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My entire body tensed, and a hysterical laugh bubbled up in my chest. Was that concern on his face?Impossible.Prince Scion, the former heir of Elsewhere, the war general and feared executioner, the male who had locked me in a dungeon for a year, could not be sitting vigil by my bedside. “Yes, I know that,” I said slowly. “But why am Ihere?How long has it been? Is everyone alright?”
He didn’t answer me directly. “Take a moment to collect yourself.”
“Where’s Bael?” I tried instead.
“Unavailable.”
My heart started to beat faster with alarm. “I want to see him.”
“You can’t. He’s fine. He’s…” He seemed to struggle for words and changed tactics. “He’s having a bad week.”
Oh.I still didn’t know precisely what that meant, but at least it sounded like something I’d heard them say before. I relaxed very slightly at the knowledge that he wasn’t dead in Inbetwixt. Still, that didn’t change my current situation.If I could just reach the knife…
Scion stood with a grace that didn’t match the image before me, and again, I was surprised when the armor made no sound. He came to stand in front of me, and I was forced to look up so as to see him clearly, somehow feeling even smaller than I usually did when in the presence of any of the Fae males who so often invaded my personal space. “Are you hungry or…”
If the situation wasn’t so alarming, I would have rolled my eyes at the vaguely confused expression covering his too-handsome face. Bael had also done this when we first interacted—exhibiting a strange ignorance of human biology, as if it wasn’t the same as theirs. It seemed as if they were taught we ate and slept differently or something equally absurd. As it was, I couldn’t have eaten a thing if I’d wanted to—it was the furthest thing from my mind.
“I’m not hungry,” I muttered.
“Fine,” he replied, moving slightly closer. “Can you get up? I need—”
He never finished his sentence, and I never learned what he might have needed, as in that moment, he reached out his hand. Perhaps to help me up, perhaps to snap my neck, I had no idea, but I reacted immediately and without thought.
Throwing my arm out blindly, I closed my fingers around the handle of the knife on my bedside table and whipped it around to try and strike at any bit of flesh I could reach.
Evidently, Scion hadn’t expected that because he didn’t react quickly enough.
He moved out of the way just in time to avoid the blade but fell sideways, landing ungracefully on one elbow on the end of the bed. “By the fucking Source!”
I pounced, ignoring the faint throbbing in my skull, and clambered after him in a tangle of ebony sheets. The blade flashed through the air between us, and I rolled, landing on his chest, my knees braced on the mattress, thighs holding tight to either side of his body.
Heaving for breath, I spit my hair out of my mouth and pressed the blade against his throat. “I want to know what the fuck is going on.”
Prince Scion blinked up at me, wide-eyed. His gaze darted to the blade and back up to my face. “What are you going to do with that, rebel?”
A tiny spark of triumph lit inside me, and I smiled, enjoyinghimbeing atmymercy for once. The powerful Prince of Ravens, the queen’s executioner, flat on his back because of a human. “Want me to show you?”
“Please do.” He smirked. “I doubt you know how to use it.”
I pressed the blade in harder until a tiny line of red formed on his neck. “Really? Did you forget that if I wasn’t willing to kill royals, I wouldn’t be here?”
A dark heat flared in his eyes, turning silver to pewter. “Careful, rebel,” he drawled, moving his hands slowly up to grip my thighs. “We wouldn’t want you to get in over your head, would we?”
His long fingers held me in place, and I stiffened. Goosebumps erupted on my skin, and I was suddenly all too aware of the hard muscles of his body pressing against the inside of my thighs, of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears, and my rough breathing matching the tempo of his. I could feel the unnatural heat emanating from him. That heat that all the Fae seemed to emit at all times, like their blood boiled while mine merely flowed.
“Let go of me,” I hissed.
Scion only tightened his grip on my legs and shifted me lower so I was straddling his waist. “Make me. You’re the one with the knife.”
I pushed the blade in further, then sucked in a startled breath as he pressed my hips down, and I felt exactly how little my display had frightened him. Worse, he wastoyingwith me.
Heat and shocking need erupted in my core, warring with the hatred I harbored for this confusing, devilish prince. My heartbeat pounded in my ears, deafening, but the longer he held me there, the more I could feel that pulse thrumming lower…elsewhere.
My entire body trembled, humiliating heat pooling in my core as my heartbeat went out of control. “You’re not worth it.”
My breathing uneven, my body aching, I started to let my hand drop—but he wasn’t done with me yet.
With an ease that proved he’d merely been pretending to be caught—most likely waiting to see what I would do—Scion rolled, flipping our positions, bracing his arms on either side of my head.
