Page 49 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

I’d just never known what they looked like in their fae bodies.

But it didn't matter.

I was in this wing, after all, surrounded by all these striking fae, for a rather important reason. If things went according to plan, I’d have plenty of time to ogle later. I shoved my curiosity down somewhere deep and kept on my determined path.

“He’s in there?” I asked Eilir, motioning to the doors with my chin.

The sprite gave me a tight nod.

“Good.” I stalked on ahead, just feet away from the placid-looking guards and the somewhat gaudy doors. “The sooner I can get this over with, the⁠—”

Schwing.

I went ramrod straight and almost lost the tip of my goddess-damned nose as the sentinels each let their glaives fall between them, barring my entrance. They didn’t even fucking look at me, their cyan and jade eyes aimed straight ahead, framed by half-helmets fashioned like wings that sat neatly around their horns.

“She has permission,” Eilir squeaked from behind me, and a muscle feathered in the jaw of the sentry to my right. “If she needs to speak with Max, she can…just go in. Just like that. Oh, mother.”

As Eilir was rambling, I ducked, sweeping away the glaive from the one who showed that bit of hesitation.

One of them barked a noise of protest, but I splayed my hands against the doors, threw my weight into them, and sent both soaring open.

A cacophony of masculine bickering halted.

Multiple sets of rather agitated attention, all spread around a war table, shifted to me. One hooded, too.

Maksym stepped away from the table quickly as, in a rather tense voice, he said, “Miss Wynn…?”

My mouth was as dry as the fucking Wastes. “I need to speak with you.”

The king crowded my space just enough that I had to tip my head to look up at him. “We’re a little busy, Miss Wynn,” he said, voice quieter but still strained. “Come back later. Better yet, I’ll fetch you when we’re done.”

“No. I’ve come to bargain,” I stated before my confidence vacated me entirely.

His dark, arched brows climbed, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “Bargain?” he repeated. “Princess, I hardly think you’re in a position to negotiate.”

“If I’m to become your servant, or wife, or whatever it is you decide to call me…” I said quietly, “I. Have. Terms.”

To Maksym’s credit, he barely reacted. That cocky, amused expression didn’t leave his face as he nodded and straightened, but I caught how his pupils dilated, swallowing up the amber for a fraction of a second.

“Give us the room,” he called back without breaking eye contact with me.

Chairs scraped, and grumbles started.

“You can’t be fucking serious,” one man with a thick, lilting accent muttered.

I heard papers scattering and objects thudding—I didn’t even need to see a man tantrum to know it was happening behind the pillar of king blocking my view.

“Incredibly serious,” Maksym said, still staring down at me, before he shot a glance over his shoulder.

“Out, Lydus. Jasper stays; everyone else leaves. Now.”

I’d hoped the king would give me a breath of personal space then, but he didn’t.

Maksym just stood there, toe to toe with me, as the men he and his mage had been arguing with filed out on either side of us. A mix of Umbrites and shifters, they didn’t bother masking their scrutinizing stares as they passed. The very last one, though, golden-skinned with short, chestnut brown hair, didn’t have as much urgency in his step.

He paused right beside me, roving his pale green gaze from my head to my feet and back. As if that weren’t unsettling enough, he leaned in, taking a deep breath through his nose before a grin peeled across his mouth, baring a set of sharp canines.

“Oh, she smells sweet, Maksym,” he purred, and a band of tension snapped through me. “Ripe fruit, just begging⁠—”