Lips Like Ice

XXIV

"Me?"

"That I... with you."

"How did they even know?"

The Prince flushes. "We were loud. There are guards in the halls, there always are. Guards my brother has in his coin purse."

"Assholes."

"Quite."

"They'll keep doing it, you know," Lydia says softly. "As long as I'm yours, they'll do it."

"When I am a King—"

"But that's the point. For them, that's the point. It's like sneaking into a cave and smacking a sleeping dragon."

The Prince snorts. "A foolish endeavor."

"But one that makes them feel powerful. They've insulted you and escaped unscathed."

"I will—"

"But you haven't yet. And until it bites, they'll keep slapping the dragon."

"So what do you expect me to do?" the Prince growls. "No guard will step between my brother and I. And I cannot add any guards to the interior of my chambers. There's no guarantee it would change anything with my brother and it will rob you of your privacy, it will make you seem more valuable than you are. Which will just invite more gossip in court, perhaps more attempts to get at you from other nobles, and they can just be bought anyway."

"You care about my privacy?" Lydia sits up. "My safety?"

"Shush."

"No, don't shush me. Since when?"

The Prince turns his face away, closing his eyes and pressing his cheek to the side of the chair. Petulant.

Lydia reaches out, brushes a lock of navy hair from his forehead, lingers to test the temperature of his skin around his nose. Less warm now, the swelling might be diminishing. "What's changed?"

"What makes you think anything has changed?" he asks without looking at her.

"Six weeks ago you would have thrown me to the wolves, gladly. But now, something's different."

"Nothing is different."

Lydia takes a deep breath and licks her lips, stalling, thinking. "Do you love me?"

The Prince squeezes his eyes shut and doesn't answer.

And while she's asking people utterly insane questions, she asks herself if Lydia loves the Prince. She doesn't know. The scar-spell won't let her. Maybe. Maybe she could.

God, if everything was different.

If he was human, if she was like him. If they had met on Earth, in a bar, if he was just a plain old trans man and not some strange fey-ice-plant creature.

Lydia tries to crawl out of the chair and he octopuses his arms around her, refuses to allow it. She doesn't want to jostle his ribs, so she goes still. In her squirming, something starts to poke at her thigh, and now that she's stopped moving, she knows what it is.

"Really?" Lydia asks. She circles her hips to bring attention, perhaps superfluously, to what she's talking about.

"I cannot help it," the Prince says. "You smell good."

So does he, or at least he's starting to. She squirms again, but this time it's to ruck up her skirt and face him, thighs splayed across his. "You're hurt," she says.

"I do not care," he whispers into her ear, taking the lobe carefully between his teeth. "I want you. I have spent all day dreaming of the comfort of your breasts, the heat of your core, the way you welcomed me in and we were tied together. I want you. I want to be inside you. I want all of you."