“Your naivety is endearing,” he says.
Like a childis all I hear, and because I am feeling vicious and bitter, I ask: “Attractive?”
Thick fingers wrap around my ankle. “Perhaps.”
I spit up on my tunic. Maxian reaches for me, hauling me to the basin. I clutch the stone counter and get sick again, my legs giving out. He holds me up as I vomit again and again, until there is only stomach acid, and even that I eject.
Footsteps.
“Your Magnificence, are you ill? I saw the—” The voice stops. Carter stands at the threshold with linens and a small vial. His attention lands on us, me hunched over the basin with the king behind me. “Oh planes. I—Avery? I—”
“It’s all right,” Maxian says. “Too much wine.”
“Let me take her off your hands. I’m so sorry that you had to witness—”
“It’s okay, like I said. Leave the towel and fresh shirt.”
Carter doesn’t move. “I…are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m happy to take care of her tonight.” His grip on myhair tightens, my scalp tingling. “After you clean up the vomit in the bedroom, you’re dismissed for the night.”
The valet’s eyes flare with concern, scrutinizing my face. The plane rumbles around us, unsteady territory.Go,I try to convey.Please just go, you’re making it worse.
Carter blinks and the concern is gone, replaced with something else. He glances to his master. “Thank you, my king. This is truly kind. Please feel free to call for me anytime.”
“Of course.”
Fingernails dig into my hip. I hold back my grimace. Carter gives me one last wide-eyed stare before departing. The tension in the plane eases, like a bumpy path now smooth.
“Can you stand for a moment?” Maxian mutters, and I nod.
He crosses the chamber, gathering the items by the door. In the meantime, I splash water on my face, rinse out my mouth. He presses the tonic into my hand, and I uncork the ginger concoction and drink, and my stomach settles. Maxian grabs a small container to the right of the basin and opens it. Inside is a mint paste that I rub across my teeth and spit out. Although my reflection shows a sallow-faced faerie, I feel my strength gathering, head clearing. I just need to stall while I think of a plan.
Until the king stands behind me, his wide torso pressing into my back, and wraps his arms over my chest. His mouth grazes the tip of my ear.
“What did you think of my note?”
I shiver.
He smiles, interpreting it as something else, and then his mouth is descending, hot and wet, along my neck. I tense, my mind emptying. A hand wraps around my throat, tilting me to the side so that he has greater access. It was our position in the boxing ring, when he apologized for Dominik’s bite, the press of his body against mine, his readjustments. Was he hard, even then?
Soumeter.
In the reflection of the looking glass, the bulky male falls onthe female’s throat, the crook of her shoulder. He nips at the skin and the female pales like a statue. The male lifts his head, eyes darkening, grip tightening on her neck, a rough mockery of my grasp on Rose’s throat.
“Your thoughts, Avery.”
Soumeter.Still, the female cannot school her expression this time, her body recoiling, every part closing up.
“Avery,” he growls, his other hand cupping my chin, forcing me to look at him. My chin still aches from how he grabbed it in the library, despite the healed skin. Emotions flash across him like the purple and gray and blues of shadows on a mountain face. “Your thoughts on my note?”
“I want it in writing,” I manage, mouth dry. “If you draw up the contract, I will—” I breathe, a piece of me breaking away like a clod from a riverbank. I can’t think of an escape. No one is coming to help, even if they wanted to. The only plan is survival, and then I will reassess. I can survive this. So I let myself get sucked into the current. I will let myself drown in it, if it means that Benji can reach solid ground.
“You’ll what?”
He has yet to use his Reign magic on me this evening. But that isn’t the point ofsoumeter,is it? He is interested not in reflexive obedience, but rather in the slow and deliberate erosion of my will until it resembles his.
“Draw up the contract,” I say. “And I will draw us a bath.”
