“Then sign the contract, and he will,” Branneth says exasperatedly.
I shake my head. “Not until Auren reviews it.”
The Goblin King sighs heavily in frustration. “This could have all been avoided,” he mutters. “If the two of you had only responded to the summons instead of ignoring them entirely.”
“Perhaps you should not have kidnapped me,” I shoot back.
“What would you have had me do?” he demands. “Wait for the bargain to bind us both to a fate neither of us wants?”
“I would have had you leave me where I was!”
His nostrils flare. “And then we would be standing in this exact same place on your twenty-third birthday, only without the option to end it!”
“I’m going to make you regret keeping me here,” I say, narrowing my eyes.
“I amnotkeeping you here.” A snarl curls his lips. “I amtryingto release you.”
I regard him warily. “Very clever, trying to convince me you want me gone, but I’m not buying it.”
“Nothing about this situation is clever,” he growls low in his throat. “It is intensely annoying, deeply inconvenient, and rapidly testing the limits of my patience.”
Heisrather convincing. My gaze drifts around the room again. The thorny vines are everywhere, not just on the throne beside his—the one meant for his queen. Something about all of this doesn’t make sense. “I assume, from the decor, that you might not have been anticipating taking a queen.”
He goes very still. “You’re very astute,” he replies sarcastically.
Taryx gives him a pitying look, but I don’t understand why.
“Well,” I continue, folding my arms as I study the empty chair, “then surely we can find you some nice Goblin woman to—”
“No.” The word cuts through the room like a knife.
Slowly, I turn my head to look at him. He’s rigid now, his jaw tight and his shoulders tense.
“I will take no queen,” he says, each word controlled to the point of strain.
Something flickers in the air and the vines in the room shift slightly.
“Perhaps she has a point,” Taryx offers. “Rose is gone. Maybe it’s time to move on and let go of the—”
“Leave us!” Branneth snaps at the Incubus. “I have enough problems with this infuriating human right now, I don’t need any more of youradvice.”
“Fine,” Taryx huffs. “I was only trying to help, Bran,” he says as he disappears through a ring of blue smoke.
Well, this just got interesting. I decide to push a little. “Who is Rose?”
His gaze snaps to mine. “No one.”
“That’s not what it sounded like to me,” I press.
His jaw tightens. “You presume too much.”
“Something happened with thisRose, to make you this way,” I venture.
“You know nothing,” he replies, but there’s an edge in his tone that tells me I’m right.
I glance again at the thorns, the empty throne next to his; the way the room itself feels like a wound that never healed. “She broke your heart,” I say quietly.
His expression shutters. “Do not speak of things you do not understand.”
