Page 138 of Queen of Nothing

It is light and lazy, and he shakes his head slightly. “As naïve as ever.” He scoffs, and it’s pure mockery. “Do you really believe that all aristos men are entirely faithful?”

“My father would never—”

“No, he would not.” Dray agrees, that smile lingering as he takes a step towards me, and that closes half the distance between us.

My neck cranes and I look up at him.

The tears in my eyes blur him, but I don’t sob or double over, or give into these expectations of theatrics and tantrums—like they all think of me.

A dullness has taken over me.

Dray takes another step closer.

His Oxfords glint in the firelight.

He says, “Fidelity is a pretty ribbon we wrap around arranged marriages—so witches like you can stomach it easier.”

Slowly, he lowers to a crouch in front of me.

The mocking glint in his eyes is matched by the small curve of his mouth. “Are you asking for my fidelity, Olivia?”

“You say you don’t love me,” I start with a snivel, “but then why did you say you once did.”

He did. Thought I was passed out and didn’t hear him, wouldn’t remember.

But I remember, I just bury it all.

Dray’s upper lip twitches.

A darkness settles over him.

The shadows stretch over his smooth complexion, and all I can think is how menacing he looks.

“The delusions of a child,” he dismisses it so easily. “And your delusion lies in your expectations.”

I wipe at my wet cheek, at the silent tears he pays no attention to. “If you don’t love me, why are you so obsessed with having me?”

He reaches out for me, fingertips brushing along the shinbone of my leg.

“You are the right choice,” he says—and he says it so factually, so unemotionally, that it twists a knife in my chest. “You are the Craven daughter. You are a deadblood—and, as it turns out,” he adds, lifting his sharp eyes to mine, “those witches create some powerful offspring.”

I scoff and try to tug my shin closer to my body, out of his reach, but it’s no use. I’m already too tucked up against the window.

I snivel. “So all those years of torment at Bluestone were for nothing?”

Dray’s touch ghosts down my leg to the bunched-up material of my sock. “In retrospect, I might have made different choices if I had known what would be.”

I tug my leg aside. “That’s a crappy apology.”

The move gives him an opening—and my heart jolts inside of me, because Dray’s hand pushes between my squeezed thighs.

His dangerous gaze levels with mine. “It isn’t one.”

I clamp my legs shut against the intrusion. Outrage flares in my eyes, the sudden tension clenching my jaw.

But Dray’s fingers tighten around the meat of my thigh, a hearty grip that I don’t think he has any intention of releasing.

A breath shudders out of me.