Grave War (Alex Craft #7) - Kalayna Price Page 0,2

changed the angle of my hand that held the practice dagger. We were so close. The cheap shot should have been simple, a bend of my wrist to tap my blade on his throat and claim a win. Instead my blade clinked against metal, his hand suddenly not on my waist, but blocking his throat instead.

He cocked an eyebrow. “That’s cheating. And that distraction is unlikely to work on most opponents.”

“Didn’t exactly work on you either.” Not that I was sparing much thought for the hit I needed to stop this sparring match. My lips were still tingling from the bruising kiss we’d just shared, and Falin’s blue eyes held enough heat to melt the ice around us.

I opened my fist and let the dagger fall harmlessly to the floor. It thunked against the frosted floor. “Yield,” I whispered, dropping my hand to touch the flesh exposed in the opening of his shirt.

“You can’t yield.” But there was no weight to the words this time, his attention clearly no longer on training. His fingers trailed along my jaw before tangling in the hair at the base of my head.

He leaned forward, and our lips met again. A sparring of a very different sort began. One of tongues and breath, and hands that roamed. I had most of the buttons of his shirt undone when the sound of a distinctly feminine throat cleared behind us.

“Your Majesty,” she said, and from her tone, I guessed it was the second time she had said it.

Falin broke the kiss with an almost inaudible groan. My huff of annoyance was considerably louder.

“A moment,” he barked at the visitor where she waited on the other side of the privacy screen that cordoned the doorway and blocked the view of the rest of the room. I tugged my dress back into place while Falin rebuttoned his shirt. Once I was sure I wasn’t indecent, I snatched my dagger from the ground, as if it would explain any remaining disarray of my clothing. Falin gave me a knowing look before turning toward the screen and saying, “Enter.”

A willowy woman in a moss-green dress swept into the main part of the room. Her lips pressed into a disapproving line as her gaze took us in, but she hid it quickly by dipping low into a curtsy, her head bowed so that all I could see was her brown hair tied up elaborately with mistletoe vines.

“Rise,” Falin said, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back slightly, as if her presence was of little concern beyond an annoyance.

Maeve stood from her curtsy gracefully, her features carefully pleasant, lacking any of the censure I’d caught when she’d entered. “My king, the delegates from spring and fall have arrived. They await your pleasure in the great hall.” Her smile turned sharper, her gaze flickering to me for a moment before she continued by saying, “Between them, they brought three consort prospects. One can be dismissed out of hand, but two are very good candidates, either of whom would shore up your power base nicely.”

My fingers clenched around my practice dagger, but I worked to keep my expression neutral. Maeve had made it clear she thought Falin needed to take a strong consort—if not a full queen—if he wanted to hold the winter court. He had a fearsome reputation as well as a significant amount of skill and lethal knowledge that had been passed to him, along with the blood on his hands, from his former job as knight, enforcer, and assassin. Both served him well as king and made him far more powerful than other fae his age, but he lacked the centuries of other court rulers—or even most of the courtiers.

Falin had appointed no knight of his own, so he fought every challenge brought to his throne. As the former queen’s knight, he’d been fighting her challengers for years, but she’d been old. Powerful. There hadn’t been that many challengers until her deceitful nephew’s poisons had sent her into a spiral of madness. Falin was young, and though he’d proven he was deadly in a dueling circle, he was untested as a ruler, and the winter court was still recovering from the damage the former queen had caused as her sanity slipped. If the other courts thought him weak, how many duels could he fight before they wore him down? Or a challenger got lucky?

I wanted him safe. Strong alliances and more power behind the winter throne would help him