Oh. Oh, no. Did I lock it? I don’t think so, as desperate as I was.
I scramble out of the tub, glowing water sloshing across the floor as I find my velvet dressing gown and yank it around my sopping shoulders. And only just in time, because the door swings open, Amriel’s silhouette filling the frame.
I stand frozen, my heart taking a flying leap into the back of my mouth.
The fae king steps into my room, his wineglass dangling from his hand. He closes us in without asking, flipping the lock behind him.
“Hello, Princess. I’ve been waiting for you.” A pause. Then a chuckle, stitched together from gravel and smoke and arrogance. “I think maybe you’ve been waiting for me, too.”
Chapter 21
Iback away from Amriel, the pads of my feet sinking into the moss as I try to put space between us. “I haven’t been waiting for you,” I say. “At all.”
A lie. Not only does it taste like one, but the words get twisted on their way out, defying my attempts to shape them into something believable.
Which Amriel must realize, because he laughs again, low and liquid and knowing. His eyes absorb the last flare of twilight from the window, and the glint there looks hungry, almost wild.
A flush climbs my neck as my eyes travel over him, the glass in his hand. “Are you drunk?”
He flings the goblet aside, not bothering to watch where it falls. “Yes. Very. But not on wine, this time.”
Air dives deep in my lungs, my head swimming as I take in his meaning. He starts toward me, his intent clear with every prowling step.
I can’t help it—I retreat further, trying to flee the way my skin comes alive beneath his gaze, the way my whole body quakes with need.
My back hits the stone wall. I pull the collar of my dressing gown up around my throat, but can’t strangle the whimper that emerges.
Amriel keeps coming, aimed like an arrow, like he’s the weapon andI’m the target. Like he’s marked me for destruction. When he gets close, he braces a forearm against the wall overhead, blocking off any hope of escape. And goddess, he’s huge. The room shrinks, or maybe he fills it somehow, all by himself, a defiance of physics I can’t make sense of.
He stares down his cheeks at me. “I hated today,” he says. “I hated every second of it, until dinner. Don’t ever do that to me again.”
“What…” I pull my gown tighter. “What’re you talking about?”
The spark in his eyes burns hotter—not just hunger, I realize, but anger.
“I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. If you were ignoring me or if you’d fallen into a hole somewhere. If you needed me, or if you wanted me to stay away.”
“Oh,” I say, almost managing to sound casual. Almost. “Well, Iwasignoring you, and Ididwant you to stay away.”
His teeth flash. “Careful, Princess. Be very careful about provoking me right now.”
My chin rises of its own accord, a challenge. Adare. Because who does he think he is? “Or what?”
“I think you know what.”
“I don’t.”
“You do. But I’ll say it anyway.” A predatory smile breaks across his face, filled with dimples and the promise of punishment. “Becarefulwhat you say, or I’ll fuck that attitude right out of you. I’m going to fuck you, anyway. Either I can do it angry, or I can do it gentle. Up to you.”
My thoughts implode into a haze of red, my knees weakening as heat pools between my thighs. “I… What?”
“You heard me.”
“Okay, fine, but what if I don’t want that?”
His gaze drops to my mouth. “Then you probably shouldn’t have spent the past hour eye-fucking me at the dinner table.”
A sharp inhale lodges in my throat. “I didn’t…” Then I trail off, because that’s exactly what I was doing.
