A Christmas Vow Of Seduction

“How long has it been since you were fed?”

His question surprised her. “Since this morning.”

“You are too skinny,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. His words offended her, and she couldn’t quite figure out why. She had never given much thought to her appearance. The men who had taken her captive had assigned a woman to make her beautiful for presentation to the king, but Zara couldn’t say it had mattered much to her. They had put too much makeup on her, the gold around her eyes her own addition, a nod to the culture she had adopted as her own. Her beauty had never been a topic of discussion among the nomads. She had been under the protection of the leader, Raz, and he had forbidden any man from touching her, or even looking at her in a disrespectful manner.

And now this man was telling her she was too skinny. And she was angry.

“I will say that my captors did not overly concern themselves with the quality of my food.”

“You are a captive?” he asked, his tone fierce.

“I’m surprised you care. Your brother did not appear to be similarly concerned. He was quick to accept me as though I were a...a fruit basket.”

He looked her over. “You are most certainly not a fruit basket, that much is evident.”

“I have been passed around like one.” She sniffed, allowing herself a moment to fully revel in the indignity of it all. At one time, she had been a princess. A member of the royal family in Tirimia. Being in a palace such as this would have been her right. Before she had been wrenched away from the only home she’d ever known, robbed of her family. Her birthright. “I suppose I can only be grateful no one has plucked at any of my grapes and taken small samples, so to speak.”

She looked up and caught his dark gaze, the sharp shock of heat piercing her straight to her stomach. She felt her face warm and she looked away. “Indeed, that would have been a shame. I’m glad your grapes remain...unsampled.”

A muscle beneath her eye twitched. “Remarkable under the circumstances, I should think.” She had spent a great many years being protected, but that did not mean she was ignorant of the ways of men.

“You were the princess in Tirimia,” he said, his tone vaguely accusatory.

“I am the princess. I have been replaced. Not by another princess, but by a farcical government who pretends to care about the freedom of the people, when, in truth, they only care about their own power.”

“I thought the entire royal family was killed during the revolution.”

Her insides grew cold. That always happened when she thought of her parents. Of her older brother. Her memories of them were soft around the edges now, worn like old, weathered photographs. But what remained, as sharp and terrible as ever, was the coldness she’d felt when she learned of their fates.

It hadn’t been sadness in its simplest form. It had been death itself. A chill that had stolen through her, replaced all of her blood with ice. It had taken months to thaw. Months for her to feel anything at all again beyond the frost that had taken up residence in her chest.

“Obviously I wasn’t,” she said, the words strange, thick on her tongue. Because they’d never felt right. None of it had ever seemed right. “Everyone else...my mother, father, my brother, they were all killed. My mother’s personal maid had family living in the forest, people who practiced the old way of life. And she brought me to them. They have kept me, protected me, for years.”

“Until now, clearly.”

She picked up a piece of bread and tore a chunk from it. “Obviously not through any fault of their own. They were ambushed and I was kidnapped.”

“And can you be returned to them?” he asked.

She weighed that question and all of the possible implications. If she told him yes, would he help her? Or was he intent on...marrying her.

The idea of marriage was ludicrous to her. Foreign. She was not in any way ready, or suited, to be a man’s wife. She had no interest in such things.

The very idea was her worst nightmare. Wearing a crown again. Placed on a throne.

A target would be on her back, and she would be up on a pedestal where she was an easy target.

She had lived through that nightmare once. She had no intention of entering into it again.

She should tell him to take her home.

And have the only people on this earth who tried to protect you destroyed?

That bitter, familiar cold lashed at her again. She couldn’t go back. It was too dangerous. It was selfish. They would protect her with their lives, and it was very likely their lives would, in fact, be the cost.

She had lost too much already. Too many people who had believed deeply in their convictions cut down. To hear Raz speak of her parents, her father had been a man of conviction. Who had fought to change antiquated ideas in Tirimia, who had made a pact with Raz’s tribe to preserve their sovereignty within the nation.

For that, he had been killed. Out of loyalty and respect to her father, Raz had risked the tribe to protect her, to raise her.

She wouldn’t put them at risk again.

This was something she would have to figure out on her own. She would have to rescue herself.

“No,” she said. “I cannot be returned to them. It would be far too dangerous.”

“Wonderful,” he said, his tone at odds with the word.

“I will not be marrying you, of course,” she said, taking a grape from the platter and holding it between her thumb and forefinger.

“Is that so?” he asked.

She nodded, keeping her expression grave. “I have no desire to marry.”

“Why is that?” he asked, reaching out and plucking the grape from her fingers. “Concerned over having your grapes sampled?” He put the fruit in his mouth and she found herself transfixed, trying to untangle the wealth of meaning in his words while watching his lips, his jaw, work slightly as he chewed.

Why was the way he chewed interesting? It shouldn’t be. She’d never found chewing fascinating in her life.

“I don’t know you,” she said, looking away and picking up another grape, biting into it with no small amount of fierceness. “And that’s just for a start.”

“We have nothing but time to work this out. You could list your reasons. Extensively.”

“I won’t have a complete list until I know you better.”

“I think what you just described is marriage. Two people who truly don’t know each other and are somewhat blind to each other’s faults until time and proximity force them to really get a good look at the poor choice they made.”

“You make it sound so appealing,” she said, shifting her position, tucking her feet beneath herself and leaning forward, taking a piece of fig from the platter.

“I’m not a great believer in the institution.”

“Then why should we marry?” she asked.

“Because,” he said, his tone weary, “my brother has said it shall be, and so it shall be. There are a great many perks to being the spare in the royal family, Zara. Not the least of which is that I have been able to cast the mantle of responsibility off for the past thirty-two years with very few consequences. While Kairos has always been bound by duty, honor and all manner of other words that make me feel like I’m about to break out in hives. The downside,” he added, leaning in, studying the platter, but not taking any more food, “is that I am also beneath his rule.” Andres looked up then, his dark eyes meeting hers. He was close now. So very close.

And he did, in fact, smell like the cologne she had found in the bathroom.

“I see,” she said, barely able to force the words out past her constricted throat. “Are you going to tell me you’re a prisoner too?”

He straightened and she nearly sighed in relief. For some reason, having him so close to her was disturbing in ways she couldn’t quite work out.