The muscles in his jaw moved, and he looked away from me, toward the window. I watched him do something complicated and private with his expression before he turned back.
“For what it’s worth, I didn’t know he was... physically harming you.”
“That’s not worth anything.” I took a breath. “Especially when I’d told you he was beating me.” I took another breath. “You knew but you didn’t care.”
He held my gaze and swallowed hard. “I understand why you would feel that way.” Then he exhaled and turned to face me. “Why didn’t you tell anyone, Tristan or Percival as examples?”
The laugh that came out of me had no humor in it at all. “Because I’m a prisoner.” I stood up and took a few steps toward him. “I’m Merlin’s daughter. I’m a spy. I’m a liar and your enemy. I came here to betray you.” I continued toward him, and he didn’t step back, which surprised me slightly. Finally, I stopped close enough that I had to tilt my chin up to hold his gaze. “Who would care?”
He said nothing.
“Do you?” I asked as I glared up at him. “Honestly, Arthur. Do you care even the slightest?”
-ARTHUR-
She was standing so close to me, maybe a mere inch or so away. And she wasn’t cowering. She was just standing there with her hands loose at her sides and her eyes steady on mine, and something about that stillness made the dragon shift.
Take her. She is ours.
I stepped away from her, needing some air so I could breathe without the fucking dragon’s constant internal dialogue.
“Tell me what happened,” I said with my back turned toward her. I stared at the stone wall for a few seconds before I realized what I was doing and turned back to face her.
“I already told you what happened.”
I crossed the room, but I didn’t do so quickly because I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of urgency. “Tell me again.”
Her jaw tightened; it was just a small thing, a thing she smoothed over quickly, but I caught it, all the same. I caught everything when it came to her, and I hated that about myself.
“He tried to force himself on me, and I defended myself.”
We must destroy him. No man attempts to force himself on our mate and lives.
“That’s not a full account.”
“It’s the only account I have.”
Without realizing it, I’d already walked back toward her and now I stopped, close enough that she had to tip her chin up to hold my gaze, but that didn’t seem to faze her. In fact, I wondered what did faze her. She didn’t flinch, didn’t drop her eyes. From this angle, I could see all the bruises along the space beneath her collarbones. And there were plenty of them. She was crossing her arms over her breasts, and I found myself wondering if Galahad had harmed her there as well. At the thought, my back teeth pressed together.
She hurts,the dragon said.You let this happen. Fix it.
“Why won’t you say it plainly?”
She stood even straighter as she glared up at me. That was the thing about her: she never stayed small when I crowded her. Instead, she stood tall and proud, and the space between us narrowed to nothing.
“Because it wouldn’t matter,” she said. “You’d weigh Galahad’s word against mine, and his word would win. It always wins. That’s how it works in your court.”
“You don’t know how it works in my court.”
“I know more about your court than you’d like to believe.”
The words landed flat and accurate. I didn’t answer them.
Tell her she’s wrong,the dragon said. Its voice was low and insistent, coiling up through my chest.Tell her her word matters. Tell hershematters. Take her into our arms and tell her—
I cleared my throat.
“You stood in front of me on multiple occasions, and yet you said nothing about what he was doing to you.” My own voice came out harder than I intended. “You had every opportunity.”
