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I gaped at him but recovered quickly. Loosening the blanket enough that I could walk, I slid off the bed and made to push past him. “Nothing out there could possibly be more dangerous than you. I’ll take my chances with the thieves.”
Scion blocked me, using his height and imposing stature to try and intimidate. “You’re right, rebel. I am by far the most dangerous thing in this city, which is why you’re going to stay right here where I can protect you.”
“I don’t need or want your protection.”
He raised an eyebrow. “No? Tell me, have you ever managed to survive an encounter with even one fairy without help?”
I gestured to the bloody book again, my eyes widening. “What do you call that?”
“That wasn’t really a High Fae. It’s not the same.”
I rolled my eyes. He was splitting hairs now. “Short of tying me to the damn headboard, you are never going to win this argument.”
His mouth turned into a flat line, his nostrils flaring, and his gaze darted down to my still nearly bare, blanket-wrapped body for the briefest second. “You really need to stop saying shit like that, rebel.”
Fair enough.I wasn’t sure why I kept taunting him. The words might have been bitter, but even to my own ear, they were starting to sound a lot like a challenge…and I wasn’t sure it was one I desired to honor.
Just like that, all the fight drained out of me.
I was tired—so, so, tired—and fighting with him was becoming harder and harder to justify. Like fighting for the sake of it rather than because I actually believed the words coming out of my mouth.
“Fine,” I said on a breath. “What did Cross say?”
He cocked his head at me, seeming surprised by the change of subject. “In regard to what?”
“You said after you talked to Cross, you’d think about when I could go back to the castle.”
His eyes widened slightly. “Bael will find you the moment he’s aware you’re gone. You must understand that, yes? Any other scenario is nearly physically impossible.”
“I don’t care. I want to go back.” I bit my lip, thinking yet again of what Thalia said. “I’ll cooperate…in the meantime, I mean. I’ll stop arguing with you, but I want to go back in two days.”
He ran his hand through his hair, clearly frustrated. “Two days is hardly long enough. We don’t know if Cross and his children will have found anything.”
Perhaps not, but I knew I would not be able to tolerate any longer than that here with him without an end in sight, especially if he was going to insist on sleeping in my bed. I was not sure if I wanted to murder him or…vent my frustration in other ways, but the encounter with the incubus had been illuminating in that I liked every aspect of it, perhaps a bit too much.
Glamour or not, I liked Prince Scion kissing me, touching me, and then I liked smashing his head in just as much.
What that said about me, I did not even want to think.
“Two days,” I said on a breath. “That’s my bargain.”
He gave me a long, piercing look I felt everywhere, and finally, he nodded. “I would ask you to seal it, but I have no name you don’t already know, and I hardly need yours.”
“Bael always sealed our bargains with a kiss,” I blurted out.
By Aisling. Why? Why would I say that?
Scion’s lip curled in a suggestive smile, and he laughed—a darkly male chuckle. “He was taking advantage of your ignorance, then. That does nothing.”
Humiliation stained my cheeks. I wanted to say I knew that and appear less foolish but struggled, as feigning ignorance wouldn’t let me save face now.
I scowled, scooting back on the bed at last to give him room.
“Fine, just…stay over there. Don’t touch me.”
The prince snorted a derisive laugh that I interpreted to mean it was absurd to think he would ever want to touch me for any reason before lying down stiffly on the opposite side, several inches of space between us.
My face flushed.Right. Of course not.Perhaps that was a foolish thing to say. And yet, I had the oddest urge to defend myself.
