Chapter 5

  What man would choose a half-breed back-water provincial Lady over a Royal Princess indeed, she wondered. But then, Sylvin was no ordinary man.

  “We shall see,” she retorted with more bravado than she felt. “Was there anything else, My Lord?” She inhaled sharply, the scent of him a bitter bite that clung to the back of her throat with lingering flavour. She recognised the chemical nature of it. “I wouldn’t want to keep you from your posey pipe, Lord Rithelwen,” she added, her lip curling up from her canines.

  Lord Rithelwen’s nostrils flared with displeasure. “Careful, Yelena,” he cautioned his voice quiet and dangerous. “Such observations might be taken for human magic, and we all know your heritage…”

  “I am Fae,” she told him. “As much as most of the nobility of this land, our Kings included. No family tree is untouched by humans.”

  “Perhaps,” his concession wasn’t one. “But not many so closely.”