“Why yes, I do know I’m unbelievable. But thank you so much for making sure I know it. Wouldn’t want someone as fabulous as me to miss sight of my awesomeness.”
“History tells of your legendary beauty ad nauseam, but what it really should have been focused on was your arrogance.”
“My arrogance?”
“Yeah, Velle, your arrogance. It’s so thick I can practically taste it.”
He glared at me then growled fiercely. Had my eyes been closed and had I not been able to smell him, I would have guessed he was a changeling if not an outright animal.
“How the dragonfire do we get out of here?” he snarled, still sounding like he was at least half beast.
My heart thudded again. “Why? I thought we were talking.” What a stupid thing to say.
“We aren’t talking. To talk, you have to take me seriously, and clearly you don’t. So I’m done.”
“Done … with what?”
“You.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means I’ve wasted enough time on you. I have better things to do than go around entertaining the woman so determined to hate me.”
My brows shot up my forehead. “Entertaining? You think you’re entertaining me?”
“No, I really don’t. It doesn’t matter either way. If after doing your damnedest to kill me—and you got a lot closer than most, I’ll admit it—and then realizing you’re wrong about me?—”
“That’s what I’m?—”
He growled some more, barreling over me. “And even after I’ve treated you better than your actions deserve, while my friends give me constant shit over it, like I’m being weak?—”
“Ah, yes, of course. The starve and force into bloodlust treatment. So kind of you.”
Another growl, so beastly this time that the monster deep inside me uncoiled from its slumber and rose, curious.
He closed the distance between us and lowered his head to mine. “By rights, I could have done so much worse.”
My fingers clutched the book I gripped so hard that my nails would leave dents. “By rights? You mean, by the rights granted you by your father, who, by the way, just declared himself emperor. No one agreed. No one wanted him.”
“This isn’t about him. This is about you.”
“No, I’d say this is about us.”
“There is no us.”
“Oh yeah, then why’s your cock growing stiff?”
“My body’s reaction to you doesn’t matter, not anymore. You’re bad for me, bad for everyone I care about, bad for this empire. So how the fuck do we get out of here? I want to know now.”
This was what I wanted. He was supposed to hate me just as much as I hated him. It was the way of the D’Arcos and Rubors, and always had been.
So why did it sting?
Like tumultuous ocean swells, his eyes pummeled me.
I sighed. “I really want to believe you didn’t kill Teo.”
Shit, was that true?
