Free Princess by Gaelen Foley

his bedchamber.
    When she was there, she stood out of sight, muffling wicked laughter.
    “Darius,” she called in her scratchiest, sleepiest, most pampered voice, “come back to bed, my love. I need you!”
    In the doorway, Julia’s wheedling and Darius’s charming refusals both abruptly stopped.
    At last, Julia gasped as though she had had the wind knocked out of her. “You bastard ! Who is she?”
    “I—”
    He said nothing more. The great lover was quite at a loss, it seemed.
    Serafina bit her tongue lightly just to keep from laughing aloud. Oh, revenge was a wonderful thing, she thought, remembering that day she had walked in on the pair in the music room. She had been crushed for a week afterward.
    “Have your fun, you ungrateful cur. Use her well!” Julia snarled in a whisper. “And when none of your pretty toys proves willing or able to indulge your perversions, you can come crawling back to me.”
    Hmm, perversions? Serafina wondered.
    “But I promise you this—I will find out who she is and I will destroy her!”
    “Don’t you think perhaps you’re overreacting, my dear?” he asked blandly. “I never made you any promises.”
    Serafina heard the slap.
    For a moment, she only stood there, stunned, wide-eyed in the dark.
    Julia had slapped Darius.
    Slapped her brave, noble, wounded knight.
    Infuriated, she whirled out of her hiding place and marched toward the door in a wrath of vengeance, but Darius was just closing it. She tried to slip around him, but he grabbed her by the waist.
    “Oh, no, you don’t, little wildcat.”
    She strained for the doorknob. “Let me go! I’m going after her! How dare she hit you? She hurt your shoulder! I saw her—”
    “That, Your Highness, was totally uncalled for,” he growled, holding her fast. “You have just officially made my life hell. You had no business interfering in my—”
    “Perversions?”
    She heard him suck in his breath swiftly.
    “Do you really tie her up? Why?”
    “Serafina!”
    “Is it fun? Oh, I’ve shocked you.” She laughed with glee.
    He released her waist and straightened up to his full height. In the dark, she could just make out the shape of him as he growled a sigh, righted his clothes with a crisp jerk to cravat and jacket, then raked a hand through his hair.
    “Your father will be waiting, Your Highness.”
    She chuckled at his chagrin.
    “You’re very pleased with yourself, aren’t you?” he muttered as he took a handkerchief out of his pocket. He wiped the crimson rouge from Julia’s lips off his face.
    “Yes. Here, you missed.” Serafina took the cloth from him, held his chin, and wiped the last smudge of Julia’s rouge off his face, by the corner of his mouth. “As for you, Colonel, I am shocked that you are wooing married ladies.” She gave him back his handkerchief. “For your information, Julia Calazzi is a malicious schemer,” she told him sternly, folding her arms over her chest. “Really, you should show some taste.”
    He threw his forelock out of his eyes with an arrogant toss of his head. “Nice body, though, and she’s always willing to try new things.”
    Her eyes widened. “Do not say such things to me!” she huffed, blushing.
    “You started it,” he muttered. “Anyway, it just so happens that Julia has, shall we say, intimate knowledge of every man in this court. She can be very useful.”
    “Oh, so you give her your favors in exchange for information. How mutually cold-blooded! I thought perhaps you were in love with her,” she said, studying her fingernails.
    He scoffed.
    “Obviously she is in love with you,” she pointed out.
    “Women like Julia don’t fall in love.”
    She shook her head. “Don’t be too sure. I’d be careful with her if I were you. I’ve seen how she treats her enemies.”
    “Well, congratulations. You’re the one she wants to destroy now,” he said sardonically.
    “I’m shaking,” she purred at him.
    He reached for her wrist, pulling her none too