Not his friend. Not his mate. Not even his enemy.
I swallow that thought down and face the small dining table. Father sits at the far end across from me. My cousin is to my left, and my mother is to my right. One of them beams a cheery smile at me, the other... the other hasn’t looked at me since I killed her son.
A heaviness settles in my stomach, and I don’t care to eat the food decorating the table, but I take small sips of water for the first few lingering minutes.
“Uncle Gravier suggested I get a good demon for protection, just like you.” Pen tilts her head at me until my attention slowly shifts to her.
I blink but say nothing.
Saying nothing is the safe alternative here.
“Every girl needs protection,” my father says in his booming tone that echoes through the large dimly-lit room. “We have plenty of fine demons who need handlers, too. They’d be honored to have a sweet owner like yourself.”
My jaw clenches.
I blink and say nothing.
Without thought, I trade my water out for wine, and I’m no longer sipping it, but downing it as fast as the demon waiter can pour it.
“Aries, I think that’s quite enough.” Father commands.
But he doesn’t own me. He can’t bind me. Not like his other pets.
I motion to the inside of the empty silver goblet, and the quiet waiter hesitates but pours me another. When it’s gone, I motion again. Pour. Drink. Motion. Pour. Dribble down my chin. Clink the side with my nail. Pour. Cough some up when it goes down the wrong hole. Vaguely clatter my nails against the shining metal. Pour. Slosh red wine over the rim of the cup—
“Enough!” The word rains down over the room.
The waiter steps back like he, too, is a member of the Shadow Guard.
“Krave, take Aries back to her room. Get her some water and don’t let her out until she’s found her senses again.” The orders come out one after the other, but I smile to myself when I realize his error.
Someone else is just a bit faster than me.
“I’m terribly sorry, my King, but... you’re not my handler,” Krave says on the smooth taunting tone of his.
My heart skips a beat for some odd reason that I don’t understand.
I shove back from the table. My gaze holds the familiar gray eyes across from me, and I smile softly before walking away from them all.
I accomplished nothing, but it feels like so much all at the same time. It’s so much that my heartbeat pounds with every quick step I take back to my room. I pass the crimson roses in their vases at every corner, I pass the line of formal armory, I even pass Sev, and I never once pause to see any of it.
My pulse speeds with warmth spreading through my chest. On quick steps, I enter the privacy of my bedroom, and I don’t even wait for Krave to close the door behind himself before my fingers are slipping through his soft inky locks.
And then my lips slam to his.
His brows lift as I close my eyes, and a beat of time passes with his hands held platonically in the air before he clamps his palms around my hips and spins us so I’m pinned against the door by his hips alone.
The moment my lips part, his tongue meets mine, ready and hungry. Every part of me reacts, my body shifts, but really, it’s just my hips shifting against his. A groan hums from his throat, and he pulls back with a shaking breath leaving his lungs.
“This feels suspiciously like touching, love,” he whispers with a smile.
A real smile.
A smile that sears my soul with branding heat.
My head tilts back, and I search his dark eyes. I want him so damn bad. I want—I want something neither of us have.
And that’s trust.
