“I am.”
Opening my eyes, I gaze up at his square jaw, those deadly lavender eyes.
“I said that out loud, didn’t I?”
The corner of his mouth quirks up. “What did you mean by it?”
My fingers trace his full lips. “You enjoy being king?”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“Then why is it not enough?”
His expression falters, brows knitting. A small voice in the back of my mind screams for me to stop, but my tongue feels loose, my thoughts spinning away.
Why must you be the center ofmyworld? You are already the center of everything else.
My body sinks into a soft mattress. My eyes fly open—I had not known they had closed—and I take in Maxian’s broad shoulders above me, blocking out the light. Beneath him in his bed, I understand now. He cannot forget what I did last time I was here, and so he must find a way to paper over it with other memories. Does it keep him up at night? If I weren’t beneath the royal now, this thought would satisfy me. No, instead, anxiety ripples my body. This isn’t a seduction for him, not even dominance. This is revenge. This is him reclaiming the control I stole.
I shudder. Maxian brushes a thumb along my temple, shifting hair from my eyes.
“Are you cold?” he asks, his weight descending across my stomach, but it’s too much. It presses on the churning acid. Sweat breaks along my back, my vision blurring. No. No, I—
“I’m going to be—”
Maxian leaps back as I lurch over the mattress and vomit. He swears. My body pitches forward again, and a strong arm bands around my waist. More vomit and spittle drip from my mouth, my throat and nose burning.
“Fuck,” he grunts, and then he’s snapping his fingers. “Fuck.”
A groan tumbles out of me as the king pulls back my hair. My breath is shaky, eyes welling.
“Don’t worry about the floors,” he says. “Someone else will clean it up; another faerie is on their way.”
The last scrap of my control unravels.
I sob.
Great, heaving gasps, my face heating, twisting, wet with snot and tears and spit. It is not delicate. It is ugly and wretched and unstoppable.
The king swears again, lifting hair off my neck.
“It’s okay,” he whispers. “It’s okay, you’re not in trouble.”
I sob harder.
Maxian gathers me into his arms once more, pressing me against his chest, and we are moving across the apartments. Weenter the echoing ceramic bathing chamber. As I pull my head back, I catch sight of us in the looking glass: the golden hero holding his maiden. A faerie shattered only for the sake of his saving.
The king sets me down on a bench, a basin carved from stone to my left, and in front of me an empty inlaid pool, glinting sienna tiles. Lila was right; it is halved by a great jagged wall like the one in the Salon of Stars.
Maxian kneels before me and unties my shoe. I lean against the wall, breathing through the queasiness, as his warm, soft hands roll down my socks and clasp my bare heels.
“I always forget how strong fae wine is, especially for faeries.” He looks up at me. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
It hurts, how beautiful and monstrous he is.
“I wanted to impress you.”
He huffs a laugh.
