Page 103 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

I followed her into the bedroom just in time to see Nyx sprawl across our bed—our very large bed, but not large enough for a dragon and two people. The beast stretched luxuriously, her wings unfurling to touch the walls before settling back against her sides. Her bulk took up nearly the entire surface, leaving room for maybe one small person to squeeze in beside her.

The message couldn’t have been clearer if Arabella had painted it on the wall in blood.

“Off,” I commanded, pointing to the floor.

Nyx opened one silver eye, regarded me with reptilian disdain, then closed it again. A low growl rumbled from her throat as she sank deeper into the pillows, her claws shredding the silk with deliberate malice. The same silk sheets I’d been hoping, in my more optimistic fantasies, to share only with Arabella tonight.

The beast mocks you, as does its mistress.

I rubbed the runes along my collarbone as a wave of frustration washed through me. Everything felt louder than usual—my still-lingering headache from a day spent planning a complicated ley line ritual, the rustle of Nyx’s wings, the faint rush of blood in my ears. If I closed my eyes, the new swirl of half words in my skull threatened to drown out my own thoughts. I tried to focus on the sound of my breathing.

“Arabella, about last night—”

She turned to face me, arms crossed. The soft glow from the enchanted lamps caught in her golden hair, creating a halo effect that belied the steel in her gaze. “Don’t say it unless you actually mean it.”

I did mean it. Mostly. The part of me that wasn’t still seething with frustration, that wasn’t being needled by the dark whispers, genuinely regretted my actions.

“I shouldn’t have tried to compel you,” I said, the words coming out stiffer than I’d intended. “It was… inappropriate.”

Arabella’s eyebrows rose. “Inappropriate?”

“What would you prefer I call it?” I snapped, then immediately regretted it. This wasn’t going well.

“I’d prefer you understand what you did,” she hissed. “You were ready to rip Pip apart for betraying Skyspire, but you don’t see how you betrayed me?”

I ran a hand through my hair, tugging at the roots in frustration. “It’s not the same thing.”

“Isn’t it?” She stepped closer, her hazel eyes flashing. “You used your power against me, Kaz.”

Arabella’s resistance to my dominion magic was one of the first things that had intrigued me about her. Trying to use my compulsion on her was a low, dirty trick I hadn’t attempted since the day we’d met. It was a fundamental violation of the strange, unspoken terms of our truce, our partnership, our… whatever this was.

The whisper grew louder. I pressed my fingers to my temples, trying to focus. A corner of my thoughts insisted I should just double down, push her to forgive me, reclaim the upper hand.

Another, darker voice whispered that she was the one who should be begging me. The violent hiss of that second voice startled me.

“I was trying to protect you,” I said, the excuse sounding hollow even to my own ears.

“From a sixteen-year-old boy who might not even have been there?” She yanked the braid loose from her hair with enough force to make me wince. “Or were you protecting your ego from the possibility that Pip got away?”

“Fine,” I conceded. “I wanted to catch him. He betrayed us, Arabella. He let the Hero’s Guild into our home. Sims died because of him.”

“And I wanted to help you catch him!” She took a step toward me and pointed her finger at my chest. “But instead of treating me like a partner, you tried to force me to stay behind like a child.”

I had no good answer for that. She was right. In that moment of rage and fear—fear that Pip would escape, fear that Arabella might be hurt—I had reached for the easiest solution. Control. Dominance. The very things I’d sworn I wouldn’t use against her.

How dare she question you.

“Kazimir, you commanded your shadow warriors to watch over me like I was some prized jewel.”

“You are prized,” I snapped, voice rising despite myself. The shadowy voice inside my head hissed encouragement. “Don’t you get that? Why do you think I’m with you?”

“Why are you with me?” she asked.

The question caught me off guard. “Why am I—”

“Why are you with me, Kaz, and not some vapid princess?”

I blinked, momentarily thrown. I thought back to that day months ago when I’d chosen her from a stack of candidates. A simple sketch had captured something in her expression—mischief dancing at the corners of her mouth, intelligence burning in her eyes. The reports of her setting suitors on fire had sealed the deal.