Acotar and Tog [Discontinued, Will be deleted]

Prince of Pride

Annoyed did not even begin to cover his emotions. Today he teetered on a sharp blade between irate and guilt. This made him unpredictable and the last thing he wanted to do was train the princess. Any curiosity he had of the girl and her past vanished in the wake of last nights nightmares. They had been worse than recent memory, they had left him exceedingly raw.

He walked the girl past the courtyard, through the woods and into the forest to the temple ruins. Mala hadn’t failed him to date and the girl was a descendent of her beloved Brannon. He hoped that the temple would pull on her magic. Many only ever saw the warrior, not many saw the prince that he was, is. They forget that he would have had decades of training and schooling including history lessons. Mistward was not just any old fortress, it was an abandoned fortress that Brannon himself once called home. Abandoned, when Maeve moved inland five centuries ago.

“Do your worst.”

He look up and down her lithe human frame. His worst would kill the girl. The fake smile on her face raised his annoyance to anger, his patience was already holding on a string. Control. He needed control.

“Wipe that smarmy, lying smile off your face.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Bravado, a mask that she wore well and had probably worn everyday during the past decade to survive, but in this moment he didn’t give a shit. So he wrapped his mask of icy coolness tighter. He had dealt with young spoiled royals before, she was no different.

“Here’s your first lesson, girl: cut the horseshit. I don't feel like dealing with it, and I’m probably the only one who doesn’t give a damn about how angry and vicious and awful you are underneath.”

“I don’t think you particularly want to see how angry and vicious and awful I am underneath.”

He wanted to laugh in her face. He had spent the last two hundred years being lost in a pit of darkness spewing vicious angry rage at any person who came too close. Two hundred and three years to be exact. He should have cancelled training, but spitting at Aelin was better than the solitude.

“Go ahead and be nasty as nasty as you want, Princess, because I’ve been ten times as nasty for ten times longer than you have been alive.”

She dropped the act, good.

“Better. Now shift.”

“It’s not something I can control.”

He didn’t doubt her, control was not something she had. Something she had never been taught. Erilea would have had fae trainers, but it was reported that they were softer. The Galathynius household did not trust the fae from Wendlyn, he was amazed when he learned the Ashryver princess married the Terrassen prince.

“If I wanted excuses, I’d ask for them. Shift.”

“I hope you brought snacks, because we’re going to be here a long, long while if today’s lesson is dependent upon my shifting.”

“You’re really going to make me enjoy training you.”

“I’ve already participated in a dozen versions of the master-disciple training saga, so why don't we cut that horseshit, too?”

Fair enough, truth, that is something they could both work with. He gave her lethal smile, “Shut your smart-ass mouth and shift.”

“No.”

Fine, if she had never been taught the control to shift, then fear or anger was the next path. She dodged the first move, but he had expected that, in two shift moves he had her pinned to the ground.