Chapter 36 The King and the Gambler
The King and the Gambler
We walk straight through the front door of the gambling house, hoods up.
Inside, the air is warm and loud and alive in a way the palace never is.
Cards slap against wood. Dice clatter. Men curse in three dialects.
He pulls his hood lower; I do the same, though I suspect he is far more recognizable than I am.
We take seats at a crowded table. I lean in and murmur, “You will listen to me.”
“I am King.”
“Exactly.”
He ignores me on the first hand, then the second. By the third, I place my fingers lightly over his wrist before he can commit. “Fold.”
“I do not fold.”
“You do tonight.”
His eyes flash with irritation, and something like delight follows close behind. “You are defiant.”
“I am accurate.”
He plays the hand anyway and loses, the cards hitting the table harder than necessary. I do not gloat, only extend my palm between us.
He exhales through his nose, almost a laugh. “Again.”
This time, he listens. Barely.
When the final card turns, the table groans. The man opposite us swears. I gather the coins calmly and push half into his hand.
“You are relentless,” he mutters.
“And you are stubborn,” I reply.
His expression shifts for a moment. "My brother prefers obedience."
I meet his look. “And I prefer giving it.”
He searches my face. “You enjoy obedience?”
“Yes,” I say quietly. “When it’s earned.”
That silences him.
We leave with heavy pockets and light steps, and I am still laughing when we round the corner and see the boy. He cannot be more than sixteen. Three broad men have him backed against the wall, hands fisted in his collar, demanding coin he clearly does not have.
“Cough it up,” one snarls.
I do not hesitate. I step forward and toss the entire pouch I have just won at their feet.
“All of it,” I say. “Now leave him.”
The largest of them turns slowly. “Mind your fucking business.”
Behind me, I feel the King shift. He is about to step in. I catch his sleeve without looking at him. “I know you like to fight,” I murmur, low enough only he can hear, “but we cannot have you recognized in a gambling house.”
His jaw tightens. “Then what do you suggest?”
“We run.”
The word delights me. I grab his hand and bolt. For a moment he does not move, startled by the audacity of it. Then boots pound behind me, his stride longer, faster, and suddenly we are both laughing again as we turn corners blindly, danger at our heels.
A shout follows us. Then another. We skid into the glow of another street, brighter, noisier, perfumed in a way that tells me exactly where we are before I look up.
The brothel.
Footsteps close in behind us. He pushes me back against the wall just beyond the lantern’s spill, one arm braced above my shoulder as his cloak falls forward, hiding my face from the street.
“Act natural,” he murmurs.
“I am not naturally inclined to whore-dom, Majesty,” I hiss.
His mouth hovers dangerously close to mine. “It is only pretend.”
“Fine.”
A wicked smile spreads across my mouth before I bury my face in his chest and let out an exaggerated moan.
“Mmm, handsome sir, you feel so good.”
Sevrin inhales unevenly. His head drops a fraction closer, his lips parting as the edge of his canines flash before retracting. For a moment the red in his eyes flares brighter, something feral surfacing there before he reins it in.
“You appear… bothered, Majesty.”
A low rumble rolls through his chest. “As I said. You are defiant.”
“This is obedience,” I reply sweetly. “One of my many talents.”
“The noise you just made suggests far too much talent.”
The men thunder past the mouth of the alley, their boots striking the pavement as they chase the fleeing gamblers. None of them glance our way. To them we are nothing more than another couple pressed into the dark.
We remain where we are, too close, his breath brushing my cheek, warm and uneven. My hands stay flat against his chest, his rapid heartbeat pulsing beneath my palms.
He looks down at me. “Prin—”
“Shhh.” I lift a finger and press it lightly to his lips. “I wasn’t finished, Majesty.”
For a moment neither of us moves, the air between us stretched thin with something dangerous and unspoken. Then I lean closer until my mouth brushes the shell of his ear and let a low sound slip against his skin. His entire body shudders.
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it, and I reach into his cloak to pull out his flask triumphantly, taking a quick sip. “Perhaps I should join the theater.”
For the first time since I met him, Sevrin looks dangerously close to losing his composure.
And that is when the brothel door swings open, a red-haired woman stepping out beneath the lantern, black silk slipping low on her shoulders as her attention drifts over him with practiced hunger.
“Care for a feed, handsome?” she asks.
He opens his mouth to refuse.
“I’m sure—”
“Yes,” I say at the same time.
He turns to me. “Yes?” he repeats, one brow lifting.
“I do not require blood to survive,” he says evenly. “Feeders do not weaken without it.”
“Perhaps not,” I say. “But I imagine you still want it.”
His jaw tightens almost imperceptibly.
“And,” I add, softer now, stepping closer, “I am curious. And I would like another excuse to stay out with you.”
“No.”
“But I saved you from the green-haired Thren.”
“I saved you first,” he says dryly. “And ate well, might I add.”
I wave a hand. “Details.”
“The answer is no,” he repeats.
I sigh dramatically. “The night is young and I wish to be entertained.” A spark of interest crosses my face. “Perhaps they sell men who will feed from me instead,” I add, glancing toward the red-headed woman. “Is that an option?”
“Why yes, actually—”
“You will do no such thing,” Sevrin growls. “I will feed.”
He studies me as if weighing the wisdom of this entire night, then gestures for the woman to lead.
Upstairs, the room smells faintly of perfume and old velvet.
The woman reclines against the cushions with easy familiarity, baring her leg without ceremony.
He remains standing for a moment, cloak still on his shoulders, tension threading through him.
“I usually take it from a goblet,” he says quietly, not looking at me. “Most find it garish to witness.
