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“Stop,” she demanded. “Sorry for what? You are sin and sacrifice. Your words can make a person bleed more than a weapon. There is nothing to forgive for that.”
My neck pumped hard like a rusted thing. Yet Briar’s reply resurrected my pretentious side. “Go on,” I invited.
A quick chuckle fell from her lips before she sobered. “You are a father who dismantled a nation for your son. You opened a princess to passion and vitality.”
“Aye. I did enjoy opening you.” Now I gave her an impish grin. “Deeply, in fact.”
She nodded vehemently. “And I expect you to do so for eternity. But more than that, you have given me a strength I didn’t know I possessed.”
“Ah, but I merely stoked what was already there inside you.”
“That doesn’t lessen what you’ve done.”
“Nor does the lack of a crown diminish who you are.”
Briar gave another crisp nod. “It’s settled then.” Then the perceptive woman peered at me. “Your turn. What is it you’re keeping from me?”
Time for evasion. I rolled my eyes, then flitted my digits. “Rubbish. I’m an angel.”
“In devil’s clothing.”
“Can’t I wear both guises? I look rather edible in lace and leather.” Unfortunately, Briar merely stared at me until I sighed, “I may have tried to murder Rhys.”
The princess’s gasp cut through the room. She vaulted off the mattress, the blanket tumbling from our heads as she gaped down at me. Her tits hung heavy and gorgeous, much like her expression.
I slithered upright and gripped her hip, the sheets puddling around our waists. “Jesters never apologize, so don’t expect me to. Summer took Autumn from you. Then he took you from me,” I growled. “You tend to bring out the ethical as well as the violent in this juggler. If someone so much as gives you a paper cut, my tongue isn’t enough. I’ve developed a habit of shapeshifting from a sinful trickster to a protective alpha. In short, I’ve been a bad jester, misbehaving in your absence.”
It took Briar a moment to find her voice. “As if you have ever conducted yourself otherwise in my company.”
“True. My naughtiness is high maintenance.”
“Poet.”
I grunted. “Inconveniently, the cocksucker is still alive, albeit somewhat misshapen.” I wouldn’t deny myself the satisfaction of spelling it out. “I set him on fire.”
Another intake of air from Briar. I slanted my head, but my tone was anything but remorseful or playful. “Are you vexed with my antics at last?”
Through the shadows, she watched me. In the dim sheen of the room, raindrop silhouettes streaked across her face. She exhaled, a hundred motives and consequences tracking through her mind before she admitted, “Only the part where I wasn’t there to help.”
The answer hovered between us. Fury and shame etched those words, because she had once lunged at Rhys, hellbent on carving him to pieces after the courtyard bloodshed. I was the one who’d stopped her from taking the shithead’s miserable life. Not because I hadn’t wanted her to succeed, but because it would have cemented an even worse fate for Briar. One that I’d have reduced the castle to rubble to prevent.
A second later, I saw the change in my thorn. Her features sharpened with conviction, our thoughts coalescing to this: There was a difference between a temptation that empowered versus one that impaired. Slaughtering Rhys quickly and recklessly would have been a quick hit of euphoria, much like a drug—a cheap and short-lived pleasure. When really, this princess and her jester had standards to maintain.
“But we must be smarter than that,” Briar said. “Wearesmarter than that.” The blankets rustled as she fisted our hands together. “Let us never be like him.”
My lips tilted fiendishly. “As you said. We’re a clever pair.”
“No more wordless retreats.”
“No more reckless strikes.”
Like an enticement, the princess licked her lips. “When we do this, we burn him the cunning way. Slowly and methodically.”
I slid my arm around Briar’s waist and hauled her on top of me, her ass landing in my lap and her thighs splaying around my hips. “A game of fire against fire,” I husked. “It would be my pleasure, Highness.”
She winced and cast her head from side to side. “I am no longer—”
“You willalwaysbethat,” I ground out. “You were born to make history, not be erased from it.”
