Maeve shook her head.
“Would you have preferred I order you to stop consuming them?”
“Yes,” snapped Maeve. “At least there would have been honesty in that. And I want them back.”
Mal relaxed as his brows raised. “Honesty?” he began, ignoring her demand a second time. “Is that what we are being with one another? Don’t even begin to answer that. I am afraid your infuriating response will conjure anger I work endlessly to tame.”
“You had no right to do that,” she pressed him. “Just to play hero and make me better—”
“Don’t start lying to yourself now,” said Mal darkly. “I meant what I said. I needed to see your mind clearly.”
“Why?”
“Why?” he repeated, almost mocking. He scowled at her despite her fragile state. Mal’s chest rose and fell. “Those potions muddle your mind. They make you pathetically weak.”
“They are meant to. I cannot grasp reality without them.”
“And you are certain what is reality and what is not? Who is to say what is in your mind is not a reality itself? Did I not show you just how far from reality what you cling to is?”
Maeve shook her head in disbelief. “Stop,” she said, her voice shaking. She turned from him and made for the door. “I have gone down this road before. I have been on the brink of madness in my own mind, doubting my own thoughts, and you will not pull me back there.”
Darkness swirled before her as Mal appeared in her path, stalking her backward. “I will drag you to the depths of hell if that’s where the truth lies.”
“Stay out of my mind,” she warned, countering his steps as he closed the space between them.
Mal shook his head. “If only I could get there to begin with. I thought removing the potions would allow me access. But no. I had to force-feed you memories in your vulnerable moments just to get through to you. Reading your thoughts has been the first failure I’ve experienced in quite some time. You alone seem to be immune to my persuasion.”
“Poor thing,” said Maeve with a scowl as she collided with the tall back of an armchair.
The corners of his lips pulled up as he trapped her.
“I enjoy the thought of watching you fight,” he said. “It’s so. . .refreshing.” His eyes dipped down to her two fingers, pulling together tightly at her side. “You’d strike your sworn Prince?”
“I thought you wanted to watch me fight,” she challenged back.
Mal hummed in agreement. He moved away from her, crossing back to his desk. “I’m not sorry for doing what was needed. You needed to see the severity of what has been lost in your mind. And before you say the words again—no, you cannot have them back.”
“I need them,” she argued, hating the desperation in her voice.
Mal leaned back in the black leather chair. “No. You want them.”
Maeve crossed the space between them, placing her hands on his desk and bending towards him with pleading eyes. He scanned her face and spoke softly.
“You’d rather remain in ignorant bliss than remember the true nature of your father’s death? You’d rather go back to liquid lies and never question why you forgot it in the first place?”
Silent tears streamed down her face. Mal lifted his hand with slow confidence, wiping away each one. “One of us has to make the hard decisions, Maeve. I don’t care about the consequences. I will have answers.”
She shook her head, her knees giving way beneath her as she kneeled before his desk, her wet cheek now flush with the wood. Mal’s thumb moved across her cheek. His paralyzing green eyes danced with flecks of brown and hazel. She’d never noticed that before. No. They had never been so very hazel before.
“Such pretty eyes, even if they aren’t yours,” he remarked.
His thumb stilled. Maeve’s stomach rolled as a monumental shift in Magic swept over them. His jaw clenched, fingers tensing against her skin. Maeve froze, unable to look away as his eyes flooded green, saturating and overtaking each fleck of brown.
She pulled away from the desk, rising cautiously as the foreign Magic lingered. Mal’s head rolled back, and with a sigh bordering on ecstasy, the Magic lifted. He leaned back in his chair, suddenly looking exhausted, and looked up at her with hollow features.
No flicker of flirtation or enjoyment. Just tired eyes.
“Go,” he said, clipped and strained.
