Page 42 of How to Claim A Shadow King

Lila's sweet smile grows larger. "I'm happy to hear that, Aveline.” She leans in. “And if I can give you some advice..."

Annoyance starts to creep through me.

I'm tired of being given advice about magic.

"...if I were you, I'd start with the honey chamomile lychee tea. It's light, and it will go really nicely with some of the lunch offerings that we have today. And then, if you would like something to warm you up before you leave again, I think perhaps a spicier brew would suit."

She smiles at me, and I feel like an ass for assuming she'd be giving me advice on magic and not on what I'd asked about to eat.

"We'll have one of everything," Malakai announces.

"What?" I ask, confused. "What do you mean? We just ordered tea."

Lila smiles at him. "Do you mean food? Because she's hungry?" she clarifies.

"Exactly." He nods. "My bride-to-be needs as much food as you can give her."

I sigh, annoyed, expecting Lila to push back, to say that one of everything is too much food. But she just smiles at me broadly.

"I like a man who takes care of his woman," she tells me slyly before floating away, leaving us alone behind the curtain of vines and lilac flowers.

"Why are you angry with me, Aveline, so suddenly?"

I sigh, most of my anger almost immediately deflating. "I'm not.”

"Then why do you punish me with silence and frowns?" He sounds so forlorn that it irritates me again, because how does he not know why I'm upset?

I turn to him, trying to keep my cool as I was trained to do in volatile situations in court. "One simply does not banish people and make them disappear with our shadows," I tell him, using the kind of voice I would use with a small child when they disobeyed.

"I didn't make him disappear," Malakai says, looking confused and slightly amused, which annoys me even more.

"It certainly looked banished to me," I say. "You stole that man's horse."

"He wanted to take you from me."

I swallow, because he's not wrong about that.

"Would you have preferred if I let him beat that horse and take you as well?"

"Of course not," I scoff, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Then what would you have me do, Aveline?"

"Well, where did you send him if you didn't banish him?" I ask.

"Back to his home. About four cities away, judging by the sign on his cart."

"You sent him back home?" I repeat. "You didn't..." I pause, trying to figure out a more delicate way to ask if he had killed him or not. “You didn’t kill him?”

Well, that wasn’t delicate at all.

"I can, if you would like me to," he says, steepling his hands on the table. They’re large, and calloused, as though this Shadow King has held a sword more than once.

“Would you like me to?” he prompts, and I flick my gaze back to his face. "It would more than be deserved—quick death. You're not the first that he's tried to hurt," he says. "Does that change your opinion of him?"

He's not really asking about my opinion of the man from whom we took the horse; I'm not so naïve as not to know that. He's asking if it changes my opinion of him. Of Malakai, of his actions. If what he did was right.

"One simply should not banish another," I repeat, nodding to myself.