A serpent wraps around my hand, dragging me back down. Twisting, it curls itself around my waist, slithers over my chest, up and up toward my throat, squeezing tight around my neck. Then its tail, worming over my chin, forcing itself in at my lips…
My eyes fling open, and I gasp in humid air, thick with magnolia. Too hot. Too early.
His fingers pause at my lips.
The Emperor.
I kiss them.
Everything crashes down on me.
His hand, wet with my kiss, trails back down my chin, stroking over my chest. “Where were you last night?”
“I was here.” I force a smile, like it was a mad thing for him to have said. His faded blue eyes catch mine sharply. “All night, here by your side,” I insist.
“I don’t remember coming in here.” Pushing himself up, he scans the room like it’s one of his many enemies—like he might have it gruesomely killed on a whim.
The sheet covers his lower half, and I’m thankful for it. That I don’t have to see all of him first thing.
I press up on my arm, rolling over toward him. “You don’t recall? I had training. I came in late, then drank wine with you. Perhaps we had a few too many.” I laugh, but he doesn’t even crack a smile.
He knows.
My heart pounds in my chest, ready for whatever might come next.
I lean a little closer, flexing the muscles he automatically grazes his eyes over. “You were wonderful last night.” Lying my head against his shoulder, kissing his arm, I whisper, “I’m so sore.”
There’s the slightest hint of a smile right at the edge of his lips, but his voice remains cold. “I wish I could recall.”
“You’ll just have to take my word for it. Unless…” I tilt my head, forcing myself to look up into his inhuman eyes. “You’d like a repeat performance?”
He regards me for a time, like a butcher inspecting a stuck pig. “You know I meet with the Senate Thursday mornings.”
Of course I know. And I know the sun’s high in the sky and he has little time to spare. So I lay my head down on his lap and play the flirt. “Do they really need you so badlyeveryThursday? Surely you could miss one.”
He can’t, and he won’t.
The knowledge helps me tolerate the way he runs his flat hand over my pecs, around and around.
I’m going to need a bath.
“What a shame you weren’t so very keen for my company last night.” His words hold a bitter edge, like poisonous pokeberries.
“I am sorry I was late,” I rush out. “It won’t happen again. I had to train them in the forest, and the change to my routine threw me as to which day it was. You know I’d have been here earlier had I realized. I’m always here, am I not?”
“Not the way you once were.”
He may as well have reached into my chest and stopped my heart with his cold, dead fingers. It’s a warning, and I hear it loud and clear.
Rolling onto my stomach, I grasp his hand, pressing his fingers to my lips. “My most sincere apologies, Emperor.”
He holds his hand quite still, assessing me, and I keep my head bowed.
It’s always the way with him.
If I escape one trap, I stumble so easily into the next. You pay one way or another in any deals done with this man. Living is a constant negotiation.
“It would be my honor to wait on you tonight, Emperor.” The words are out before I can stop them.
