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He gritted his teeth and started to sign something, before turning and storming out of the room.
The door shook when it slammed behind him, and I dropped to my back on the bed with a huff.
I really hadn’t planned on having a power struggle with the gorgeous fae king I was married to, but there we were. And I really wasn’t an alpha-female type, but a girl had to draw lines somewhere, right? I’d never be the chick who kneeled in front of her king, begging for his cock and his love. That just wasn’t me. If we had sex, it would be because we wanted each other. And if we fell in love, it would be because we got to know each other and grew too attached to walk away.
We’d had to complete the mate bond for me to be seen as a person in Bluhm, so that was exactly what we’d done. But I’d spent so much time in the water fae kingdom while feeling entirely alone. That had erased any amount of shock and romance that I’d felt about being in this fantasy world and mated to a fae king.
On the outside, it looked like a fairytale. But inside? It felt a lot like a prison. One I’d been fighting like hell to get myself out of, to no avail.
Zoran was the only person who could change that for me, and yet he hadn’t done a damn thing except avoid me. And sure, I could understand that he didn’t want to push me. Maybe I could even appreciate it, if things had been different.
But theyweren’tdifferent.
And I didn’t appreciate being left out of the loop just because he was sexually attracted to me. If worst came to worst, we could always just do some kind of friends-with-benefits thing, even if it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. Clearly, my body could be persuaded to see things differently. Zoran was absolutely stunning, so it wasn’t like sex would be a difficulty, now that I knew hedidwant me.
A few minutes passed, with no sign of the king.
I considered finding my way back to the throne room, but that seemed like a bad idea. I’d already poked the bear, and I did know better than to poke him twice.
Leaving would also piss him off.
But I wasn’t just going to sit there and stare at the ceiling.
So, I slipped off the bed and started looking around.
There was a bookshelf against one wall, and I dragged a finger over the spines, reading the titles. The subjects surprised me; they were history books. Some were written about wars I had obviously never heard of, and others were biographies about fae I didn’t know. I opened one up to make sure it wasn’t just hiding a super-secret journal or anything, but sure enough, the pages were full of some fae king’s war strategies.
Abandoning the bookshelf, I strode into his closet. It was mostly empty, though there was a lot of open space. I figured the closet had been built for a king and a queen to share, hence the fact that his two dozen pairs of pants looked sad and lonely.
I had less dresses than he had pants, though, so I didn’t really feel bad for him. I was the one who had been abandoned in a strange world, not him.
I wandered into the bathroom from there, and went through the stuff in his shower, sniffing the soaps. They smelled incredible, but I resisted the urge to sneak some of them back to my house just so I could enjoy the scent of my king whenever I wanted.
Eventually, I gave up on inhaling the fumes and kneeled in front of his cupboards, opening them up so I could go through them. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but they were legitimately empty, so I gave up on that quickly.
Before I could stand up, Zoran came striding into the room.
He stopped in the doorway when he saw me going through his cabinets.
My face burned with embarrassment, but I ignored it as I turned around without getting up.
“You ditched me in here, and I got bored,” I explained, as our eyes met.
The anger that had been in his gaze before was gone, and there was some humor in its place as he signed, “Find what you were looking for?”
I rolled my eyes, signing back, “You don’t have much.”
“I don’t need much,” he replied.
My eyes went to the light blue fabric hanging over his shoulder, and I signed, “Seriously?”
“Speak aloud for me, Ayla. Please.”
Thepleasesoftened me up, just a little, so I did as he’d asked. “I’m still learning your language, remember? I’ll improve faster if I use it. I’m really slow at signing right now.”
“I enjoy hearing your voice too much to mind that.”
I huffed. “Compliments aren’t going to get you out of explaining that.” I gestured to the fabric hanging over his shoulder again.
