Sin Eater's Daughter 2 - The Sleeping Prince by Melinda Salisbury

to face him, still holding my wrists in his long white fingers, his head tilted as his terrible golden eyes sear into mine. I start to tremble, my blood running cold. I don’t want to die like this. Gods, please, I don’t want to die here, now. I don’t want this to be it. And Mama … I don’t want her to die like this.
    I force myself to speak. To beg.
    “Please let us go,” I say, my voice cracking. “I beg you. Please. I won’t tell anyone I saw you. I won’t say anything. Please let us go—” Then my control breaks and the words come out as a sob. “Please, please. Have mercy on us…” I’m shaking so hard now that I can’t speak; all my courage has left me. I’m afraid I’m going to wet myself; I’m afraid it’s going to hurt. I’m ashamed that I begged; Lief never would have. I can’t remember what you call a prince. “My Lord.” I try to bow as best I can. “Please, Your Grace…”
    “What?” he says sharply, his words sounding as though they’re coming from far away. “What the hell, Errin?” Confusion colours his cheeks, suddenly making him look vulnerable, human. Then his face falls, and he blinks at me, once, twice, before letting go of me so fast that I stumble. Before I’ve had time to right myself and pick up my knife, he’s grabbed his cloak, flinging it angrily around his shoulders and pulling the hood up, covering his hair. I can still see his face, though. His eyes.
    He glares at me fiercely, his golden eyes narrowed to tiny slits. “I’m not the Sleeping Prince, Errin.”
    My chest heaves as I watch him, poised to move if he does, his words ringing in my ears until all the meaning is lost from them. My heart still beats triple time. I watch him warily.
    “Gods…” His eyes are bright inside the rings of black, feverish. He looks … he looks distraught. “Really? You truly thought—?” He runs his hands through his hair, knocking the hood back, before his forefinger starts to tap his thumb, the motion so fast it blurs.
    And that small, familiar movement takes the edge from my fear, making me feel ashamed, because it’s a gesture I know so well. It’s anxious, fretful, nervous, Silas. I’ve seen him do it dozens of times.
    I know then that I want to believe him. I want this to be a simple misunderstanding. But I can’t believe him. Not yet. Not completely. Because there’s too much that doesn’t add up, and I’m still shaking, and my lungs are still pumping as though I’ve been running for miles.
    My gut is still telling me to run.
    I look at him – really look at him – at his strange eyes and his hair and his face. For three moons I’ve watched his lips, but now I can see the small bump in the bridge of his nose, his forehead, his white eyelashes and eyebrows. His hairline is a deep widow’s peak. His skin is an opaque white, not like flesh. I can’t see the veins beneath it; there are no impurities, no freckles or spots. No shadow on his jawline. His eyes are the colour of honey, liquid and amber, and I find myself caught in them.
    “I’m not the Sleeping Prince,” he says again, jolting me from my thoughts.
    “All right,” I say, after a long moment.
    “Do you believe me?”
    I can’t nod.
    “Do you?” he demands.
    “Be fair,” I say quietly. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen you without the cloak. And you look… You must know what you look like. What would you think, in my place?”
    He looks away from me and bites his lip before his eyes meet mine again. “I can explain, a little, at least. If you’ll hear me?”
    I nod, and some of the tension leaves his eyes.
    Until he looks me up and down.
    “Why is there blood on you?” he asks in a strange voice.
    I lift my hand to my ear, but the blood has dried. “Oh.” I try to keep my voice level. “I ran into some trouble, in the woods.” I look at him, watching for any sign that he knows something about it, that the men who attacked me might have even been there for