“Tell me.” I kept my voice easy, almost curious. “Have you fucked her?”
IF HE HAS TASTED OUR TREASURE, WE SHALL BURN HIM IN DRAGON FIRE!
A muscle jumped beneath his cheekbone, but he said nothing, just continued to glare at me. So I hit him again. This time, my fist caught him below the ribs, short and precise, driving the air from his lungs in one sudden expulsion. He bent forward, one sharp hitch of movement, and the two knights had to steady him. He took three seconds to get his breath back, and when he straightened, the look he gave me had finally changed. The careful neutrality was gone, and in its place was absolute hatred.
Good. I preferred honest anger to diplomacy.
“Answer the fucking question.”
“No,” he said.
The word came out rough because he was still recovering from the blow to his gut, and as well he should; I hadn’t gone easy on him.
“No,” I repeated, nodding slowly. “No, you haven’t fucked her.” I stepped back, giving him a little room. Then I looked at her, at the way she was standing there, just glaring at me. I let the silence stretch until it had some weight to it, then I looked at Corvin once more. “But you want to.”
He said nothing, but that was answer enough. I laughed, and the sound came out genuine, which surprised me.
“Of course you want to.” I shook my head as my entire body echoed the laugh that was still leaving my lips. “Gods help you,Corvin. Gods help every man in this fucking room because we all want to fuck her.”
I walked over to her then and grabbed a fistful of her hair, not gently and not slowly. My fingers closed around a handful at the nape of her neck, and I pulled her forward with the kind of grip that didn’t ask for permission. She came with it because she had no choice.
Lance made a sound that was short and cut off. I caught it in my periphery, and I also caught the way the color left his face, the way his throat worked, his eyes cutting sideways to Agravaine and Tristan and then away. He was anxious about what would happen next. And I couldn’t blame him for it. I couldn’t blame him because I understood his feelings. We’d all cared for Lioran in our own ways, some of us more than others. And Lance had taken Lioran under his wing, just as I had. It wasn’t an easy thing to stop caring for someone, even when that someone was revealed to be a liar and a spy, an enemy. So, yes, even though I noticed Lance’s apparent concern over my treatment of her, I didn’t blame him entirely for it.
Agravaine wasn’t concerned, though. Not at all. In fact, he appeared to be fairly jubilant in my rough treatment of her, barely bothering to mask it. His pale green eyes were bright with glee, the kind of bright that had nothing generous in it. It was the satisfaction of a man watching someone else’s humiliation and finding it inordinately delicious.
And Tristan? I couldn’t read Tristan’s expression. He just stood there, as blankly as a page.
I thrust the white-haired witch forward so she was standing directly in front of Corvin. Close enough that if he’d had his hands free, he could have touched her. I kept my grip in her hair and tilted her head back at an angle so Corvin had no choice but to look at her face.
“Someone has fucked her,” I said.
My voice was easy. Conversational.
“She won’t say who.” I looked into Corvin’s eyes and watched them. “Mind you, her king has asked her. Not once. More than once. But she won’t tell me the fucking truth.”
I glanced down at her.
She was looking straight ahead. Not at me and not at Corvin. But at something in the middle distance, her jaw set, her breathing controlled.
“If you won’t tell me, then tell him,” I said.
Nothing.
“Tell him who it was that took your innocence.”
That was the moment she chose to look at me, as much as she was able to turn her neck while my fist was still stuck in her hair.
“It’s none of your fucking business.”
Her words came out level, without any tremor and without any heat. It was just a flat, clean statement.
I released that fistful of hair at the same time that my other hand connected with her cheek. The crack of it was loud, and her head went sideways. She nearly fell against me and instead had to stabilize herself against the rail of the bed.
STOP! YOU WILL NOT HARM HER!
The dragon’s anger and its voice exploded inside me. Suddenly, pain cracked against my ribs like the dragon had punched me from the inside, and the tattoo moved,writhed, a slow horrific ripple across my chest and up my spine. I had to catch my breath and could feel the weight of all the eyes in the room on me.
I smiled because the dragon couldn’t do a thing to stop me from doing whatever the fuck I wanted to do to her. Yes, it could momentarily cause pain within me, but that pain was fleeting. In truth, there wasn’t a fucking thing it could do to stop me. I could harm her however I wanted, and the fucking dragon could onlystand there and watch. Yes, it could try to overcome me, but I’d already proven I could fight it back. I could hold it if I needed to.
