Page 37 of The Horned King

"You know as well as I do nothing is going to be done by then. If anything, by then will be when each of us are ready to rip each other's throats out." I may as well be having this conversation with myself in my head. I already know what she'll say.

"There's nothing wrong with wanting to spend time with her, you know." She looks at her manicured hands to dull the edge of the blades she's throwing at me. "This is the most alive you've looked in years."

"She's Rhyman." I run both hands through my hair. "She believes everything they've ever taught her about our people, the fair folk, the witches. I can't trust her enough to spend time with her. She'll ruin everything with her allegiance to her country."

With a shrug, she suggests, "So teach her. You've given yourself more than enough time to do so."

"There's no guarantee that she would listen."

"There's no guarantee that she won't. She's been nothing but kind to me, even offering to clean up after herself, which is more than I can say for any other guest that's ever stayed here." She stands. "I'm just saying, give the girl a chance. She might surprise you."

She already has.

With a mock bow, Raya exits, off to prepare for the mess I've signed us all up for. The one I half-expected not to include a Rhyman spokesperson at all.

While we won't be having any negotiations today, it might be even more critical to Elva that it goes well. First impressions and all that. She knows she's fighting an uphill battle, but she doesn't seem to know just how deep her ignorance about our neighbors goes.

She believes the lies that the witches are evil.

That anything in our world is.

The belief in something being evil instead of just that everyone fights for survival is such a Rhyman concept. It allows them to believe themselves inherently better than everything and everyone else and gives them an excuse to do the things for which they would condemn others.

All in the name of good and evil.

That's why she's so afraid of her own wickedness. It is as if being imperfect is somehow bad instead of being the thing that makes her so stunning. The violent red her face turns when she's angry, the tangles and wildness the humidity brings out in her wavy hair, the smattering of freckles across her cheeks. All things that lend to her chaos and beauty. And yet she insists on sleeking that hair back so tightly into place that it looks painful and using some cosmetics to turn herself into a colorless painting instead of a person.

All those things are going to make the people she meets today like her exponentially less. Well, aside from King Colm, he believes that women should be silent works of art. Him liking her will end in disaster. He's always searching for another doll to add to his collection, and Elva's naivety, coupled with his misleading, innocuous demeanor, will make her a prime target.

He'll be first to arrive today to demand the room he believes he is owed. I'm tempted to refuse him, if only because I want to piss him off and make him sloppy so he'll let his true nature slip through the cracks of his carefully crafted facade. But if he shows his true colors, that might make Elva a bigger target, and why the fuck would I care if she's more of a target? I was considering killing her not two days ago.

I can't kill her, but Ovoor said nothing about letting the King of Fastid have her.

Even as the thought enters my mind, I know I won't allow it. Murder is acceptable, but something like that is too despicable for even me to consider. I groan at the thought that I'm going to be stuck protecting her from that disgusting beast of a man even while I'm trying to manipulate him into showing his true self to her.

One of the servants alerts me that Colm's caravan is pulling into the castle gates, and I stand to don my Horned King visage. The stale scent of old bone and rust from years of blood sprayed across my cloak brings me a sense of violent comfort. In this helm, I am not Kairon, the poor orphan raised in the streets, learning my powers the hard way.

I am The Horned King. The myth of a man feared from here to the barren desert. Untouchable, even to the most powerful, the witches and the Syrens.

Elva hasn't seen this side of me yet, and I'm almost giddy with excitement at how she'll respond. Terrified, surely. But I'm almost certain there will be something else, too. Something deep inside her that will frighten her even more than I do. I wonder if she'll spend the day imagining me taking her over and over in the same visage that's haunted her nightmares.

I certainly will.

Already, I find myself imagining those big, golden-green eyes, wide with fright and exhilaration, the reflection of my helm in them while I make her fall apart around me, so wet and hot, pulling me deeper and deeper inside of her perfect cu-

I don't have time for this.

I need to focus. The Horned King will be far less daunting walking around with a hard-on. And if Shan notices me lost in reveries of our houseguest... I'll have to actually kill him. He can't have that kind of power.

I rip the tattered red cloak from the table and lift it over the antlers, letting it settle onto my head and shoulders. Yet another reason I must put this on with no witnesses. The tedious task of getting the individual holes over each tine in the antler is an absolute pain in the ass.

But once done, I am my shadow self once more, ready to inflict whatever damage need be to protect my kingdom.

According to my staff, Elva has spent the morning hiding in her room and has even requested that lunch be served there. I conceded, but why, I'm not sure. I only know that she needs this time sequestered to prepare for the bombardment of new faces coming.

A knock sounds on the library door, followed by Shan peeking his head in. "Farhan is here. Already barking orders at staff." That much I had gathered already. "Demanding the room he's stayed in before."

I sigh, the sound muffled through the helm. "Let him have it. It matters not, and it'll keep him from being quite as much of a colossal prick."

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