“Don’t you talk about him,” she says, her voice quiet and tight. Something about its dangerous sonance curls low in my belly, even as I tilt my head innocently.
“Who? Poor Jamie?” The words are out of my mouth before I can consider them. By all accounts, I should be doing as Sam advised and winning Willa to my side, as it would make the next necessary steps far easier. But her presence rattles me. Has my mouth moving before my brain can catch up. “You hardly knew him. Why do you even care?”
Willa doesn’t answer. She just stares at me with a dead gaze, one I’m all too familiar with. It makes me want to slice it open, to prod until whatever she’s trapped behind that wall explodes out.
“Is it because you feel guilty, Darling? That the boy is dead because he had the misfortune of savingyou?”I laugh bitterly, my lip curling in disgust. “Guilt is for the provincial.”
Sam plops down in the chair beside me and clears his throat, a gesture that pointedly means,be civil. I let a sharp breath whistle through my teeth as my irritation rises, whether at him, myself, or the feral creature in front of me, I’m not even sure.
“Allow me to free you from it. The boy would be dead whether you were there or not.”
Sam’s eyes widen before rolling straight to the ceiling, as if I’m the greatest test of his patience.
And indeed, Willa doesn’t seem at all appeased. “Then why?” she demands sharply; like a woman accustomed to having her questions answered. “Why kill him?”
Her stony gaze slips, just a fraction, and I know she’s remembering the way the boy’s face rotted. The way his skin peeled, and his eyes went gelatinous—the grotesque consequences of the infernal magic I hold back daily with blood and agony.
“And why—why…mutilate him like that?”
The ribbons dig into my arms, lashing against my skin in painful strokes as they remember the taste of the boy’s death. They strain for release; for the freedom to chase after more of it and devour it whole. And as sharp pain radiates through meso fully my lungs refuse to expand, a tired part of me wants to let them go entirely. To forgo the struggle and the agony and let them ruin the world.
Until I realize Willa is staring at me expectantly.
“For being on my beach,” I manage to reply in a violent hiss.
It’s the simplest answer—the most honest—but it’s also the one that will pierce through her armor and to the skin beneath. A vicious part of me hopes it might even slice at her heart. For how is it fair that I live in so much pain without sharing at least some of it?
Willa shivers with rage, and the most depraved part of me drinks it in ardently. But rather than giving me what I’m after and attacking, that same deadened wall—made of iron, of ice—slams down over her gaze.
Interesting.I’ve underestimated the woman. She clearly has practice at honing her anger into something useful, which makes her all the more dangerous.
She watches me across the table for a few long moments. “You say I haven’t been kidnapped. If you’re a king—” Her mouth twists uncomfortably on the word, like it physically pains her to say. “—a man of your word, why won’t you allow me to leave?”
“You haven’t been kidnapped, Darling.”
“Willa,” she corrects irritably, which only heightens my amusement.
“Willa Darling,” I drawl so silkily, she shivers. I wonder what else would elicit that same shiver over her warm, tanned skin. What else would part those luscious, pink lips.
My death spears for her at the thought. Clearing my throat decisively, I force myself to focus on the task at hand. If Willa is descended from who I think she is, I need her. Whether that help comes willingly or by force is the only choice she has. Judging by her penchant for violence, I can guess which way it will be, and I can’t say I’m dreading it.
“I’m afraid leaving Letum isn’t as simple a matter as boarding a ship and sailing off into the sunset. You fell through wards…wards so thick with magic and despair, they’ve been impassible for nearly two centuries.”
Willa gnaws at her bottom lip, and it takes everything in me to keep my eyes on hers. Everything in me not to watch the dig of her teeth into the lush flesh.
“Ifthat’s true—” Her tone indicates she believes me to be mad. Which I more than likely am after so many centuries stuck in this stasis of a world, but not about this. “—then you should still allow me to leave your castle.”
I drum my glove-clad fingers on the dining table. “This is my kingdom, which means your safety is my responsibility. I cannot have you gallivanting alone around an unfamiliar island and getting yourself lost. Or worse. You’ve already nearly drowned. There are hundreds of creatures in Letum that would defy your paltry imagination. How would I live with myself if you wandered into the claws of the wrong sort?”
Her brow lowers at my sardonic tone, and she tilts her head. “Afraid I’ll step onto the wrong beach, and you’ll have to murder me to keep up appearances?”
Before I can respond, Tiernan bustles in from the kitchen, arms laden with plates of steaming food. He hesitates when he notices Willa, his cheeks turning a ridiculous shade of red. At the pointed clearing of my throat, he remembers himself and stumbles forward, arranging the plates at the center of the table. Sam gives him a grateful nod and immediately digs in, piling fluffy eggs and seasoned potatoes onto his plate.
Willa smiles at the boy, and for a moment, I’m struck dumb by the brilliance of it. While her antagonistic nature is darkly enticing, her kindness is something else entirely—something I refuse to examine. The ribbons dig into my hands, straining toward her, and it takes a couple deep inhales and a myriad ofsilently muttered curses to hold them in place. The smell of the food turns my stomach and as fresh, hot pain washes over me, I work my throat to keep from being sick all over the table.
Is itmywant or my death’s? The desire to slide over that luminescent smile? To sweep through its brightness, and stain the edges with destruction? The thought of sullying something so pure, of adorning beauty with pain, races through me like the edge of a blade.
“Thank you,” Willa tells Tiernan sincerely. The tips of Tiernan’s ears turn pink, and he nods mutely. Willa’s brow crinkles with something like concern as she watches the boy disappear back into the kitchen. “Do none of your servants speak?” she asks, her suspicion of the sort of man I am made perfectly clear.
