“I told you not to call me that,” I snarled, bucking up against him, tugging at his hand holding mine secured above me. Damn, infernal man had too tight a grip on my wrists, and his body was heavy, pressing me down into the blankets I thought I’d be sharingwith Merrick. Such a fool I’d been, having dreams like that about the king.
How easily they’d both subdued me.
His smile came out slick. “You prefer I call you Wildfire, then.”
“Never that.” Pinching my eyes closed, I willed my body to flit.
My feet smacked down on the wooden floorboards a few feet from the bed, and I splayed my arms wide to maintain my balance, stumbling away from him.
Glaring.
His deep green eyes too much like Merrick’s, yet not, remained locked on me as he rolled onto his back and tucked his palms beneath his neck on the pillow.
I did all I could not to glide my gaze down his naked body. He truly was scarred all over. Tiny ones, even on his belly and thighs, as if someone had bound him and poked him with a blade numerous times.
His cock…
Stop looking at his fucking cock.
It stirred.
“We weren’t playing with you.” He kept his gaze on the ceiling. “We never would. Know this.”
“I know nothing. Tell me why all the Evergorne kings die on their thirtieth birthday.”
“If only I could.”
“Could what? Die?”
If Merrick died, would Lorant? The pain of losing them both at one time stabbed through me, and it was all I could do to suck in air. It wasn’t as easy to shut off my feelings for them as I’d hoped. And that made me even more furious, particularly with myself.
“If only Icouldtell you.” He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat, shifting his neck as if working out kinks. Through it all, he watched me.
Always watching.
The craving in his gaze could not be denied, and it sparked something willfully determined inside me. I would not give in. I would not relent.
“Open your mouth and give me an answer,” I snapped. “It’s easy. Or are you suggesting you can’t tell me why all the Evergorne kings die?”
His head jerked in a yes.
Then he was coughing, gagging, smacking his chest with his fist.
“Why is the castle cursed?” I would drag answers from him before I left.
And I was going to leave this place, one way or the other. It was time to visit the dragons and take a long flight. If I hadn’t been crowned queen and felt an obligation to this court and its people, I’d scramble onto a dragon’s back and fly away, never to return.
As forMerrick-Lorant, I wasn’t going to have anything to do with either of them again.
“Can’t tell you that either,” he croaked, his hands wrapping around his throat, and his face losing color.
“Then tell me why you two share a body. More or less share. You look different at night versus during the day. Can you answer me that?”
“I’m asking you to stay.”
I knew very well what he meant. “What, no twisting me into compliance with the slick sort of favor you bound me to in the tower?”
“Stay because you want to be here.”