“I won’t,” I say.
His eyes shift to mine. “Cover them.”
I lift both hands obediently over my face.
He moves. I hear the shift of fabric, the slow intake of breath, then the faint sound of skin being pierced.
I peek, just a sliver between my fingers.
He has knelt before her, dark hair falling forward as he lowers his mouth to her thigh. The sight should horrify me. Instead, something inside me hums. I clap my hands over my mouth to stifle a laugh.
His eyes snap up, catching me. “I told you to cover them.”
“I am,” I protest, though I am very clearly not.
“Asharin.”
“I would never hide from this,” I whisper.
The woman exhales softly, hand tangling in his hair. He drinks only briefly, controlled, precise. When he pulls away, there is a faint smear of red at the corner of his mouth. He rises at once.
I move toward him before I can second-guess myself. “Hold still.”
He does, watching me without speaking.
A thin line of blood remains along his lower lip, darker against his skin than it has any right to be. I reach up and brush my thumb gently along his lower lip, wiping the blood away, acutely aware of how close I am standing. “You missed some,” I murmur.
My touch lingers, and his hand closes around my wrist. He does not hurt me, but there is pressure in the grip, a warning contained rather than spoken. He looks at me as though I have become something unfamiliar.
“May I try?” I ask.
Both of them go still.
“You are not a feeder,” he says carefully.
“I know.”
“And you do not understand what you are asking.”
“Then explain it to me,” I reply. “Or let me learn.”
For a moment, I think he will refuse.
Instead, he nods once to the woman, who shifts her leg toward me with a curious smile.
I kneel where he knelt.
The scent is metallic and warm.
He looks almost… uneasy.
I lean in and press my mouth to the small wound, my gaze never wavering from his.
The taste is startling. Salt and iron and heat. Not pleasant, exactly, but vivid in a way wine never is. I draw back slowly. “It is not the flavor,” I say, licking my lip thoughtfully. “It is the pulse. The way it thrums beneath the skin.”
The woman watches me with fascination now. He watches me with something else entirely.
“There is something oddly intimate about it,” I say, rising. “Taking from a body rather than a cup.”
His voice is lower when he speaks. “It is not intimacy. It is sustenance.”
"Whatever it is, I want more," I say softly, and put my lips back on her, drinking more.
“It cannot possibly taste this good from a goblet,” I say when I am finished.
He does not answer.
I study him for another moment, then smile faintly. “If I were married to a feeder,” I say lightly, “he would only be allowed to feed from me.”
One of his brows lifts. “Would he?”
“I am far too possessive to share,” I say. “Why put your mouth to silver when it could be on me?”
“You would be jealous of a goblet?”
“In the right circumstances, perhaps.”
The woman clears her throat gently, a reminder that this is still her room, and he straightens, tossing coin onto the table without looking away from me.
Something in him is no longer arranged the way it was before. The composed king who drinks from polished metal and measured distance has thinned at the edges, and in his place walks a man who looks at me as though I have reached into him and uncovered something he did not intend to expose.
He does not touch me as we descend the stairs, yet he remains close enough that I am constantly aware of him, of the quiet gravity of his presence at my side.
The corridor hums with low conversation and fading laughter, the air thick with perfume and wine, but he moves through it as though none of it exists.
It feels less like restraint and more like control barely reassembled.
Outside, the night has cooled. The streets are darker now, the noise thinned to scattered footsteps and the distant roll of carriage wheels. A pair of men argue softly beneath a balcony. Somewhere, a door slams and is bolted from within. The city feels stripped down to its bones.
When a loose paving stone shifts beneath my slipper and I stumble slightly, he reaches for my elbow without hesitation. His hand closes there, catching me before I can correct myself. He does not release me at once.
“You enjoy provoking me,” he says, his voice low enough that it does not travel beyond us.
“I enjoy seeing what happens,” I reply.
“And what do you think happens?”
“You tell me, Majesty."
His expression shifts. “You are dangerous.”
“That seems unfair,” I say. “You are the one with canines.”
“That is not the danger.”
We pass beneath an archway and the palace towers rise ahead. He releases my arm only when the road widens and the gravel evens beneath our feet, though his hand brushes mine in the process, whether by accident, I cannot tell.
At the gates he slows, and I feel the change before I see it. The distance between us narrows without touch, without command. He turns fully toward me now, and the quiet between us deepens.
“You should not have asked to try,” he says.
“I wanted to.”
His eyes move over my face, measuring, as though reconsidering something he had assumed fixed. “You do not understand what you offered.”
“Then perhaps you should not imagine so much,” I answer lightly, though my pulse is anything but calm.
A muscle shifts in his jaw. For a moment I think he will say more, confess more, forbid more. Instead he steps back, restoring the careful space expected of a king.
“Go,” he says.
I turn and cross through the gates before I can reconsider. The doors close behind me with a low, final sound.
Later, clean and changed, I slip into bed as the palace sinks into uneasy quiet.
My body aches and my mind refuses rest. I stare at the ceiling, replaying the day. The study. The floor beneath my knees. Tamal stepping forward. The Threns. The King. The alleyway. The gambling table. The look on his face when I refused to cover my eyes.
I wonder whether the King is awake as well, replaying it in his mind. Whether he regrets any of it. Whether he tastes like the woman at the brothel, like salt and iron and something dangerously alive.
And Jessamy. Perhaps she is in Colsar’s bed now, laughing. Perhaps he tastes the way she claimed he did. The thought leaves something bitter behind. I turn onto my side and clutch my pendant.
Tomorrow, nothing will be easier.