The dragon noticed. Of course, it did.
OURS,it said in a growl, the word low and immediate, now rising through my chest like smoke.
I ignored it because I’d come here for a purpose: to prove to the fucking thing that I was its keeper, that I was in charge, that no matter what happened, I was the one pulling the strings. And I always would be.
Corvin’s arms came up around her automatically, then stopped. His chin was over her shoulder, but his eyes were on me. He hadn’t fully embraced her in return, not entirely anyway, because he was currently stuck on the question known as:why?As such, he watched my face, then began reading the angle of my shoulders, trying to work out what I was doing and what it was going to cost him.
I stepped inside the cell and closed the door behind the three of us. The click of the mechanism was very loud.
SHE TURNS TO HIM AND NOT TO US!The dragon’s attention pressed against the inside of my skull, dense and hot as a coal.END HIM!
You are not in charge,I thought back.And now you will learn that lesson.
I set the key in my breast pocket and crossed my arms.
The dragon could want whatever it wanted. That was the point. I’d come here to demonstrate something, to the beast and to myself, to stand in the same room as the woman it coveted and feel the wanting claw at me. But I would hold still anyway, to prove the crown sat onmyhead and not on the dragon’s.
That was all this was: an ultimate example of my own control, my own power over the beast within me. And if there was some part of me that was taking extreme glee at what I knew would be the dragon’s complete and utter despair, well, that was all part of the game.
Corvin stepped back from her gently, putting himself between her and me with a casualness that wasn’t casual at all.
“What is the point—” he started.
“—I’m not the tyrant you think I am.” I kept my voice even as a smile lit my lips. “Perhaps you could, instead, consider me a benevolent king.”
“Arthur—”
“—I’m giving you the one thing you came here for.”
He watched me.
“Which is what?”
I lifted my hand and pointed past him. “Her.”
Silence.
Corvin looked at me for a long moment, and the torchlight put shadows under his cheekbones, making him look older. He shook his head slowly.
“I don’t understand.”
“She’s yours,” I said again with a shrug as if it were completely obvious. “Consider this a gift from your king.”
“Arthur.”
When I spoke next, I kept my voice pleasant, conversational. “You made quite a production of it: riding to Camelot, breaking through my wards, and smuggling her out underneath my nose.”I tilted my head. “You went to extraordinary lengths for her. So now she’s yours. I’m simply formalizing the arrangement.”
“That’s not—”
“—Fuck her, Corvin.”
The silence that followed was very complete.
SHE IS OURS!the dragon roared, and the words seemed to shake my entire body.YOU DISHONOR WHAT IS OURS!
I just laughed at it.
But the dragon pushed back; it pressed against the walls of my ribs like something trying to split bone. I felt its rage as a white heat behind my eyes and a trembling in the tendons of my hands that I controlled by sheer force of will alone.
