking for this?” the white haired male says, swirling my dagger in his hands. The dagger I was gifted from Bane looks like a butter knife compared to the killing aura surrounding this male. He flips it between his fingers in some sort of infinite loop.

I was wrong with my assessment when I first glanced at him across the cave.

He isn’t large, he is huge . He must be nearing seven feet tall.

His white hair lays in messy layers at his shoulders.

Inky black swirls crawl up and down his arm, chest, and neck, and continue down beneath the bubbling surface.

His jaw is strong and angled, eyebrows surprisingly dark for his light hair, eyes, and skin.

Skin like white marble, so light that I wonder if he has ever seen the sun.

His ears are pierced multiple times with silver metal, gleaming the same silver of his eyes—otherworldly eyes—that are staring right into mine. There is a glint of amusement on his face as he continues swirling my dagger. A challenge.

“Give that back!” I command, surprising myself with how calm my voice sounds considering I’m about to have a heart attack.

“Just so you can stab me? No thank you,” he replies, flicking the dagger with his thumb, sending the blade spinning high into the air.

“No!” I panic.

The bubbles on the surface would make it impossible to find the blade if it drops below.

I cannot fathom losing that piece of home.

Not by the same ilk that ruined it in the first place.

He is an Underling, a creature from the Underworld.

A cold, calculated killer that doesn’t care about the livelihood of humans.

That fucker. I clench my fist. My fingers shake at my side, spread like claws.

“That is mine !” I sprint to catch it, but the water resistance makes my attempt painfully slow.

Just as the dagger reaches the surface, the Underling whips his hand forward so fast, I can barely see it.

A glint of silver flashes between his fingertips.

Did he just catch it? Sure enough, pinched between two large fingers is my dagger.

My heartbeat quickens at the sight. Not because his hands are so big that he dwarfs the blade, but at the sheer speed of his movements.

No creature this large should be allowed to move like that.

My body trembles as I try to regain control over my breathing again.

I almost lost a piece of me just now. A piece pinched between two giant fingers.

“Hmm,” he grumbles. “This is important to you.”

It’s not a question.

“Yes,” I hiss through my teeth. “It is mine. Give it to me now.” I don’t know where my courage is coming from, but my voice is laced with vitriol, bolstering my confidence as it echoes through the cave.

“As you wish,” he says and takes two massive steps toward me, as if water resistance doesn’t exist. Even his steps are powerful.

I freeze, locked in pure fear as the muscled Underling male strides closer. I close my eyes and feel him pass by me, the water rippling in small waves at my clavicle from his wake. He smells of smoke and leather but also slightly sweet, like a fresh breeze over salt water.

I peek my eyes open as he walks away, shoulders wide and swaying like a prowling lion. Tattoos swirl across his back as he leans over the edge of the spring. With arms as large as my waist, he reaches to set the dagger down on the stone near my things with a quiet clink.

My things… where my clothes are piled. Which I do not have on my body. Oh Hels! I bend my knees, sinking into the springs until the water lapses around my collarbone.

How did I not notice him before?

What was I thinking?

He turns around and smirks, revealing a whisper of a dimple, then swishes past me again so close I can smell him. Smoke and seabreeze and leather and eucalyptus. Nothing about this creature makes sense.

“There. Happy?” He leans back against the far end of the spring and stares at me with those silver eyes and… smirks? A sharp canine almost pierces his full lower lip as he observes my panic. An apex predictor playing with his prey before devouring it whole.

Fuck that. I’m not sticking around to find out if there is a killer lurking behind those rows of white teeth. If he is anything like the Underlings that attacked Goldenpine, I have my answer already. I slowly step backward, eyes locked on his molten gaze. If I can just get to my things and run...

The Underling grabs something from the edge of the pool and puts it in his mouth, lighting it moments later with a green flame from his fingertip.

“Cigroot,” he says simply, answering my questioning stare. Smoke curls from the tip of the rolled parchment. “I see you found my Source springs.”

Source springs? Were these springs part of the Source magic that courses through our atmosphere?

Is that why it feels so amazing? Why is he smirking at me like that again?

If I wasn’t so terrified, I would be furious that an Underling somehow found their way into the Watch! “What are you doing here?”

“And where is here, exactly?”

“The Watch,” I say. His eyes widen only a fraction, and I realize my mistake instantly.

Fuck, I probably shouldn’t have given up our location so easily.

I would make a terrible spy! All of my wisdom is apparently back in my room along with the throwing stars.

If I had those, then maybe I could chuck one into the massive chest of this monster before me.

Honestly, what type of workout regime would he have to have to gain that much muscle.

What am I doing thinking about this monster’s muscles?

He chuckles. The sound is a low rumble that echoes across the cave walls. I will not go down easily. I sneak another step backward toward my dagger.

“I was invited here,” he says. So I was right; he is an Underworld warrior.

“You are with one of the Underworld Courts?” I ask.

“Yes,” he grumbles, rolling his neck and taking another puff of cigroot. “You could say that.”

A cluster of glowing water lilies floats closely to him, brushing his arm.

His eyes flick down to the flower. He reaches toward it, slowly dragging his finger along the closed bloom with precision, dexterity, and grace.

The water lily responds immediately, crowning open at his touch to reveal layers of sharp petals that glow brightly.

His eyes snap back to mine. A devilish grin spreads across his face, the cigroot still in his mouth. He looks like he is going to eat me.

Why weren’t there more Tellings about the Underworld?

Do they eat humans?

Why on earth did I return to a place I knew could be dangerous?

“My friends know where I am. They will check in on me soon and know to come here,” I lie through my teeth, taking two more steps backward, an arm’s reach from my dagger.

“Human, I wasn’t thinking you were the ask-for-assistance type, with how you commanded me earlier. Or is that not how your cruel lips usually work?”

I grab the dagger and throw it. Practicing with my throwing stars has grown my wrist strength and accuracy, but even with my speed, I’m no match for him. He catches my dagger again, but this time between his palms in some sort of saccharine prayer despite a blade nearly piercing his heart.

His silver eyes brighten and connect with mine. I know I should run, but I just… freeze.

Within seconds, the warrior is towering in front of me, water dripping down his chest to his tapered waist. From this close, the droplets reflect in hues of blues and purples on his light skin, tracing paths through his maze of tattoos.

The blacks of his eyes seem larger now, overcoming the silver.

This is no man. This is a beast. His head tilts slightly as he scans my rigid body, unable to move under his intense scrutiny.

“You’re a fragile little thing, yet you burn as hot as the Core.

” He gently drags a finger along my collarbone, watching intently as tiny bumps trail in its wake.

He steps back and twirls the cigroot with his tongue until the burning tip rests on the inside of his mouth.

Red and orange flames flicker from behind his bared teeth.

He growls. Smoke curls out from behind his menacing smile, like a God of Hel.

He quirks an eyebrow and uses his tongue to put out the flame. “Run.”