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Daein is quiet for a long, thick moment. “I expected you would enjoy this better than you are.”
I shrug, folding my arms around my chest and turning just enough to catch a glimpse of his stony face, his burning blue eyes.
“It’s nice. I said thank you.”
His lashes lower, shadows of the farther area of the library crawling up his face. “The collection will grow,” he tells me, as though that’s the problem. “It takes time to acquire these artefacts. They were mostly destroyed.”
I turn fully, leaning my back against the short shelf. Its wood digs into my spine.
“Great.”
The prince’s face darkens dangerously. He takes a menacing step towards me.
“What’s the point, though?” I challenge him, throwing my hands up in the air.
He fights a snarl from his curling lips. “Enjoyment,” he says darkly. “Entertainment. Joy in experiencing a world you once belonged to, a world since lost.”
“That’s all wonderful,” I sigh and push from the shelf, “but I won’t get the chance to enjoy any of it, will I?”
His eyebrow arches over a dangerously simmering blue eye. “And why is that?”
“Well, for one,” I snap, anger starting to wash over me like violent waves from a restless sea, “I can’t read. So there’s that. And, the big one here—” My voice hitches “—I’m going home, Daein. In mere weeks, I’m going home. So why do I need a collection of books that I can’t even read?”
“Someone will tutor you,” is all he says in his deep, growly tone—a dark tone to match his shadowy, marble face.
Stomping towards him, I let the fury ignite in my wild eyes, and I shove at his chest, hard. He doesn’t stagger, not even an inch.
“What’s the fucking point?” I shout at him with another shove. “I am going! I am leaving! Home,” I say with a swat at him. He doesn’t dodge it, he just lets my hand smack hard against his pec. “Homeeee!”
It’s all unravelling. I can’t pick up the unwinding ribbons falling out of me. I need to scramble to right myself, but all I want to do is throw myself at his dangerous beast and claw out his fucking eyes.
Hormones, I tell myself. Hormones.
Must control—
A scream jumps in my chest as the prince snatches up my throat. He yanks me against him, pulling me up to meet his face. My tiptoes barely graze the blackwood floor.
The prince plants a kiss on my lips, his eyes still open and watching me darkly. Then, slowly, he drags his mouth to my ear where he whispers, “You are never leaving me, April.”
Drawing back from me, he pauses to study my crumpling face.
His eyes are colder than ice. “You are my bounty now. I will return you to your farmhouse before I take you back all over again. This cycle will never end.”
I’m crying now, and I only realise it when he brings his mouth to my cheek and licks away a tear.
“You should prepare yourself for a life here with me,” he tells me. “I will not tire of you, April. Not in any lifetime.”
Loosening his grip on my throat, he releases the scream I have trapped there, and all the fury that comes with it.
I strike out at him, beating my hands down on his solid chest, fighting against his hold on my neck. But it’s no use. Any of it.
He wants me caged in his castle. I’m trapped, I’m trapped with him.
Forever a whore.
Daein brings his mouth to mine and kisses me. It’s sweet and bitter and awful, and I hate him for it, for all of it. He eats my tears, uncaring to my misery, to the sobs that he swallows up with greed.
Then, his hand slips away from my throat and he steps back.
