Page 244 of Kneel Before Me

His grip tightened on the back of her neck. Maximus was so close to getting what he wanted. He was holding it in his hands. Yet somehow she was still slipping away.

“So you can deny your father’s wishes for me but not for them?”

It took Maximus a moment to realize who she was referring to. The snakes.

What did he expect her to do? He couldn’t just free the basilisks, as much as she might want him to. There would have to be a proper procedure to it—a method that did not incite war. And if he was going to do that, he could not do it without her.

“Daphne,” he said, drawing her even closer. Her brown eyes were wide, staring into his. “This is not about them. I want us to be together. Don’t you?”

She stared back at him, unblinking. His hands were still around her face, his fingers threaded in her hair. He breathed her in, savoring the scent of the sea, suddenly terrified that it was the last time she would let him get close enough to do so. Without thinking, Maximus leaned in. He pressed his lips to her face, tracing her cheek first down toward her mouth, then up to the hollow beneath her eye.

“Daphne.” He clamped his hand underneath her jaw. “You can’t tell me you haven’t imagined a future with me. Tell me you’ve thought about us.”

An eternal moment passed. Maximus was quite sure time had stopped altogether by the time she whispered, “I have.”

She was being honest—he could tell by the way it seemed to pain her to say it.

“If you’ve thought about it, then could we not make a go of it? Could we not try?”

“Max,” she whispered. “You ask too much. This wasn’t part of the deal.”

It hurt even more to hear her call him by his nickname. Once a sign of trust and intimacy, now a barrier between them.

“I know,” he whispered back. “But I must ask anyway.”

She only shook her head. Just that motion was devastating.

“Would it truly be so bad?” he whispered. “Being married to me?”

“You don’t understand. There would be only pain for us.”

Maximus frowned. What didn’t he understand? Was she saying that it was painful to be with him? What he felt right now couldn’t be further from pain. How was it possible that he felt one way and she felt the opposite?

“For the last year, the only person I cared about was my daughter,” he said, desperate to get the words out. “She was all I thought about. But now I think about you. Ever since we met, I cannot stop thinking about you. Pain is the last thing I feel when I’m with you. I love you, Daphne. And I don’t care if you don’t want to hear it.”

She shook her head. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s the truth.”

“No. It isn’t.”

“Of course it is,” he said. “How could it not be? You’re beautiful, Daphne. And funny and caring and everything I could want in a wife. I want you more than any of these other women who are throwing themselves at my feet. I want to know everything about you. I want every moment with you.”

To his dismay, Daphne shook her head again.

Beside them, the basilisk in the closest cell was beginning to act strangely. Somewhere during the course of their conversation, it had opened its eyes, and now it was looking at Daphne intently. Was Maximus imagining it, or was it shifting closer to her? Come to think of it, were they all shifting closer to her? In every cell, all around them, the basilisks were emerging from their stupors, blinking blearily in the dim lighting as they turned toward Daphne.

“Max.” She placed her hands over his, beginning to pull them away from her face. “You only love me because you think you can’t get me.”

Maximus only held on to her tighter. “That’s not true.”

She was completely misunderstanding him. Maximus knew perfectly well what Daphne must think of him—that he was a spoiled prince who had never worked a day in his life, someone who got whatever he wanted, a boy who had everything handed to him. But he wanted Daphne, and she would not be handed to him. He wanted her, and he could not get her. And now, for the first time, it was up to him to do something about it. Maximus had never had to take action before. She was right; everything had been handed to him. But not this. Not her.

A faint noise interrupted his thoughts. The basilisk beside them was lifting its wired hands, its mouth opening. Was it trying to speak?

“Daphne,” Maximus said, glancing at the snake. “Come upstairs. We will finish this in my room. It is more comfortable there. We can have a drink. We can talk.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she said. “Until you promise to free them.”