I smirked. It looked like no matter how far Durian had slithered inside Earle’s psyche, the kingdom still wouldn’t refer to the born using their made-up titles. At least not yet.

Durian sat directly across from me, revealing none of his simmering irritation at Kole’s slight. He pulled Scarlett into his lap, where she perched silently even as she still trembled with fear, refusing to meet my eyes. My gaze fell to her exposed legs, the garments she wore barely covering her or shielding her from the cold. It was more lingerie than clothing.

My fists clenched so tight under the table I feared I’d split my own bones.

I moved my gaze to Durian’s smug smile, his cold, beady black eyes.

“It’s a pleasure to meet with you finally, Kole,” Durian said. “Today I’m joined by Lord Brennan, Lord Christoph, and Lord Nereus.”

There were two men he skipped, dressed differently than the tacky displays of wealth worn by the lords. I assumed they were lackeys of some sort, dressed in plain burgundy.

Kole’s jaw ticked. “I believe men still need to be ordained by the king to ascend to lord status, my friend.”

Ever the spineless courtier, Kole softened his slap on the wrist with pleasantries.

Now it was my turn to smirk at Durian. I fought my every aching urge to look at Scarlett instead—to drink up every inch of her skin, to search her eyes for the soul I loved more than my city and this entire damned world.

I pretended like she wasn’t even here.

Even when her eyes found mine. Even when her beautiful features twisted with pain and confusion, pupils wide and searching.

Durian maintained his composure as he tilted his head toward Kole. “I meant no disrespect to the crown. I’ve enjoyed my long correspondences with King Earle immensely these past weeks.” His fingers brushed through Scarlett’s dark waves of hair before trailing down her bare skin to her waist.

His eyes darted to mine, and I gave him nothing. I’d already assumed he’d been in contact with Earle, my hunch strengthened by the intel of my eyes in Ravenia. Durian was weaseling his way into the psyche of a paranoid king obsessed with preserving his legacy.

“Though I honor the rule of the kingdom, I also know that Valentin has a long history of behaving autonomously in many areas.” Durian looked at me pointedly. “I live to serve Lillian, and it is my view that Valentin has been in desperate need of the Dark Mother’s divine will for centuries now. It is she who has ordained me and my men.”

A bold fucking statement. I watched Kole process Durian’s words, his eyes narrowing. He might’ve agreed with Durian on some level that Valentin belonged to the born, but Kole was still here on behalf of the kingdom. And Durian’s words skated dangerously close to treason, no matter how independent we had become from greater Ravenia.

The man to Durian’s left, the one who I’d identified as Brennan, was staring at Scarlett. I recognized the look in his eyes—the look that had been a death sentence for men on numerous occasions. The craze of a man under my Little Flame’s beautiful spell.

He was going to get those crazed eyes shoved back down his undeserving throat.

“Might we address the human you’ve brought?” Kole asked, seeming to table the current subject of Durian’s audacity. His brows lifted as short strands of light brown hair grew tousled in the wind. When Scarlett met his gaze, his amber eyes sparkled. “Safe to assume she isn’t a gift… on account of the strict treaty of this great autonomous island.”

There was a kind of mockery in his tone that pulled Durian’s lips into a smile while mine tugged down.

I didn’t find a joke about Scarlett being an object to bestow to politicians as hilarious as the born clearly did. Especially not when she was currently enslaved, a direct violation of the treaty that Kole had subtly mocked.

Mason nudged my foot again. Sadie covertly flooded my mind with clarity, enchanted grounding crystals in her pocket and mine.

“She didn’t want to be separated from her Master today, you see,” Durian said calmly, looking down at Scarlett as she twisted in his arms to gaze up at him. “Isn’t that right, pet?”

Scarlett nodded, and my heart fucking tore open. “Yes, Master,” she murmured, still trembling slightly with fear.

My ears were tingling at the sound of her voice, my head yearning to crane forward, to draw more of it out of her. No matter her words’ heartbreaking contents. I knew that none of Scarlett truly belonged to Durian. Not her body, not her beautiful mind, not her blinding soul. All of her was mine.

Forever.

“Despite our power exchange relationship,” Durian said, staring into my eyes even as he spoke to Kole. “She’s my good little pet of her own accord.”

Scarlett didn’t contradict him. And seeing what Durian had done to her stomach, it was clear why. I silently fumed, imagining all the ways I would make Durian suffer—for centuries, millennia, even—before even considering putting him out of his endless misery.

Kole clearly didn’t give a damn either way if Scarlett was a slave. He didn’t even question the jagged recent wounds on her skin. He’d merely glanced at them with distaste, as if they were a blemish on a piece of art.

Scarlett suddenly shifted and looked back toward Kole, and I recognized the wheels of her cunning mind churn for the first time. It mended something broken inside of me, if only an inch. Just to see her feel something other than fear.

What was she thinking?