He folded his arms across his chest. “I am being extraordinarily compassionate. If it was up to me, I would have already destroyed them both. Them and every lasttraceof Shadow magic in this realm.”
Monstrous.
The word snaked into her thoughts, bringing all of her familiar, warm and comfortable prejudices with it.
Tarron narrowed his eyes. Pushed away from the desk and strode toward her. The movement felt almost like a threat. Or at least a warning.
She ignored that warning. “You’re being unjust.”
“As my wife, you—”
“Deserve to be heard,” she snapped.
“Yes, well I’ve heard enough for one night. It isn’t your place to worry about whatever prison scum we have rotting down below at any given time. You don’t know—”
“Not my place? Then tell me,my prince, what is my place?”
He nodded curtly at the door behind her and said, “I think perhaps you should go back to your own room.”
“I am not a child that you can just order to her room!”
He stared at her.
“I’m not leaving,” she said, voice quiet but firm.
He closed more of the space between them. For a moment she thought he might grab her, shake her, try to rough her into submission. His eyes had taken on a strange glow, his fingertips had sprouted their claws, his movements were full of raw, barely-suppressed anger.
Hewasa beast, after all, and now she was dangerously close to pushing him over the edge.
But he stopped just short of reaching for her. He kept his hand clenched and at his side as he spoke: “What brought this on, truly?” The words were low and laced with incredulity, as was the humorless laugh that accompanied them. “Has it been too long since we’ve argued? Is that it? I was beginning to think we had turned a corner in our relationship.”
“So was I,” she said, unable to keep the bitter disappointment from her voice.
He seemed taken aback by that disappointment.
So was she.
But she couldn’t deny it.
She realized then that she was upset not only because of his brutal treatment of his prisoners, but because she had started to believe—wanted to believe—that he wasn’t a monster at all. That it wouldn’t matter if she had Shadow magic. That he would understand her and the things she had done to protect her sister. She wanted peace. She wanted to be allies with him… No, she wanted to bemorethan allies.
And the realization that such a thing could likely never happen was crushing.
He stepped closer to her.
His stride was so confident, so powerful, that she unconsciously took a step back. Another step. Another, another, all the way to the wall, and then she attempted to sink into that wall.
Let me disappear.
We can’t do this.
It can’t happen.
But there was nowhere to go, and then he was very suddenly rightthere, bracing a hand against the wall on either side of her, and her body was responding with burning, traitorous desire.
“You try my patience, my bride,” he muttered.
“I strive to challenge you.”
