My mouth felt dry at the implication of that last heavy word, but I had to ignore the gnawing feeling radiating through me. ‘You have a book. I need it.’
‘I’m sure you have plenty of books in Maureia, Princess, so what is this really about?’
‘You have a book with information I need to stop your father.’
Realisation dawned on him then, along with a hint of slight discomfort. ‘Everett hid it when they brought me down here.’
I stared at him in shock. ‘That overgrown idiot is the one you trusted with the book? Are you insane?!’ I demanded.
Demir smirked and leaned back, watching me. To anyone who knew me, this was a normal reaction, but to someone likeDemir, an outsider, I seemed borderline hysterical given the persona I maintained outside my walls.
‘We all play our parts, darling. Now why is it that in all the years I’ve known you, I have never heard you say my name the way you just called Everett’s?’ he asked.
‘I am not aprincessanymore, and I am certainly not your anything. I don’t speak the names of my enemies in their presence; you are unworthy. Names are sacred—they are bestowed with hope and purpose. I do not say them lightly in someone’s presence, and yours is one I swore a long time ago I would never utter in front of you,’ I said, forcing what I hoped was disdain into my voice, but we both knew I was failing.
‘So you have said my name then, to others. Now, I guess I’ll just have to imagine all the ways my name sounded on those lips. Now tell me, why did you swear to never speak it to me?’ he said as he bit into his own lip.
‘Like you don’t know, Princeling. You were awful to me at the Academy; you made my life hell like it was your own personal mission.’
He looked at me almost in confusion at my anger towards this. ‘We all had our parts to play, including me. I couldn’t stroll up to you on the first day of the Academy and befriend you, Princess. What would our allies have said?’ he smirked.
‘You didn’t have to be so cruel,’ I bit out, wanting to look away but forcing myself to hold his gaze.
‘You were the cruel one, Princess. The way you looked at me made me feel like I was less than nothing from the moment you saw me. So, I made it known I was someone—someone you could never escape.’
‘So it was all payback? For my resting bitch face?’
‘No. It was desperation. Tell me, what did I do that was truly so bad?’
‘You sent every ally you could over the years to try to poison me, break my bones or hurt me.’
Demir then laughed a genuine laugh. ‘I didn’t send anyone todo any of those things. Your mother had pissed off more than just my father over the years. I simply didn’t intervene when they did what they did. I thought you would be thankful.’
Rolling my eyes, I couldn’t fathom this man’s infuriating train of thought, but the most startling part of it all was that he was speaking the truth. ‘Why would I have been grateful for that?’
‘You always wanted to prove yourself. You would have thought I had ulterior motives for intervening, that I was planning something worse, because you could never see me through any other lens than the one your people created for me. Thinking I was just my father’s spawn. But I suppose I did have an ulterior motive in staying quiet and letting whatever harm that came befall you.’
‘Tell me,’ I seethed, almost desperate. I needed to know.
‘Because you’re so fucking beautiful when you’re covered in blood, pushing through the pain and rising to your feet once more. The pure, unrelenting power in you that makes you unbreakable would have my dick hard each and every time.’ Feeling my skin flush, betraying me, I broke eye contact with him.
‘Where’s Everett?’ I asked, turning away. I needed the distance. Demir chuckled at my reaction. I had not expected any of that to leave his lips and I was ashamed for how my core had pulsed at the thought of him hot and bothered over me, fighting to conceal it in front of everyone. Everyone who wanted him, when he wanted me.
‘He’ll be here soon, he comes regularly to check on me.’
‘You’re not what I thought you would be like,’ I whispered into the void.
‘What did you expect?’ he asked, raising a brow in amusement.
‘Someone filled with hate—you played that part well all those years I knew you.’
‘I let you believe what you wanted to see, and I played it well not only for you and our allies, but for my father. A man whowould do this to his only child for speaking out of turn is someone I have spent my whole life hiding the deepest parts of myself from, to the point where I have lost touch with them myself. Did you know my mother and your father used to be friends at the Academy?’
I felt the floor fall from under me.
‘My mother was the opposite of my father in every way, although there was a time long ago when he wasn’t as cruel as he is now. But the moment he discovered black magic, he started to change; it took me a long time to figure out what was wrong. In our second to last year at the Academy, when we were only seventeen, you lost your father during the winter break; but what you didn’t know is that I lost my mother then as well. I don’t think your father’s rak was an accident. I think my father killed yours. He became paranoid as the dark magic infiltrated him more and more deeply. He began to believe that my mother and your father had been in love with each other all those years and were planning to overthrow him. There was no merit to any of this; they were the thoughts of a madman who had lost all sense of reality.
‘First, he poisoned your father and forced my mother to watch it all unfold. Then he beat her to within an inch of her life, then let her heal and do it all over again. It went on for weeks until my mother’s body gave out. By the time the winter break was finally over, both of our parents were dead. While people knew about your father, no one knew what happened to my mother except for Everett.’
