No.
No, it cannot be.
He reached for his mask. Gold parted from his skin with a slow, dreadful scrape. The face beneath was no stranger. It lived in my unwelcome dreams, in nightmares of the day everything ended.
“Edric.” The name barely passed my lips, but it burned.
The boy who had kissed me in secret.
The prince who had cursed me in wrath.
And now, the king whose word would decide whether I woke again—or never woke at all.
29
MAV
Iknew something was wrong the second the king started walking toward us. He didn’t amble with the detached air of a monarch surveying his court. No, this was deliberate. A hawk locking onto a hare. And Quinn was the hare in question.
“Um,” Thistle murmured under her breath, leaning into my shoulder. “Is the king walking toward us?”
Branrir’s hand shifted to rest lightly near the hilt of his sword.“Why would he be walking toward us?”
“Did you accidentally Twilight him?” Vesper asked, directing the question to Quinn.
Her eyes were wide, her breathing shallow. I could feel the frantic thrum of her pulse through her dress.
“Quinn?” I asked, placing a hand on her lower back. “What is it?”
I knew we needed to ask this pompous jerk for a favor, but I couldn’t figure out why she was suddenly so afraid.
The king stopped a few paces from us. His eyes never left her.
“Quinnève,” he said.
Her name, drawn out and too familiar by leagues. Everymuscle in my body went taut. I wanted to punch that name out of his mouth. My hand stayed on the small of her back. I wanted to put myself between her and the king, but I didn’t know if leaping up like a hound off a leash would help or humiliate.
The moment the king removed his mask, recognition flooded Quinn’s face.
“Edric,” she breathed, paling.
Not a question. They’d met before, that much was clear. But when? As much as it pained me to admit it, I hated hearing another man’s name come from her lips with that kind of weight.
Then the king stepped forward and took her hand, as though it had always been his to take. His gloved fingers closed around her smaller ones, and he bent forward, pressing a kiss to her knuckles.
It was too long.
Too practiced.
Too mine.
I didn’t want his hands or mouth anywhere near Quinn. I almost growled—actually, physically growled—and had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop it. I wanted to break every one of his royal fingers. My stomach turned.
Thistle stared, wide-eyed and unblinking. Branrir’s brow furrowed above his open mouth. Even Vesper, normally unflappable, stood so still he could have been carved.
Something inside me bristled, territorial, irrational, and contemplating violence. I didn’t care that he wore a crown. I didn’t care that we were surrounded by witnesses. I cared that he knew her name before she told him. And I cared that it had clearly once meant something—because it still meant everything to me.
“I’d appreciate the opportunity to speak to you, Quinnie,” Edric said, his voice syrup-thick and dripping with entitlement.
