Hey Everyone!! :-)
Since it's Friday, I thought I'd share a little fun to start your weekend off right. Enjoy! :-)
Excerpt from Bound by the Summer Prince:
He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and continued on down the path. Briefly, he considered letting the matter rest where it was; but he really needed to know what had caused her to become so incensed when he had refused to take advantage of the magical attack that had caused her to lose their bet. Since it was so apparent to him that she hadn’t truly wished to take him to bed, he would have thought she would have been relieved. Instead she had been enraged.
“Roni, at the risk of upsetting you again, I need to ask: why did you get so angry the night of the banquet?”
“You mean the night that someone tried to take control of me with magic, not once but three times, and then actually succeeded? The night I realized I’m not much safer in the castle than I was in the forest, and I’ll never really be safe again because I can’t go home. The night it was made clear to me that I’m completely dependent on you, and then you rejected me. That night?”
Closing his eyes, Uaine sighed. Put that way, her actions were perfectly reasonable. “I am sorry Anamchara. I failed you miserably that night, and never even considered how that must have made you feel. It is my job to protect you, and you have my vow that I will always do my utmost. You are safe in the palace, for the most part; there are numerous security precautions, both magical and otherwise, in place. The only reason the spell that affected you went undetected before it took effect, was that it was a relatively mild spell. You would not know this, of course, but the intention of the spell-caster affects how the magic ‘registers’ to the people and spells that monitor magical use within the castle.”
“If the spell-caster had intended to take control of you in order to cause you to harm yourself, or to make you go somewhere that you could be harmed, then the spell would have set off alarms. Unfortunately, since they only intended to make you walk a few feet, and do something relatively harmless, it slipped through the cracks. I am sorry for that, but you need to understand that you were never truly in any danger from anything other than embarrassment.”
Roni pulled her hand out of his and walked a few feet away, turning her back on him. “Has it not occurred to you that I don’t want to have to rely on you for protection? That I’d like to be able to take care of myself?”
Walking up behind her and putting his hands on her shoulders, he said; “I understand. But here everyone relies on others to do their parts. For the most part, the Fae are not as flexible as humans when it comes to taking on many roles. Because the majority of us are so closely tied to our natural origins, we are not able to assume duties that do not belong to the function we perform. That is why the structure of our society works for us, when a similar structure did not work for humans for very long. There is no jockeying for position among the different types of Fae, because we are all so different from each other, and we would not be able to fill the place of another type of Fae.”
“It is not a matter of being inferior or superior to each other. We are just very different. That is why acceptance and tolerance are also so important to our society. The idea that other Fae are so alien to us in their thoughts, manners, and behavior, as to be nearly incomprehensible at times must be ingrained in us from infancy; so that we can live in such close proximity to each other without it resulting in eruptions of violence. Our natures are fixed, so it would be wrong, and impossible, to try to change the nature of another.”
“I am the Court prince, soon to be the Court king, it is my duty to protect everyone within the Court. You are my Anamchara, and soon to be my queen, so my obligation to you is even deeper. There is no shame in accepting my protection, and it does not imply a lack of strength or ability on your part, it is just the natural order of things in the Season Courts.”
“It might be your way, but that doesn’t make it mine. And if I’m your Anamchara, if I truly am your soul-mate, why don’t you want me?”
Uaine blinked. Did she truly think that? “You can’t possibly believe that I don’t want you!” Turning her around to face him, he looked into her eyes and realized that she did think that he didn’t want her; or at least she wasn’t convinced that he did. “Roni, I burn for you! But I will not take you to bed when I know that you do not truly wish me to.”
“Oh?” She cocked one eyebrow. “And how would you know what I do or do not want to do? Or do you just not trust me to be able to think for myself?”
“I could smell the fear on you that night!”
“ ‘Smell’ the fear on me?”
“I sometimes forget that humans do not have as sensitive a sense of smell as most Fae. Yes, Roni, I could smell that you were afraid of me. Do you honestly believe I would ever make love to you under those circumstances?”
“Even if I was afraid, how do you know it was of you? Maybe I was scared because someone had just taken control of my body away from me and I wanted you to comfort me, did that ever occur to you?”
He opened his mouth to respond, and then closed it and just stared at her. Truthfully, that interpretation hadn’t occurred to him; though now it seemed not just possible, but likely. Kicking himself, he realized that he might very well have pushed his mate away just when she needed him the most. “I concede the point. My assumption about the cause of your fear may have been in error. Is that what happened that night?”
Roni turned away and continued to walk towards the town. “I guess you’ll never know, now.” she threw over her shoulder.
Hurrying to catch up, Uaine walked by her side in silence, considering everything his Anamchara had said. It was clear he needed to start listening better if he wanted to win this female.
Want to see if the Prince succeeds at his goals? Grab your copy at the link below. Happy reading! :-)
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