15. Cornered and wounded animals #3
How na?ve of me to think it would matter if I prettied up.
Moments when I actually cared about how this dinner would unfold.
When I thought maybe, just maybe, Maksym and I could get off on the right foot, see some common ground that could carry us through this situation I still hadn’t fully processed.
Foolish indeed.
I wasn’t built for relationship commitments that came willingly, let alone one under circumstances like these, and clearly, neither was Grimmoria’s king.
He let the quiet hang between us for a painfully long moment before he said, “You should find somewhere productive to redirect your temper. Training with Jasper, maybe. You’ll start tomorrow.”
My eyebrows kissed my fucking hairline, and I stared at Maksym’s infuriatingly neutral face. “My temper? That’s where we’re going with this now? First, it’s me—”
The dining room doors gave a soft squeal, and footfalls carried in.
I clamped my mouth shut of my own accord—certainly not because of the shut the fuck up look Maksym cut me—and straightened in my chair.
Two staff, one of whom I was positive had served us during our dinner with the mage, set our first course out. The man exchanged a couple of hushed words with Maksym, who shook his head, before I was alone with the king again.
I would’ve been better off back in that fucking cell.
Maksym didn’t speak another word to me for the rest of our meal, and it left me absolutely fuming. That everything I touched wasn’t steaming was downright shocking.
I tried to sip the broth the king drank down with such ease, but it was hard to appreciate the flavorful mix when I wanted to separate my tablemate’s head from his body.
And as course after course came, my appetite only waned until I couldn’t bring myself to taste our dessert after giving it a poke with my fork.
I realized how ironic it was that only weeks ago, I had come to terms with my fate, being sold off to a different dark fae king, destined to become a breeding mare.
But the feeling stung with an awful freshness all over again.
Maybe it felt worse because in my new chain of events, I had willingly sealed a bargain with a man who decided our first dinner completely alone was best spent wielding accusations, making comments about my anger, and then treating me to silence.
The hopes I’d had of him maybe having some interest in sharing anything about himself with me were dashed. Why would he, when I was clearly just a pawn in some grand scheme he’d never tell me about?
Sure, Maksym made a show of making concessions for me before we sealed our bargain.
He’d even agreed to my reaching ask for other partners, but how much of that would actually come to stand?
From what I understood, the magic of our bargain only pertained to the actual act of our marriage and ensuring the prevention of harm.
Other than the king’s word, I had no real assurance I would ever see what I asked for.
How long before he dictated what I wore, what I ate, where I went?
Or before he supervised my visits to the Keep’s library, dictating what I could and couldn’t learn.
Hell, would anyone even want to risk being with the wife of a king who oozed volatility?
I never thought to ask about the safety of my would-be partners should the circumstances arise.
Clearly, I’d bargained like a goddess-damned fool.
“Come. Let’s get some fresh air,” Maksym said with such abruptness, my fork clattered against my plate as I tensed. “We could both use it.”
The Umbrite bastard pushed back from the table and strode towards the terrace doors without a glance back.
Fresh air? I nearly squawked back.
What I needed was to not be breathing the same air as him anymore.
Slinging back the remnants of my drink in one go, I stood and took a moment to round up every bit of resolve I could. When I had some confidence in my ability to not immediately lose my shit, I trailed after Maksym.
He’d already pulled open the doors when I got there, letting in a cool and humid night breeze.
My blouse and vest were clearly not designed for much warmth, and I had to wrap my arms around myself to stave off some of the cold that lit up goosebumps on my skin.
Maksym, of course, seemed unfazed, in his infuriatingly tailored jacket, as he headed over to the side railing and leaned back against the stone, casting his gaze up at the overcast night sky.
I kept a healthy distance as I took up my post at the railing, leaving several paces between us, and it was a damned good thing I did.
Maksym hadn’t even turned his attention down at me when he asked, “What was your life in Odessa like? You always lived at Caenleigh, right?”
My jaw went slack.
After a long beat of silence, he glanced over, confusion flickering over his sharp features. “What?”
I blinked. “You’re serious?”
At that, he looked even more confused. “That’s why I asked.”
The flare of anger I’d barely smothered came roaring back, and I scoffed.
“I was born out of wedlock to a young, foolish king and an equally young and senseless seer who had taken a vow of celibacy, so my life at Caenleigh was fucked from the start, Your Majesty. My father and nursemaids raised me because my mother was apparently incapable, and she returned to her enclave when I was still a child. No fucking idea if she’s alive or not, because I’ve never heard from her.
My father married a few years later, but she turned out to be a miserable cunt. Treated me like a plague-bearing rat.”
I was going to burn a hole straight through the patio stones with my pacing.
“And let’s see, what else… Oh! When I was sixteen, my best friend, Kieran, left in the middle of the night. Then, the next year, Troy and Linus left too, and Kala died. The year after that, we lost Bryer and Jax in a rockslide, and then, when I was nineteen, I was assaulted by my General, and…”
I stopped my counting of events on my fingers and looked at Maksym, whose horns were glinting in the sparse moonlight as he shook his head.
“Oh, was that not what you wanted to know about my life in Odessa?” I huffed a dry laugh.
“Sorry, let me regale you with a different version. The fortress is lovely, as I’m sure you’ve read in all those books Eilir says you like to read.
Bright and airy, full of light. Nothing like Grimm’s Keep.
Endless halls for my father to chase me down when I was a child and groves in the lower bailey—”
“I’ve upset you with one innocent question,” Maksym interrupted, his voice laden with disbelief.
“One innocent question?” I barked back. “You upset me a fucking hour ago when you couldn’t handle a joke, accused me of wanting to sabotage this,” I waved my bargain-marked palm at him, “and then you didn’t speak a fucking word to me our entire meal, and you wrap it all up by dragging me out here to ask about my goddess-damned childhood? ”
Heat thrummed in my face as the last of my half-shouted tirade tumbled out of my lips, my chill and goosebumps a thing of the distant past.
To his infuriating credit, Maksym sighed and scrubbed his fingers over his brow as he sank back against the stone railing.
After a beat of tense silence, he muttered, “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”
“Clearly,” I scoffed, but I was not done. “So let me lay out something for you, Your Majesty. Or My Liege. Or Max. Or whatever the fuck you want to be called. Okay?”
He shot me a displeased look.
“I realize you know about as little of me as I know of you, but I have a massive, foolish heart, Maksym, and I have a tendency to love with every goddess-damned inch of it, okay? My friends. My family. My lovers. They all get a piece of it, and all I ever ask of them in exchange is to take that little sliver of me that cares about them and looks out for them and treat it with a fraction of respect. That’s it. ”
Maksym still looked wary, but he nodded slowly. “Okay…”
“And what I’m struggling to understand is what you are going to do with the piece of me that is inevitably going to want to care for you and look out for you someday.
I was going to try to get to know you tonight, you know?
See if maybe I could glimpse any of that deep-down goodness Eilir seems to think you have an abundance of.
” I sighed and looked out past the railing, to where the Keep’s grounds were nothing but a sea of dark foliage and pathways lit under struggling moonlight.
“If this lovely interaction is anything to go off of, though, I think you’re going to eviscerate that part of me. ”