“Of course not,” I say, a slur to my words as I put my cup down harshly. A little of the wine spills onto the table. “I just can’t believe that through all the king’s safeguarding of the princess, it was just aguardwho had taken her. That it was a guard who bested him.”
The noblewoman stutters, her brows rising high on her forehead. A few of the men surrounding me huff a noise as they scowl at me, but I turn to look at my uncle. And though I hear Xander’s warning in the back of my head to stay submissive, to not agitate the king, I find that I just… I don’tcarewhat he does to me anymore. The list of violations he had already conducted was long, what was another beating? Another incestuous look? Warning bells flare, but in muddled thoughts, they are easily pushed to the side.
“This guardeasilycaptured the princess of the tower. Set her free of her stone prison and led her to places she surely only dreamed about,” I say to him, an unnatural hush falling over the table. “He didallof that right under your nose—”
“I think the wine has made Lady Nele’s tongue a little more adventurous tonight,” Simon interrupts. “No one tells a fable quite like a woman.” His words earn an awkward and tense chuckle from those closest, the noblewoman across from me staring down at her plate as they do. I open my mouth to retort when the magic commands me to drink. My fingers wrap around my cup but I’m halted with a hand on my forearm before I can bring it to my mouth.
“That’s enough,” King Dolian says before standing, moving his hand up to my arm as he tugs me up from my seat. “Let’s go to your room.” It’s not a suggestion but a command, and one I’m forced to obey as my feet begin moving. The room spins as my head pounds, and I bring a hand up to frame my temple against the sudden onslaught of dizziness as the king practicallydragsme to the double doors.
“Your Majesty, I can escort the lady back if you would like to stay with your guests.” Xander’s voice comes from behind me, but the king only tightens his grip and pulls me forward. A breath hisses through my teeth.
“That won’t be necessary, Commander. Remain at your post.”
There’s a pause, Xander’s steps still following behind us as we enter the hall. Then, “I’m sure your guests—”
King Dolian abruptly halts and jerks me around until we are both facing Xander, his chest heaving at my side. Angerpoursoff of him so thickly that it makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise in warning. “What is this?” he snarls, taking a step towards Xander. “I have given you an order. That doesn’t leave room for rebuttal!” I yelp as I’m once more pulled forward, myfeet tripping over themselves. “Is it her? Are you wanting to spend timealonewith my betrothed? With your future fuckingqueen?”
The seconds are tense as they pass, a ringing in my ears growing louder as Xander keeps his gaze pinned on the king. I see his nervousness, though, in the way his fingers flex around the hilt of his sword. And I beg the gods that he doesn’t look at me. That he makes the right choice to leave me to handle the king on my own because his rebellion is already at risk by what I know. If the king thinksanythingat all is happening between us, he could force me to tell him every interaction I’ve had with Xander.
Xander, both to my relief and slight horror, does just that. “No, Your Majesty. As I have proven to you over and over again, my allegiance is to you and youalone.” He lifts the hand that had been on his hilt and forms a fist, laying it across his chest.
King Dolian doesn’t move at first, his grip still tight and his gaze still flaring with irritation. But then he lifts his chin, looking down his nose at Xander. “Yes, I suppose if there isanyoneI can trust to not try and fuck her, it isyou.” Xander says nothing, but his look of disgust speaks for him. “Go back to your post.”
We’re already on the move again before I can watch Xander retreat. I don’t try to wrench my arm from the king’s hold as he marches us back through the foyer and presumably up to my room. I have to think—have to try and work this to my advantage. But coherent thought is lost in the haze of the alcohol. We reach the staircase and begin climbing, the king’s steps loud at my side the entire way up.
Only when we’ve reached the corridor of my wing does he stop, shoving me up against the wall as one hand wraps around my neck and the other slams the stone next to my head. “Have youfuckedthe commander?” he asks, magic behind the question.
“No,” I answer quickly. The pull of the magic recedes, and in my drunken stupor, I add, “Not that it’sanyof your business—”
The hand gripping my neck squeezes more tightly as he shakes me, the back of my head bouncing off the stone wall. “Everythingregarding you ismybusiness,” he snarls in my face, moving his other hand to my shoulder, his fingers draping over the curve of it as his thumb sweeps low on the fabric of my dress, right over the top of my breast.
I struggle beneath his hold, my hands closing around his wrists as I try to pull his own away, only to be met with a command to stop moving. My arms fall down to my sides, lifelessly hanging there as he leans in to brush his lips against mine. “You think you’re so clever, Rhea, don’t you? That somehow you and you alone are enough to change what I’ve been working towards for twenty-two years.” His hips press into mine, and I suck in a startled breath at the feel of him against me, the hand at my shoulder sliding lower, until it’s cupping the flesh beneath the dress. “I should have demanded answers from you before, but I wanted to believe that you would come around.” He groans low in his throat, and I press myself further back into the stone wall, as if I can sink into it to get away from him. But he only closes any miniscule distance made with a deeper press of his hips forward. There’s no command to work around here because I’m completely at his mercy, unable to get away. I swallow as fear chokes me, my mind racing beneath the lull of the alcohol. “As I mentioned, my leniency is gone, and now I demand answers. Did you know that your magic could heal?”
Water pressure builds in my ears, the answer spoken before I can think. “No.”
“Do notlie!”
“I’m—I’m not!” I shout, my eyes growing wet as tears spill from them. The magic pushes at me again to answer him. “I didn’t know. How would I?”
“Then how else did the shifter live in your tower?”
I blink, my breath sawing in and out of me.
“How else did the shifterlive? Answer the question!”
“I don’t—” The power of his command pulses inside my head, but I have no answer for him. I have no idea what he is even talking about.
His eyes bore into mine, the nearness of his body suffocating me. But when I fail to give him an answer he scoffs and pulls back abruptly. “You truly don’t know, do you?” I press my hands into the stone behind me as he laughs, the levity in it absent. With my head hanging low, I focus on trying to breathe through how his phantom touch still lingers on my body. The tips of his pristine boots enter my vision before his fingers are grasping at my chin and tilting my head back, forcing me to look up at him. “She was ashifter,” he says, the words a slow drip from his tongue.
“I don’t knowwhoyou are talking about.”
His head tilts to the side, a few strands of hair falling over his forehead. “Your fox. The white one wholivedwith you. All this time, you thought you had a pet, but what youreallyhad was a shifter woman.” His tone is one of condescension, false pity contorting his features.
“No,” I scrape out, the word rough in my dry mouth. “No, that can’t be.”
“She was. I saw the creature myself in the dungeons onmanyoccasions when the commander and I needed to question her.”
“Wha—” My mind spins as I try to make sense of his words, but Bella being not only a shifter butaliveis impossible. I had lived with her for years, and I had seen her get shot right in front of me. Had seen the guards close in on her as Nox pulledme away. Through the throbbing in my head, a memory of our escape into the Mage Kingdom crystallizes. Yes, I had seen her get shot, but there had been a flash of blue light before the guards surrounded her. I hadn’t actually confirmed she was dead—No. No, Xander surely would have told me if Bella was alive.
