Page 49 of Somber Prince
“I don’t dance,” he warned, but got up from the cushions and stepped down from the dais, probably led by pure curiosity.
“I know.” I took his hand, drawing him closer. “But just try with me. Please.”
I waved at the musicians to slow down. As the tempo dropped to that of the waltz, I took Rha’s hands and placed them on my waist.
“It’s best to start slow,” I said. “Just do what I do. Watch my feet and follow my lead.”
I kept it simple. Placing my hands on his shoulders, I mostly just swayed side to side, shifting my feet along the floor. With his innate feline grace, he followed easily. So, I moved my foot back in a waltz step. Again, Rha was able to keep up without any obvious difficulty.
“You’re doing great, Your Highness.” I smiled. “It’s like you were born for this.”
“The principle of it is similar to a sparring practice, which I do routinely.”
“Are you training to fight?”
“Maintaining my skills, mostly. I finished the initial training decades ago.”
“Decades? How old are you?”
“I’m sixty-three. How about you?”
“I’m twenty-five. Talk about an age gap!” I laughed nervously, trying to adjust the idea of him in my mind. It wasn’t easy, since he didn’t look like a sixty-three-year-old man. Rha was lithe, strong, corded with muscles, and with hardly any lines on his face.
“Fae live to about five hundred years. Physically, we fully mature in our twenties, and our bodies stop aging shortly after. We resume visible aging only in the last years of our lives.”
“Five hundred years is a long time to stick around.”
I didn’t feel jealous of his long lifespan, however. Centuries of living without joy didn’t seem that appealing.
What was it like?
What was Rha feeling at this very moment, for example?
His long eyebrows moved closer in concentration as he focused on following my steps. He heard the music, but it didn’t permeate his very being like it did for me. He moved his feet, but it didn’t send a thrill through his body. He held my waist, but he didn’t feel light-headed at the contact the way I felt.
Even the wine had no effect on him, while it filled me to the brim with bubbly effervescence.
No. I did not feel jealous of the fae’s centuries of life. I’d rather live the few short decades I had, finding joy in every single moment of my existence. I realized how often I'd taken those little sparks of joy for granted and vowed never to do that again.
I tossed my head back and closed my eyes, reveling in the moment. My hands lay on Rha’s shoulders. His warm skin stretched over his hard muscles. The cold chains held the bejeweled mesh of his breastplate. I moved my hands away from the metal, shifting them closer to his neck and under the soft curtain of his hair. Cupping his nape, I stroked his skin with my thumb.
He leaned closer. I opened my eyes, finding his face tilted above mine. There was that usual intense curiosity in his eyes, like he was trying to dissect my brain, or crawl under my skin and take over my senses.
It felt unnerving, like always. But it was also…tempting. I wished for him to learn what he so desperately wanted to know.
Emotions guided me, not thoughts. I rose to my tiptoes. With my hand on the back of his neck, I brought him lower to me.
His lips parted. Sharp, white fangs peeked from under his top lip. Only a few days ago, the sight of him would’ve sent me away screaming. But now, I moved closer until there was no space left between us.
My lips touched his, and he didn’t stop me. Holding still, he kept his hands on my waist and let me tangle my fingers into his hair, press my body to his, slide my lips between his. I breathed his warm scent, savoring his taste of far-away spices. A soft moan left me, getting trapped between our joined lips.
Then, I realized that the pleasure was all mine—all of it. Rha gave me full rein of his body, but he played no part in the kiss. He felt nothing.
I shrank away quickly. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
His hands flexed on my waist, however, keeping me close. His golden eyes flicked between mine, his gaze trapping me even more effectively than his arms. We were no longer dancing. My feet rooted in place.
“Yes, you should,” he murmured. “And you should do it again, only…”