Page 117 of A Requiem of Fire and Ice

“And?” Prince Reen laughs. “I enjoy pissing you off.”

I twitch a brow.

“But most importantly, this is what I find fuckable.” He pokes my forehead. “Your mind attracted me to you. Your approach, problem-solving, and perception. It’s also what’s keeping you alive.”

“Reen…”

“Astin told me you freaked out when you looked at yourself in the mirror. You are afraid of mirrors,” he says, causing the air to sharpen when I inhale. “I figured it out while hunting you, but confirmed it from our time together.”

“How?”

“There’s a mirror in your apartment covered by a towel, and when I entered the room you hired on the ship toward The Kingdom of Storm, the floor-to-wall mirror had a sheet covering it. And here, in this room, there’s a towel covering the mirror.” His finger moves down my face until he cups my cheek. “And since hanging with you, I notice you don’t look at your reflection in windows. Everything your eyes landed on was on something so that you could ignore your appearance.”

“And to think I could hide at least one thing about me from my hunter,” I say.

“Can I try something?”

I furrow my brow. “No.”

He smiles crookedly. “I shouldn’t have asked. So…do you trust I won’t do anything to hurt you before our fate at the arena?”

I open my mouth, but hesitate. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I say, “Yes. I trust you.”

Prince Reen’s smile turns wicked. “You really shouldn’t have said that, Pandora. However, since you have, I would like you to come to my room tonight after the function. I have something to show you.”

I frown. “Can I take back my words?”

“No.” He pokes my head. “Not until you see it for yourself.”

I glare at him. “It’s not a vibrator or anything.”

Prince Reen sighs. “You fucking ruin everything, Pandora.” He turns toward the door, raises his hand, and waves. “We leave at seven tonight. Make sure you’re ready before then. And if you aren’t good at makeup, Alad will touch you up. He’s more excited than I am over this.”

“Why?”

“He believes that the more time I spend with you, the less inclined I will be to kill you.”

“Is it working?”

He laughs. “I would be lying if I said it didn’t, but I believe there’s a twenty percent chance I will hesitate. Higher now. It’s leaning in your favour. If I hesitate, you can gain your freedom. You still want your freedom, right?”

“Yes.”

His fingers tap against his jeans. “You wouldn’t reconsider becoming a Knight of Eraminia.”

My throat tightens. “I don’t want to fight anymore, Reen. Nor do I want to sit in the darkness and rot for the rest of my life.”

Prince Reen turns to face me, a strained smile on his face. “I knew you were going to say that. So, that only leaves our other option. One of us must die because no matter how much I’m attracted to you, my urges are stronger than my feelings. I’m sorry.”

I take a deep breath. “Don’t be. I knew from the start. This is what I want, and you’re playing along with it. It shouldn’t hurt when I kill you.”

“If only I had told you to stay that night…maybe things would have ended differently.”

My throat constricts, and there’s a burning behind my eyes and a sense of stuffiness clogging my nose. Memories of when my hands were on his wound and how I cared for him when he was injured flood back to me. If only I had told him my real name, and instead of following my dad and King Ragan, I had sat with him. Where would we be now, and what would have changed?

“Maybe we would have left this political world behind us,” I say, tears slipping down my cheeks.

The forcefulness of his smile breaks me. Concealing pain behind his red eyes, he opens the door and walks away. I expected him to speak, but he didn’t—not even a glimmer of hope.