CHAPTER 05

VIENNE

In the Iron Castle, the dining hall’s royal table was shaped like a large L, as if fitting two tables together. The king sat at the head where the corner met, and the parties seated on either side of him angled out so they were nearly facing each other. Yasmin sat directly to Caulder’s right with me at her right and Soren at mine. To the king’s left sat Nicolette, and next to her was where Brentley usually seated himself. Except tonight, Prince Urban sat there instead, nearly directly across from me. Next to him was his sister, and then Brentley had moved himself next to Princess Allera at the end.

At Nicolette’s question, the prince of High Cliff looked at her, sending her a confused smile as if amused but puzzled by her query. “My…what mark?” he asked, shaking his head to let her know he didn’t understand.

“Yes. This thing right here.” She swept her hand close to his eye where everyone could clearly see the black tattoo of a heart inside a circle.

The prince chuckled, the sound pleasant and rich. “What did you call it again? A love mark? I’ve never heard it called such before.” He glanced to his sister, and the siblings shared a grin, as if vastly amused by the term.

Nicolette frowned slightly. “But isn’t that what it is? If you get it, you can tell who your one true love is at first sight. Right?”

My eyebrows winged up at this revelation. I had no idea it was possible to know such a thing by getting a simple tattoo. Curious, I watched Prince Urban turn back to Nicolette with an accommodating nod.

“Yes, that is indeed the intended purpose of our marks.”

“Then it is a love mark,” she insisted with a delighted smile.

The prince shook his head but kept grinning back. “We’ve never called it a love mark at home. I’ve only ever heard it referred to as simply ~the~ mark.”

“Well, whatever they’re called,” Nicolette went on, waving an unconcerned hand. “I want one. They seem terribly romantic. But my brother,” she sent Caulder a petulant glance, “says it’s a silly notion.”

Caulder cleared his throat and leveled his sister with a hard stare.

Urban glanced toward the king with raised eyebrows before turning back to Nicolette. “I assure you, it’s anything but silly, although I’m not certain ~romantic~ is quite the word I’d use, either.” Flicking up a finger to scratch his own mark, he muttered what sounded like, “Feels more like torture at the moment.”

With a sharp glare his way, his sister elbowed him in the side. He scowled back, but dropped his hand from the mark and returned his attention to Nicolette when she bluntly asked, “Torture? Why ever would you call it torture?”

But before she gave him a chance to answer, she asked, “What made you decide to get one if you don’t like them?”

He grinned at her enthusiasm. “Do you not know our custom then? The High Cliff kind don’t ~choose~ them, Princess. We’re required to give them to our young at birth. We ~all~ get them no matter whether we want one or not—from servant to nobility.”

“But…” Nicolette glanced curiously toward Princess Allera and back to him. “Your sister doesn’t have one.”

Urban’s smile dimmed and he seemed to stiffen. With a quick glance toward Princess Allera, who’d bowed her head, he murmured, “The mark fades when your one true love dies.”

“~Oh~.” Nicolette’s smile faltered as well. She glanced between the two siblings with realization in her gaze. She’d just tripped onto a touchy subject.

My stomach knotted with nerves. Nicolette meant no harm, but the prince probably didn’t realize that. If he took offense and hurt her feelings with his reply, I’d be compelled to come to her defense. And I didn’t want to start any poor relations with the High Cliff siblings and possibly harm our alliance.

This entire situation could go wrong so quickly. I held my breath and bit the inside of my lip, waiting and preparing to intervene if necessary.

“So… So her one true love died?” Nicolette asked softly, her voice uncharacteristically meek.

Urban gave a single nod before he sent his sister an apologetic glance as if he’d been the one to bring up the topic—not Nicolette. And something in me settled. He didn’t blame the young, carefree princess for her blunt questions after all.

Thank God.

The prince of High Cliff didn’t seem like a bad sort at all.

Nicolette turned to Allera, her eyes filled with worry. “I... I’m so sorry, Princess.”

“Oh, no. Don’t worry about it, child.” Princess Allera nodded to her graciously. “You didn’t know.”

“Did you ever get to meet him?”

Allera smiled, even as tears swam in her eyes. “Yes. I… We had nearly seven years together before my husband was killed in battle.”

This time it was Brentley sitting next to Allera who gently touched her arm before murmuring, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

The High Cliff princess looked truly appreciative when she told Brentley, “Thank you.”

Nicolette turned back to Urban. “So ~your~ one true love still lives, then?”

Urban tensed noticeably, telling me Nicolette had hit yet another nerve. But he kept his cool and gave the girl a single, slow nod. “She does.”

“Then have you just not met her yet? Because you’re not married and… Wait. ~Are~ you married?”

“Nicolette,” Brentley finally chastised, sounding embarrassingly flustered. “What did we tell you about asking so many questions?”

