A Queen of Gilded Horns (A River of Royal Blood #2) - Amanda Joy Page 0,91

racing out of her mouth. “Before you decide to attack me, know you will regret it. I am no easy meat.”

“And why would I have need to attack you?” a deep, masculine voice whispered through the trees in a way that made Isa’s skin crawl. Magick.

Isa’s mouth went dry as a young man stepped out from behind one of the trees. He was beautiful and utterly foreign.

He was obviously khimaer. Velvety white antlers sprang from his brow, each of the prongs decorated with a slightly different gold ring. Long thick mahogany curls, the texture even denser than Eva’s, spilled down his back and softened his sharp jawline and high cheekbones. His lips, full and downturned as he and Isa inspected each other, needed no softening. His skin was light brown; the warm undertone in his skin was complemented by threads of burnished gold in his hair and cinnamon freckles on the bridge of his nose. It looked as though his eyes—their color like sunlight on clover honey—were lined dramatically in kohl to make them seem more catlike.

He wore a sleeveless vest lined with matted shearling, which would have been shocking were it not completely overshadowed by the tawny fur covering his arms. So perhaps it wasn’t kohl at all.

As he stepped forward, Isa realized that his bearing and bone structure immediately reminded her of Aketo. Tension eased from her so suddenly that she stumbled across the fallen tree and fell right on her ass.

“I know who you are,” she said. She’d asked Aketo about his older brother once; she couldn’t quite remember his name, and yet . . . she was certain.

“I doubt that,” he said slowly. His accent had a way of rounding each syllable so that it took her a moment to understand. “How would a human girl come to know me? Which reminds me, how does a human girl come to be here, of all places?”

Part of Isa wanted to protest. She was not human, or at least not only human. But the stronger part of her, the part that had discovered the truth about her being a bastard long before her mother ever told her, still liked to keep that information shoved into the furthest reaches of her consciousness. She feared if she thought too long on it, there would be no stopping her from falling apart.

“I know you are Aketo’s brother and a Prince,” Isa said, squinting against the sunlight that framed his body. “I know you knew my father. I even know what you must be here to guard.”

In one smooth movement, the Prince pulled a long-handled knife from his belt. She noted the tail undulating in the air behind him. A lion must have been the animal he shared flesh with. Aketo’s features clearly favored that of a snake, but perhaps they had different fathers.

He pointed the knife at her, though there was still enough distance between them that it was barely a threat. “Get up.”

“I must kindly ask you to lower that,” Isa said through gritted teeth. She lifted her dagger, pointing it in his direction. “I can make threats too.”

He glanced at her weapon like it was of little concern. “My brother is far from here in the South. I do not know how you came to know his name, but—”

“Your brother fled from Ternain when he aided my sister in my capture.” She reached for his mental net, but found it nearly impenetrable. Just as Aketo’s mind had always given her trouble, the desires and dreams floating around this boy’s head weren’t hers to toy with. “Or has the news not reached you this far north?”

He pointed again with the knife. “Get up. I don’t know who you are, but no human should tread this path.”

Isa’s fine control on her anger snapped. What was the danger really?

In three long strides, she came within a hand’s length of the blade. Isa’s thin arms were covered in pale scars from learning to fight with knives when she was younger, so she had no fear of a naked blade. She reached for the hilt, but he caught her wrist. “I asked you to stop pointing this at me.”

This close, he was lovelier than she first thought. His leonine eyes seemed to glow as he stared at her.

“Who are you?”

She switched to Khimaeran, hoping that would make him listen. “Have you ignored every word I’ve said? My name is Isadore. Your brother and my beloved sister, Evalina, are somewhere nearby. He went south, as