I didn’t move an inch. I didn’t breathe. I certainly didn’t voice my murderous intent. I waited, and eventually, Carmine exhaled and rested his forehead against mine.
“You drive me to insanity,” the demon king hushed, as though that excused his behavior.
I didn’t have a thing to do with his insanity. The asshole drove himself there five times a weekday and seven times on the weekend.
Carmine stroked my cheek. “You will stay here, enamai. In my quarters.”
I couldn’t help myself. “You’ll trap me as you were once trapped.”
A shudder rippled through him. Those words hurt him like nothing else I’d yet said, as I’d known they would. The last king,my father, had locked Carmine in the dungeons for one hundred years before he’d managed to escape and take the throne. How many times had Carmine sworn to me that he would never do the same to another?
The dank dungeons buried in the peak were notoriously empty.
Except they weren’t, and they hadn’t been for the last five years.
One person was down there.Thatwas the truth Carmine still concealed from me to this day. As he’d poured crimson smoke down my twin’s throat, he’d also torn her weak demon from her dying magus body. And then he’d chucked her demon in the dungeon to rot.
Only to then start the process to make me his for eternity. The cold,soullessbastard.
“Look at your time here however you choose,” Carmine replied.
“Choose to alleviate yourself of blame however you can,” I answered in the same tone.
The door on the opposite side of the room opened. There were only two people who would enter that way, and I liked neither, and neither of them liked me.
“Carmine,” his sister said. “There’s news from the gates.”
He raised a closed fist—a command to be silent.
Gratia’s crimson eyes landed on me. She didn’t say a word, which was unusual for the smooth-tongued older sibling. She hated my guts, and I’d been scared of her during my time here. Now I saw a woman who had power and was sure of her place.
I was that woman too.
We were equals.
Which wouldn’t stop me annihilating her if she made the mistake of getting in my way. Nothing personal. I was willing to kill my mate-intended, so she was just collateral.
“I’m needed elsewhere,” Carmine said to me.
I pressed a hand against my chest. “You’re talking to me? Go where you like. I couldn’t care less.”
“You will speak to me with respect, Mate-Intended.” The demon king straightened to his full height. I used to be so impressed when he did that.
As it was, my mind turned over what Gratia just revealed. Carmine was obsessed with expanding his territory. He’d discussed secret gates into the territories of other supernaturals at length when we were together. I’d just stared at him in adoration in response, not really taking anything in. Was he close to infiltrating their territories?
If so, I had to accelerate my plansbigtime.
The silence made me aware that both demons were looking at me. “What did you say?”
Gratia sucked in a breath. “You?—"
Carmine cut her a look, then lowered his head to ensure he had my attention, I supposed.
“You will be at the banquet tonight, Syera,” he ordered.
I hadn’t agreed to his terms and wouldn’t until my access to Tiers was assured.
He could shove that banquet up his ass.
