“Here?” His brows lift in feigned innocence. “In my own palace, you mean?”
I grit my teeth, my agitation rising in a hot rush. The loneliness, the anger, the betrayal. It only takes a few words from him to release them from where I’ve locked them. “You abandoned the Lunaedon same as you left everything else. It grieved your death as we all did, and I don’t think it would appreciate you pretending like that never happened.”
Now, it’s Niko’s jaw that tenses, but rather than responding, he rises from the piano bench and steps toward me. I’ve somehow forgotten how tall he is; forgotten how his lithe movements demand the attention of my gaze, how his mere existence draws the air from every room.
“What are you doing here?” I ask again, planting my feet as he approaches, my body rising to attention.
“Our conversation got cut short the other day,” he drawls, the obsidian of his eyes devouring every bit of starlight pouring in through the windows. “I thought we should finish it.”
“Cut short?” I repeat incredulously, throwing my hands on my hips. “You tossed me in alake!”
Niko waves the sentiment off, as if him tying me up and nearly drowning me is neither here nor there. “You can swim,” he replies as if that settles the matter.
Niko’s presence is a shock to my system, a jolt of unexpected adrenaline sizzling through my veins. Everything suddenly feels too sensitive, like both my skin and soul are raw and exposed. I cross my arms over my chest in hopes of settling the race of my heart, but it only serves to heighten my awareness of the way my breasts are now pressed high together; aware of the fractional way my nightgown rides up the tops of my thighs.
The air turns thick in my mouth; grows stiflingly hot against my skin. “I don’t have the energy for a fight.”
Niko’s eyes narrow on me, his gaze suddenly as lethal as the ribbons swimming above his head. “And why is that?”
“Hmm, I wonder,” I snap in mocking. “Maybe it’s because I just spent half the night burying your ex in the front lawn.”
Niko’s death stills around him, his expression one of mild interest. “Wendy?”
“Do you have other lovers running around the island I should know about?” I snipe sardonically. He opens his mouth to reply, but I cut him off with a hot glare. “Yes,Wendy.Pan stabbed her through the heart. She’s—she’s dead.”
I don’t know what I expect from Niko—remorse, maybe, as he claimed to have loved her once. But those obsidian eyes contain no pity, no regret; only the same fervent determination he’salways lived by that allows him to cut down anything standing in his way.
Wendy. Me.
Neither of us have ever mattered to the Carrion King the way this goddamn island does.
“Dead…” he muses, his gaze calculating. “By Pan’s hand?” He lets out a rueful laugh, dragging a hand through his hair. “It would seem fate has an even darker sense of humor than I do.”
I dig my nails into my palms to keep from clawing that irreverence from his face. “Youtruly have no guilt, do you?”
He tilts his head like I’ve said something amusing, and white-hot rage courses through me. “I told you on our first morning together…” Niko grins. “Guilt is for the provincial.”
“You’re the one who forced her back here!” I grit out, my voice near-trembling with anger. “You’re the reason she’s dead, Niko, and you don’t even care.”
“On the contrary, I care deeply,” he replies, fingering a ribbon absently, “as her death is far more meaningful to me than her life could have ever been.”
“You’re a selfish prick.” I shake my head in fury. “You don’t care about anything but your own goals and you—” My voice breaks. “—and you never have.”
Niko’s gaze is unrelenting. “My selfishness spoke to you once upon a time.”
The reminder curls through the air along with his death, the silky ribbons reaching for me like I’ve beckoned them home. I catch myself leaning toward them—catch myselfachingfor the relieved silence of their presence—and stiffen.
Niko used me to save his kingdom, and then he used Wendy to return to it. If I allow him even an inch between the plates of my armor, this time will be no different. He’ll crawl between weaknesses, fit himself into the deepest parts of me. He’ll moldmy heart to his liking, and then he’ll wield it like a weapon until he gets what he’s after.
I raise my chin. “Are you here to take back the kingdom tonight?”
“Are you going to let me, Darling?” The question is low and taunting; a challenge that laces through me just as surely as his presence.
“No.”
I don’t know whether I mean it, or whether I only say it to piss Niko off. But instead of anger, something like relief flashes over his expression, gone as quickly as it appears. He takes two more steps toward me, running a suggestive finger along the sleek surface of the piano. His eyes devour every bit of light in the room, and as he watches me, it feels like they’ll devour me too.
His reply is a seductive whisper. “And why not?”
