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“I wouldn’t have the first idea. Are you okay?”
I jump at the pressure of his fingers on my arm. The touch lingers for only a moment as he inspects the dried blood on my skin before he pulls away.
“I should be asking you that.” The cuts on his face look even worse from this distance, and there’s an angry rash on his cheek like his face dragged across the concrete.
“I meant about the Russian chick.”
My eyes cut to his. “How did you know about that?”
“I was there, remember?”
I look away, the words sending an unwelcome jolt of ice through my system. “Here to gloat?”
“Do I look like I’m gloating?”
The grounds disappear around us, and I search for a smug glint in his eyes, but there’s nothing of the sort. There’s no softness or kindness, not that there usually is with him—just a firm sincerity.
“I’m not trying to be a dick. And I’m not trying to come on to you—well, maybe I am a little—but I’m asking if you’re okay because I care if you are. And I want to make sure someone is asking you.”
I don’t know what he knows, what he overheard, but I guess it doesn’t matter. I focus on my hands, somehow feeling every emotion at once and nothing at all.
“Why are they letting you be here?” I ask instead of answering his question. “Don’t they see you as a liability if you’re indebted to Westcott?”
He lets out a slow exhale and stretches his legs in front of him. “My original deal with him is null.”
My eyes snap to his face, but there’s no relief there.
“Apparently, my deal was contingent on me being the leader of that pack, which I no longer am.” A faint smirk tugs at his lips. “A loophole. Irony’s a bitch, huh?”
“But my deal?”
“If Westcott gave me a direct order, I’d have to follow it. But he’d have to find me to contact me first. I’m in his service until he releases me—those were your terms. But he hasn’t set those parameters for me since I’ve taken your deal. So until then, we’re playing it by ear. If that changes and I become a liability, we’ve already discussed I’ll need to leave.”
“That seems risky. What if the deal makes you do something you don’t want to or it won’t let you warn them first or—”
“Take a breath.” I scowl, but he presses on. “Okay, so ‘playing it by ear’ is putting it mildly. I submitted to a truth spell, and I have regular check-ins with the king’s Marionette, and there seems to be a few others unofficially keeping tabs on everything I do while I’m here. Right now, Auclair must see me as more of a liability outside his walls than in, and I’ll be here as long as that remains true.”
The look in his eyes sinks all the way to my bones, so muchmorethan it had been a moment ago.
Quietly, he says, “To be clear, princess, nothing’s changed for me.”
I shake my head, my throat tight. “Cam…”
“I get it. If it had been Rea who came back… But just because he’s alive, it doesn’t mean you’ll always want to be with him. It doesn’t mean that’s the life that’s best for you. I think it’s supposed to be you and me. And it’s okay if I can see that before you can.”
I swallow hard, at a loss for how to respond. A few weeks ago, everything was different. When I looked at him, I saw the future he’s talking about. At least the potential of it.
But a few weeks ago, I thought Reid was dead. I thought I’d never come back here. That I’d never be this version of myself again.
“Miss…Miss Darkmore?” A spindly human servant pauses a few feet away, wringing his hands together. “Queen Carrington has requested I escort you to her room.”
Tension seizes my muscles, but I give the man a curt nod. Cam rises from the bench with me, saying nothing else as I follow the human inside.
The corridors are just as abandoned as we wind our way to the queen’s guest room, where the human doesn’t meet my eyes before he bows and scurries away.
The queen flashes a smile full of teeth as I step into the room, nothing about it warm. I’m surprised she’s not in the meeting down the hall, especially considering her son’s involvement.
Thinking of Reid threatens to let the spiraling thoughts resurface, so I take the seat she gestures to, fold my hands tightly in my lap, and focus on the light reflecting off the teeth in her crown as she takes the seat across from me.
