CHAPTER FOURTEEN #2
I studied him. His amber eyes hadn’t changed; they were still sharp, still reading me the way they always had: peeling back the layers, looking for the seam where Arthur ended and the king began. Once I’d found that comforting. Once I’d told him things I’d never said to another living soul.
That had been a different time, though. A different life.
“The girl,” I said.
Kill him, the dragon piped up. He offends us by his attachment to her.
Something shifted in his face. Just for a second, but it was enough.
“Don’t,” he started.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t touch her.”
I tilted my head. “Touch her. That’s an interesting way to put it.”
“Arthur.” His voice dropped until it was low and flat. It was the voice he used when he meant every word he said. “She’s done nothing that warrants—”
“—she’s done everything that warrants whatever she has coming to her,” I said. “What’s more, she’s my prisoner. That means I do with her whatever I please.”
“She came here because Merlin ordered her to come here.”
I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to hear about the reasons why the witch did what she had. “I don’t care.”
“Arthur, she’s not the enemy you’re making her out to be.”
“Yes, she is. She’s that and more.”
His jaw tightened. The muscle along it jumped twice, then stilled. He wasn’t going to say anything more. Maybe because he was too proud. Or too careful. But he didn’t have to say anything more. I’d already seen the truth the moment I walked in and said her name.
“She’s not your concern,” I said. “She’s mine. My prisoner, my problem, my property until I decide otherwise.”
“She’s not property.”
“Everything in this kingdom is property, Corvin. What’s more: it’s property that’s mine. The fields. The roads. The people who walk them.” I took a step closer to the bars. “The prisoners in my cells. They all belong to me.”
“I won’t let you harm her.”
Something almost like amusement moved through me at that. Well, perhaps not quite amusement since there was a hefty serving of irritation just underneath it.
“You’ll not let me harm her?” I repeated, a smile cresting my lips. “And how precisely do you intend to stop me? From in there?”
He said nothing.
“You know,” I continued, “I wasn’t certain of your feelings toward her at first. I thought perhaps you playing the role of hero was simply your misplaced loyalty to Merlin. Then I wondered if it might be politics or ideology. That’s what I considered, anyway.”
I paused. “But now I realize I was completely wrong.”
I moved closer to the bars. “It had nothing to do with Merlin and everything to do with her.” I watched his face. “Didn’t it?”
He looked at me. Not away. That was always his tell; he held eye contact when he was furious and dropped it when he wasn’t. Right now his eyes didn’t move at all.
“You love her,” I said.
He must die for his insolence! Only we can love our mate!
“That’s none of your—”
“—it changes things.” I let that sit for a moment, let it fill the space between us. “It changes quite a lot, actually.”
“Arthur.” There was something new in his voice now, a warning stripped of all its armor. “I’m telling you right now that if you harm one hair on her head, I will have yours.”
The words landed the way he intended them to. He still knew how to aim a blow. He’d taught me the same, back when we were young, stupid, and believed we were building something that would last.
I looked at him for a long moment, at the man I’d made my closest knight. The man who’d sat at my table, sworn his life to me, and bled at my side. The man who’d then walked away to hand my secrets to my enemies.
The man who, apparently, had fallen in love with a woman who was now in my dungeon.
“You’ll have my head?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.” I clasped my hands behind my back as the rage began to eat me from the inside out. “Perhaps I should bring her down here. Right here. Press her up against these bars.” I watched his face go still. “Force myself inside her, and you can watch.”
“Arthur—”
“—yes, you can watch while she learns exactly what it means to belong to me. And when she’s finished coming apart on my cock and calling out my name, you can carry those images with you. Every single day for the rest of your life, albeit what remains of it.”
I kept my voice even, conversational. “You can think about her shrieks of pleasure every second you have remaining.”
He crossed the cell in two strides and wrapped his hands around the bars.
“You’re a monster,” he said. Quiet. Certain.
“You knew that when you left.”
“The man I knew would never—”
“—the man you knew doesn’t exist any longer.” I held his gaze. “You helped kill him when you walked out of Camelot and handed yourself to Merlin. So whatever you thought I was, whatever mercy you’re expecting from me, you buried it, and you have only yourself to thank.”
His knuckles were white against the iron.
“She has nothing to do with this fight between us,” he said. “This fight that’s been going on for a very long time.”
“She has everything to do with it,” I answered stepping away from the bars. “That’s rather the point.”
The flame on the torch hissed and spat as somewhere beneath us was the sound of dripping water.
“I’ll kill you.”
“So you’ve said... more than once. You’ve grown rather... predictable in your old age.”