Chapter 3: Cambord, Part 3

Raffé had cried a lot as a boy, unable to understand why nothing he did was right, why everything about him was wrong when he tried so hard to please. Why everyone gave Tallas everything and would not give him even a single chance. He'd stopped crying when he realized it made matters worse, was one of the things wrong with him. He had refused to cry again. People might hurt him, but they did not need to know it—they did not deserve to have that kind of power over him.

He wanted to cry then, alone at the entrance to a maze, seven hours from a likely death, with no one to bid him farewell, to say they loved him, to ensure his last hours were happy ones.

Was he so terrible a person?

But looking back, he could not remember anything about him that was remarkable. He had always stood in his brother's shadow, always been one face in a thousand. So he was not terrible, no. He was simply … tepid. Who liked tepid?

He still wished someone …

Pushing the futile thought away, he plunged into the maze, following the third path to the center that he had discovered. It was nearly impossible to see, but memory and weak torchlight sufficed for him. Letting his feet walk the memorized path, he lost himself in a favorite daydream: A figure walking into Raffé's study, a marriage mark on the back of their right hand, tired but happy to be home. Raffé abandoned his desk to greet the figure, kiss them warmly, laughing when they made it clear a mere kiss would not be enough.

After a few minutes, he pushed the daydream away again, unable to bear the pain. It had always been a slender hope and had quite firmly moved into the realm of impossible. He had learned a long time ago that nothing was gained by dwelling on the impossible. Only a few more hours. Maybe in his next life he would do a better job of living.

He wondered where Tallas had gone and hoped something horrible was happening to the selfish wretch. The stupid bastard deserved to—

Someone grabbed him, and Raffé cried out in panic, but his breath whooshed out of him as he was knocked against the stone wall of the maze, smooth and cold against his back despite all his layers. Black, everything was absolutely black. The torchlight did not extend to the little nook where his captor held him. "What are you doing?" Raffé asked.

The man chuckled, his voice deep, rough, running right down Raffé's spine in a way he'd never felt before. Certainly being shoved around had never affected his cock. "Normally, the first question put to me is, 'Who are you?'. That is followed by, 'What do you think you are doing?' sometimes with a 'How dare you!'. Usually after that comes, 'Do you know who I am?' No one ever simply asks what I am doing."

"I sincerely doubt my identity has anything to do with the matter." Raffé's heart was still pounding madly in his chest, but other than the first scare, the man did not seem inclined to harm him. "As to yours—if you were interested in making yourself known you would have introduced yourself, not grabbed me and thrown me into a wall. Do you often grab people in the dark and throw them into walls?"

"Depends on the reason. I often throw men into things when they prove threatening. But men like you? Not very often at all."

"Men like me?" Raffé asked. "I do not take your meaning. Men like what?"

There was only silence in reply, but Raffé knew silences. Words had too many sharp edges. Silences were simple. Whatever the man had been deliberating, he finally settled on, "I overheard you and your fiancé. Ex-fiancé, strictly speaking."

Raffé cringed, face going hot again, and he was extremely grateful for the dark. Bad enough that his fiancé had rejected him hours before he was to die, had told him in no uncertain terms that Raffé was not worth fucking—why did the gods hate him so much that his humiliation had been overheard?

"You should be feeling relieved, little prince," the man said, startling Raffé by calling him that.

He was a little prince, if only for a few more hours. Some small bit of pride sparked at that. There were currently only fourteen Princes of the Blood. Finding those with the correct amount of demon blood in their veins who would be able to handle the difficult transformation and the brutal life that followed was close to impossible. He might only be a replacement, he might be too weak to survive the Blooding and ill-suited to the life anyway, but for the next seven hours he was a little prince, and no one could take that from him.

"Relieved?" he finally asked.

"Your ex-fiancé proved himself a coward by his actions, and no man wants to be married to a coward."

"He is not the one called coward," Raffé said quietly. He tried to at least look in the direction of the voice, though it was hard to gauge with the way sound echoed around the stone walls. He tilted his head up, sensing the man loomed over him.

The man chuckled, and that sensation trickled up and down Raffé's spine again, made him feel more awake. "You are many things, little prince, but I would not call you a coward. I watched you in the throne room, and I listen to you now. Cowardice is not what comes to mind."

Raffé wanted to know what did but was terrified of the answer. "You still have not explained why you are shoving me into walls."

"I believe there is a last request in want of fulfilling, little prince," the man said, voice going husky, and before Raffé could process the words, his mouth was taken.