A Christmas Vow Of Seduction

“Don’t you dare lecture me on the responsibility of royalty. My life as a royal was stolen from me.”

“And here you have it back. The price of admission into the life is marriage.”

“I did not expect it,” she said, her tone stiff.

“Did you ever expect to marry?”

She blinked. “I’m only twenty-one.”

“Not so young in your country. So I ask you again, did you ever expect to marry?”

She lifted her shoulder. “Were I a typical part of the clan I was raised in, I would likely be married by now. But I was not. I was under their protection. So different things were expected.”

“Is that your very long, uninteresting way of saying you did not expect to marry?”

Her expression darkened. “I may have someday. But I was in hiding to spare my own life, in order to save myself from a fate such as this. I hadn’t given it much thought. I knew I would have to leave if I was ever going to pursue a normal existence...”

“I suppose this isn’t exactly normal.”

“Indeed.”

“You will need to be trained,” he said.

Her frown deepened. “Oh, really?”

“Yes. I think it’s entirely possible for you to be made into a suitable bride. You have the looks for it. You simply need...taming.”

“Am I so wild?”

“You have no sense of decorum. Your burrowing into my room is evidence of that. Your hair, your posture... You exude.”

“I exude what?”

He let out a long, slow breath. “You exude. In general that isn’t something a princess should do. You need to be...placid. Serene. As I said before, tame.”

She clenched her hands into fists, her expression filled with rage. Her dark hair hung lank down her back, making her look all the more wild. “I refuse to be tamed.”

He wasn’t entirely sure what to say to that, and he resented her for making him feel as if his back were up against a wall. Kairos had given his orders, and Andres had sins he needed to atone for.

Part of him wondered why he was making an effort. He failed, that was what he did. Their father had always been quick to remind him of that fact when they were boys, and still when they were men. Kairos was the responsible one, the heir, thankfully, as he took his role so very seriously. Andres had been the one his father could always count on to create a scandal, to make a mess, to create disaster.

There was a reason he’d been barred from official events as a child. Reasons he had spent state dinners locked in his room while the rest of the family put on a show.

Their father might be dead now, but the feel of his cold eyes on Andres remained. Of the hard disappointment that had laced every word the old man had ever spoken to him.

He had given Kairos his word, and he would not fail. Not again. In this, he would triumph.

It was only marriage. And she was only a woman. How could he lose?

He was a legendary playboy renowned for his skills of seduction. Surely he could seduce this scraggly waif easily enough.

“You will not refuse me,” he said. “What is it you want, anything besides freedom? I will see that you have it. Surely there must be something. Surely we can trade.”

She looked down, hesitating for a moment. “I wish to be sure my people are cared for. Beyond that, that those who raised me are safe.”

“Then those will be the conditions of us forging trade alliances with Tirimia. You will have much more power here, on this throne, than you will have hiding in the forest back in your homeland. That I can promise you. You will have the ear of the king who is both good and just. You will be a princess in her rightful place. Surely that is better than hiding in a burrow like a little mouse.”

She frowned, her dark eyebrows drawn tightly together, a crease forming between them. “You are fond of comparing me to animals.”

“You are closer to animal than human female at the moment, sadly for me.” And he was much closer to a wolf than a man. “So you will allow me to fashion you into a suitable bride. In return, I will give you what you want.” There was a knock on the door to his bedchamber. “That will be the servants, ready to take you to your room.”

She nodded slowly. “All right.”

Some of the fire had gone out of her in the past few minutes. He found he did not like it.

That makes no sense.

No, it didn’t. But nothing about the past twelve hours made any sense at all.

“We start tomorrow. Meet me in the general study after breakfast.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Tame you, of course.”

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_226f7504-0d56-5c83-82ac-734945c7e48e)

IT TURNED OUT that Andres’s definition of taming her actually meant attempting to smother her in yards of silk and tulle.

She did not feel tame in the least. Instead, she felt slightly indignant and more than a little bit irritated. Though that had been her state of being since he threw her out of his bedchamber last night.

Just thinking about it sent a hot flush over her skin, exacerbated by the cool slide of the silk that was currently being fitted to her form. She assumed the rash of heat was brought about by anger. She was angry. The way he had plucked her out of the bath, holding her against him, as though he had every right to touch her, as though she belonged to him in some way, was nothing less than enraging.

Except it didn’t feel like any rage she had ever experienced before. But then, she was in a palace unlike any she’d ever been in before, wearing clothes the likes of which she had never even dreamed up before, so she imagined that was in keeping with the theme.

“Keep your shoulders straight,” the seamstress said, her tone stiff, as stiff as Zara’s shoulders were starting to feel.

“You heard her,” Andres’s voice came from beyond the screen she was standing behind. “Keep still, or it will take longer.”

“I am not a child,” she said, addressing both of them. “I don’t need to be spoken to like one.”

“Then do not fidget like one,” the woman said.

Zara fought the urge to fidget just to cause trouble.

This was very strange, being the focus like this. The closest experience she had in her memory was when she had come to live at the encampment. She had been a curiosity then, but they had also been careful with her. She was a little girl who had lost her family, who was traumatized, steeped in grief.

Resources there were limited, and no one had ever procured her a new wardrobe. She’d had clothing crudely fitted to her before. Hand-me-downs that she’d acquired within the camp.