Chapter 18 #4
As if I hadn’t spoken at all, Maxus trailed a finger over my cheek. “You looked rather content with your pretty king.” His finger reached the corner of my mouth, bright eyes following. “Enamored, even.”
What I wished to say to that was far from wise while stuck in the dark with him. So I just said, softly and trying to catch his gaze, “Can we please talk later?”
“Later,” he repeated. His gaze continued to follow his finger as it traveled over my chin to my throat. “I leave in a few hours, and what I need to do to you requires plenty of time.”
My stomach shrank.
I should have told him that there would be no more secret meetings. That I’d enjoyed our time together, and he should move on. But my chest grew so tight, all I managed was, “Then spend the day in the city at the Rosalain, and I will come to you after sunrise.”
“When, exactly?”
“When I can get away.”
His finger reached my breasts, calluses tickling across the tops. It stopped there as, finally, his eyes met mine. They narrowed, and his jaw clenched.
He knew I was lying.
So I placed a hand on his chest and whispered, “I want to see you.” I didn’t want to, so I would send a letter to the Rosalain—where no one could give it to my father first—and make myself abundantly clear. “But it needs to be more discreet than this.”
He said nothing.
“Max, you know this is dangerous. There are too many people here.”
Knowing exactly what my father was like, and that I was right, he stepped back and exhaled a rough, “Fine.”
A relieved breath trembled free.
“Right after sunrise, Ethel.” As he met the door, he warned, “Or I’ll write to your pretty husband to let him know that he’ll make you come when he stops treating you like a queen. Might even give him some tips.”
Before he could see me glare at him, he was gone.
Fighting the urge to flee through the door he’d left open, I paced in a circle. I needed to wait until he’d long returned to the ballroom. “How fucking stressful.”
Movement caught my eye and halted my feet. A familiar cat crept out from beneath the armoire, then vanished into shadow.
Brey smoothed the lapels of his dress coat. “I’ll say.”
Unable to breathe, to even look at his face, I just stared at his chest. Darkness receded from his form in tendrils that curled around his feet before joining the shadows in the storage room.
Silence stretched.
So much silence, I could hear the strain of violins from the ballroom and the rustle of insect wings deep within the dark. Breath failed to return to my lungs, and my heart pounded too fast, causing my voice to fail.
Though it worsened my guilt, it was best I didn’t speak.
What was there to say? It seemed impossible—attempting to excuse what he’d overheard. Laughable to ask what he had heard. My heart shook when I realized he’d likely witnessed far more than my conversation with Maxus.
He’d probably heard the one I’d had with Clovia, too.
“Nothing?” Brey asked softly. Too softly. “Ethel.” His tone turned mocking. “Come now, I know you can do better than this.”
He was right.
If there was one thing I excelled at, it was evidently mollifying men. Even if only temporarily. Maybe I could tell Brey that I’d been a coward. Maybe I could tell him that I hadn’t been with Maxus since being with him, and I’d naively hoped the made vampire would understand I was done with him.
And maybe he would believe me.
But when I dared to try—when I dared to meet his eyes—the words dissolved into ash on my tongue.
Never had this king been anything other than devastatingly handsome, and to learn that such beauty could become something more, something terrifying, when mixed with fury…
Shock curled my fingers into my skirts.
The utter stillness of his features rendered them otherworldly. He didn’t swallow. He didn’t blink. His clenched jaw didn’t so much as twitch. He didn’t seem to breathe as those green eyes held mine for moments or maybe even minutes.
Then, as if pushed by my building panic, words left me in an unexpected rush. “Brey, I’m not actually going to see him. I only said that so he’d—”
“You may do as you wish.”
“What I wish?” Incredulous, I laughed out, “What I wish is for you to—”
“And so will I.” He added sardonically, “Just as you expected. Wanted, apparently.”
A stone replaced my heart, and it was sinking into my stomach. “I think you’re being a bit dramatic.”
His brows rose high. “Dramatic?”
“Yes, you haven’t even—”
“How’s this for dramatic?” He took a step closer. “Out of all the atrocious things I’ve done, marrying the most insidious woman on this isle is by far the worst.”
My mouth snapped shut.
For agonizing moments, neither of us spoke.
We just stood there. His chest heaved. My breathing quickened and burned. The room seemed to shrink. I wanted to leave. I needed to fix this.
Yet I couldn’t do anything.
“Strange,” Brey murmured, as if to himself. “How someone so beautiful can so suddenly and thoroughly disgust me.”
Those words hit me like a blistering slap, nearly swaying me. Their sincerity shone in his eyes and pulled at his upper lip. I sickened him—what he thought I’d been doing behind his back and just looking at me.
It was then that I knew there was no fixing this. Not right now.
Tears singed my eyes. I lowered them and whispered bitterly, “If there’s nothing else, Majesty…”
“One more thing.” Ice dripped from each word. “You have your own rooms.” He then turned and left me with, “So unless you’d like to see just how dramatic I can be, I would refrain from returning to mine.”
I stared at where he’d stood until I could no longer see through the tears.
When the first one splashed onto my cheek, I quietly closed the door. I slumped against it, then slid down the wood onto the grimy floor, where I stayed until the palace had emptied.