“Nice attitude,” Kirastasia chirped when the boy gave her his first terse reply. The mask of mutiny on his young face was priceless, if not slightly annoying. Gracious—she’d only asked him a simple question! No wonder Queens had forbidden Kira and Kavik from wandering outside of the den . . . strangers were rude. And mean. It was as if her status as Malignant Princess meant absolutely nothing to this green-eyed lad. When the unknown male began growling, however, Kira’s snowy hackles really went up. Her luminous amber eyes—carbon copies of her mother’s seductive portals—opened wide in scandalous disbelief. A shocked smile parted the velveteen curtains of her maw. This was the kind of sass that earned stripes from the Alphess: stripes of blood, that is, carved into the offender’s hide. Beneath Kirastasia’s weight, Kavik rumbled deep in his throat, the callow sound oddly bloodthirsty for a creature so small. Kira peered down at her sibling, head tilted with interest. Their “friend” had dangerously angered her silent brother; if she didn’t calm Kavik down immediately, the espresso-colored prince would do something reckless.

She chose to bite his ear affectionately. Shocked, Kavik’s growling ceased. He pried his black-ringed eyes away from his enemy and stared up at her indignantly. That hurt! his expression cried. Kira stuck her tongue out at him. “Serves you right, dummy.”

The alabaster lass continued looking at the coal-coated stranger with affected politeness. At his derision over her gender she snorted—but as soon as he referred to Kavik as nothing more than “mute” the lynx brought out her claws. Suddenly Kira’s playful lyrics frosted over, the tone still lilting and light but carrying a serrated edge that would have made Queens glow with pride. It was as if the girl’s words were a pair of delicate stiletto blades, small yet fatal in the right hands. “His name is Kavik,” Kirastasia simpered sweetly, honey pooling from her lips like sugared venom. “Mother had to pull him off a groundhog once because he was making a mess with its insides. There was a lot of blood because the groundhog was still alive when Kavik got to it.” Her head tilted again, the gesture nearly avian and all the more disturbing for the echoes of eerie birdsong darkening the skies. Her grin was dazzling: a string of perfectly polished pearls. Her tail stirred the air as if she were mixing fine champagne against the sides of a wineglass. “You’re not much bigger than a groundhog.”

Kavik barked once, the unexpected sound detonating from his toothed trap so loud that Kira forgot to keep him down. The dark-brown boy lunged from underneath his sister—jaws wide for the kill—and was stopped only because Kirastasia snagged her self-awareness at the last minute and seized his scruff in her mouth. Since they were still both about the same size, Kavik lurched to a stop with Kira tumbling back on top of him. Again. The pale-faced brute had forgotten how to use his unspoken language; he continued to writhe and snap at Tag like a starving shark while his sister valiantly attempted to wrestle him into submission.

“You—you—jerk!” Kirastasia shot her potential prisoner a righteously enraged glare, striped legs slipping and skidding on Kavik’s sleek pelt while he mindlessly struggled. It was such a shame that this irritating intruder was so physically cute—as soon as Kavik got a hold of him, that cuteness wouldn’t last long. “Are you just going to stand there? Help me! You’re the reason he’s all mad in the first place!”