“It’s alright,” Prince Urban spoke up, lifting his hand. “I’m the youngest in my family,” he confided to the princess. “So at my dinner table, ~I’m~ usually the one who’s full of questions. And, no, I’m not married.”

“Well then?” Nicolette demanded, looking pleased by his defense of her and more eager than ever to continue talking to him. “Have you? Met her yet?”

Allera opened her mouth as if to interfere, but Urban set his hand on her arm, stalling her as he studied Nicolette.

“No,” he said. “I haven’t ~met~ her, per se.” Then he glanced at Allera and added, “But I have seen her.”

Allera’s gaze filled with censure and disappointment, even as Nicolette exclaimed, “But… What does ~that~ mean?”

“It means,” Prince Urban turned back to her, “I’ve seen her from across the room, and that is all. We haven’t spoken.”

“But….” Nicolette repeated, shaking her head and looking almost forlorn. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you talk to her? Didn’t you ~want~ to?”

He looked too pained to speak for a moment before rasping, “Of course I wished to speak to her. More than anything.”

When his sister reached for him to squeeze his hand, I swallowed down a sudden lump in my own throat. His agony was so prevalent, I kind of wanted to squeeze his hand in reassurance as well. I’d never been able to stand back and watch people suffer.

“Well, then why didn’t you?” Nicolette demanded, totally unaware of how much he was hurting.

“Nicolette,” Brentley hissed again. “Leave it be, child.”

“But—” Nicolette started, only for Urban to blurt, “She’s already married.”

Everyone stopped eating to gape at him. Even Soren seemed captured by this tidbit of news.

Prince Urban smiled tensely around the table at us and explained, “I was aware she was married from the moment I first saw her. And I couldn’t approach her after that, because I… I knew… I knew it would hurt too much. So I decided to leave her alone to live her own life without my interference.”

Dear Lord, the poor man.

“But…” Nicolette shook her head. “How could she already be married to someone else yet be ~your~ one true love?”

Clearly unable to answer, Prince Urban bowed his head.

Princess Allera was the one to explain. “Sometimes a person can search their entire life and never find their one true love. It’s not uncommon for our people to settle for another who makes them happy enough.” She shrugged and glanced at Brentley, explaining, “It combats the loneliness.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Brentley answered, once again touching her arm with compassion.

“That, and my one true love isn’t from High Cliff,” Urban added, causing his sister to cut him a quick frown. “She doesn’t bear the ~love~ mark as you call it. So she’ll never feel the bond for me as I do for her. It’s entirely possible she isn’t even aware of my kingdom’s custom.”

“I suppose that could be true,” Nicolette offered kindly. “I mean, not even Vienne knew what your tattoos meant until I told her about them just a few minutes ago.”

Prince Urban’s gaze flashed sharply my way, startling me.

Until that very moment, I wouldn’t have thought he was aware of my presence for all the attention he’d given me… or even knew who I was. But he looked at me so directly and instantly, it told me he’d known exactly who I was and where I’d been seated the entire time.

I’d been right earlier; he’d been scanning and detailing the layout of the entire dining hall the instant he’d entered it. This was definitely a warrior. A good one.

Yet his stare was anything but what I imagined a savage, brutal warlord’s stare would resemble. It was sharp and intense, yes, and blazing with awareness, but not hateful. It was so ~un~hateful, in fact, he looked at me as if he were already inside me. I swear, I could actually feel him lodged deep and moving against the part of me that ached the most.

A bolt of heat lumbered through my stomach with unexpected swiftness, and my breasts suddenly felt ten pounds heavier, the tips tingling as if my milk had just come in. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, wondering if the babe was okay. But she must’ve been napping because she didn’t even stir when I moved.

The startling response had been all me.

That was a little disconcerting. I’d looked upon attractive men before, yet none of them had made me feel so wanton and… and so damp before.

It was probably because of all that love mark talk flowing around us. Prince Urban was letting his pain show, and any time a man revealed his emotions, it brought out the tenderness in me. I just needed to… I needed to clear my head from such nonsense.

“Well. There you have it,” he murmured in a somewhat hoarse voice as he slid his gaze away from me. “We can’t rightly expect other realms to mark themselves for our benefit when so few of them even ~know~ of our custom.”

“But that’s just sad,” Nicolette argued, looking troubled as she eyed the prince and princess from High Cliff. “Neither of your stories ended happily ever after.”

Prince Urban’s laugh was soft and brittle as he shook his head. “The marks don’t guarantee happy endings, Princess.”

“Which is one good reason why you never need to get one,” Caulder spoke up for the first time, sending his sister an arch glance.

Urban studied the king a moment before he added, “Instead, they direct you toward the person who could make you happier than anyone else. They guarantee knowledge and assurance—both attributes we value in High Cliff.”

Caulder didn’t have a reply for that, so he merely picked up his fork and took another bite of lamb.

