“It took me no time to figure out which of you has plucked her.”
The words landed like an arrow straight through his ribs.
He knows.
“I must thank you though…” Xavien grinned. “…for taking care of the hard part for me.” He stopped squarely in front of Viktor. “I hate it when the maidens cry.”
His eyes darkened. His voice rose.
“Now I can unleash the elven deviant waiting to erupt out of that halfling’s bosom.”
The words clawed at Viktor’s restraint, tore at it—but still he did not move. He let the silence stretch, let it choke. His ice-blue eyes pinned the prince like a blade point pressed to the throat.
“Ah,” Xavien breathed. “Youloveher.”
Viktor did not answer. He could not. The truth was a fire in his blood, too fierce to name, too dangerous to admit. His silence was the only shield he had left.
Xavien’s voice dipped to a whisper, cutting.
“But you saw it, too. The look on her face when she first beheld me. She was… relieved.”
He raised his chin.
“You see, I was but seventeen when my father bound me to the princess of Gearíya.”
His mouth curved wicked.
“I am not so much older than you, High-Captain.”
Viktor broke his stare, shifting only to the window ahead. The prisms warped his reflection, but he could feel Amerei beyond, watching him.
She cannot see me break. Not here. Not for him.
Xavien’s tone turned venomous.
“I will have her. She will be my queen, and we will rule the realm. Amerei’s blood may be tainted, but I will see the next heir born clean.”
Her children will be human, princeling. And they will be mine.
Xavien moved closer, his shoulder brushing Viktor’s.
“She didn’t tremble at my touch, Viktor. I can still feel the weight of her hand upon my chest.”
Viktor’s fists clenched behind his back, leather groaning.
Fury coiled, begging release.
But he did not yield it.
Not yet.
His gaze fixed on the glass, fixed on Amerei’s unseen heartbeat, then shifted back to Xavien with the weight of a gauntlet thrown.
“Then she is already a queen.”
His breath iced. A shadow stirred at the edges of him, darker than any crown, any throne.
“She won your allegiance with my love still inside her.”
