He tilts his head. “Is that so?”
He brushes a crumb from the corner of my mouth with his thumb.
Then, to my absolute horror, he lifts his thumb to his lips and sucks it clean, a soft groan escaping him.
I gasp.
His grin widens.
I sit there frozen in place, eyes locked with his—the fierce sapphire blue meeting molten gold veins. I feel it then. That pull. That dangerous gravity. And no matter what I say… I know he’ll still choose me tomorrow.
Because of course he will.
That’s what men like him do. They take what they want, when they want it. And despite everything—despite my refusal—some small, shaking part of me is already bracing for it.
“You still owe me a kiss,” he growls. “Or should I start charging interest?”
“And you still owe me the truth about the second Trial.”
“We have a whole month before the next Trial.”
A whole month?
A whole month I could be preparing—if I wasn’t so stubborn.
“You won’t need the clue until the night of,” he adds, as if sensing my thoughts.
“Great. Then I guess we can both wait,” I retort.
His jaw ticks. “I could make this easier for you, Fire. I could do a lot more—if only you’d let me,” he says, voice like velvet over steel as he leans closer.
“You could make me do a lot of things,” I say softly, matching his tone, offering a smirk of my own. “But if you did,” I continue, “you’d be no better than the monster that brought us here.”
A long silence stretches between us.
His head drops, his gaze no longer boring into me but fixed on the once-again empty plate, his jaw flexing so hard I swear I can hear his teeth grind.
He doesn’t look at me when he steps back, just turns and starts for the door.
At the doorway, he pauses and glances over his shoulder. “Take all the time you need, Fire,” he says quietly. “Luckily for you, I’m a patient man.”
And then he’s gone.
I glance back down at the plate covered in small brown crumbs. This time, it does not replenish itself.
Chapter 19
Velvet Dread
Iwake on Sunday braced for war. For footsteps outside my door. For a summons. For a command delivered with a voice that doesn’t care whether I’m ready.
I dress slowly, deliberately, like someone bracing for impact.
So when the announcement comes that the king has chosen Mariel as his companion, I don’t understand it at first.
Not me. Not Seraphina.
I don’t know which of us is most surprised, especially given the way Seraphina paraded through the halls yesterday afternoon, her laughter loud and laced with wine, her hand looped through the king’s arm like a queen who already won her crown.