“Prince Urban,” my sister said, startling me with her decision to enter the conversation. When he glanced at her slowly, almost suspiciously, she asked, “Since your one true love is already taken, will you move on and settle for happy enough, then? To combat the ~loneliness~, like your sister suggested.”

His gaze swirled with pain before the strangest thing happened. He glanced at me. It lasted only a second. He returned his gaze back to Yasmin so quickly I’m sure no one else in the room even noticed his attention stray from her. But it felt like a lifetime to me, because in that one short stare, he seemed to ask me something, ~beg~ me, as if he needed me to save him from the pain afflicting him.

But then, just like that, he was focusing on Yasmin again, and his expression was tempered back to normal, making me wonder if I’d imagined the entire glance.

“I’m not sure,” he finally admitted. “I just learned who my mate was quite recently. I haven’t really gotten past the shock of knowing her name yet to think much past that.”

Yasmin didn’t seem to have a response, other than a quiet, “Hmm,” so she followed her husband’s example and picked up her own fork before taking a bite.

When an uncomfortable silence followed, Brentley cleared his throat.

“Well,” he announced into the lull, “this has turned into quite a maudlin dinner conversation. Princess Allera...” He turned to his fiancée with a ready smile. “Would you think less of me if I confessed I wanted to be a court jester when I was young?”

Allera laughed and covered her mouth, her eyes sparkling with amusement, before nodding and saying, “Oh, most definitely, yes, I’d have to say I would think ~very~ lowly of you, indeed!” But her grin told us all she was teasing. “I always fancied the bards, myself.”

Brentley grinned back. “Then I’ll endeavor to teach myself the fine art of song, my lady.”

They laughed together, and Prince Urban watched them with scrutiny before picking up his own fork and tasting his meal.

He must’ve sensed my gaze on him, however, because he looked up with his fork poised halfway to his mouth. When a knowing smirk lifted the corner of the scarred side of his lip, as if he knew every thought in my head—or worse, ~how~ he’d affected me—I flushed and glanced away, mortified to be caught staring.

I wasn’t sure if my husband could sense that I’d just had inappropriate thoughts about another or not, but he chose that moment to speak up.

“Prince Urban.” His voice was smug and self-righteous. “Is it true one of your brothers married a mere ~servant~ because of this…this ~love~ mark nonsense you people have?”

The princess of High Cliff’s fork clattered to the tabletop when she dropped her silverware to gape incredulously.

I resisted the urge to kick my husband under the table. We’d just avoided all possible altercations with the newcomers. Princess Allera and Prince Brentley had even smothered the tension with their playful banter. Why was Soren bringing it up again?

Prince Urban narrowed his eyes before he gave a single nod. “My brother Erick, yes,” he finally said, his voice pleasant enough, though a vibe streamed from his gaze that would’ve frozen Soren to solid ice if such things were possible. “He met his wife while he was walking through the courtyard where she was cleaning sheets with the other washermaids.”

“I see,” Soren murmured with a condescending snicker before he asked, “And this brother... Erick? Is he the ~crown~ prince?”

Mouth tightening noticeably, Prince Urban nodded again. “That’s right. Erick’s the oldest.”

Soren laughed, “So, let me get this straight. He’ll be the king one day, which means…his wife, the future queen of High Cliff, is going to be…a ~washer~ maid?”

He started laughing, even though no one else joined in.

“Soren,” I murmured in warning, hoping that would rein him in and shut him up, but I’d never been able to control a thing he’d ever said or done before, so I should’ve known I wouldn’t be able to stop him now.

He glanced at me, still chuckling. “What? Don’t you find it as ridiculous as I do?”

“Not really,” I said under my breath. I kind of liked the idea of power coming to an underdog. In fact, if the ruling class were decided upon through merit instead of ranking birth order, I think I would respect it even more.

“The future ~queen~ of High Cliff,” Prince Urban spoke up, his voice clear and level and brooking no room for counterargument, “is going to be the queen. And that is all.”

“I think,” Caulder said, speaking once more, his gaze hard on Soren, “that the people of High Cliff are our allies now, and whether we agree or disagree with their customs, they are to be respected, as we would expect them to treat ~our~ customs.”

Soren sat back in his chair with a moody grunt and took a long swallow from his goblet.

“Well said, Brother,” Brentley cheered at the other end of the table as he lifted his own cup to add, “Hear, hear.”

“Hear, hear,” Princess Allera echoed, grinning at him and clinking her goblet against his before they drank together, smiling at each other as they did.

Prince Urban didn’t respond; he merely stared, seething at Soren, as if planning which was the best way to murder him. Then he glanced toward me, and his expression mellowed. He sat back in his chair and focused on his food, eating with impeccable—if not reserved—table manners.

From there, the rest of dinner progressed in absolute silence. Even Nicolette held her tongue.