Page 46 of Of Monsters Of Kings

I shook my head. “It is of no matter.” I’d confessed some of my difficulties to Bring’s princes, and yet confessing them to See felt significant. If he said the wrong words, then I wasn’t sure how I’d be rid of them.

“I have asked you a question, and I would see it answered.”

“I would ask that you don’t demand an answer, sir,” I said quietly. “Though I’m sure you could force the matter.”

King See toyed with the hole in the skull under his hand. “I could, but I take care not to force possibilities now, so you may have all possible choices in this matter.”

I took a breath. “I admire this about you, sir. I hope such choice is graciously offered in another area too.”

“You speak of the one-fifth snuffing share. It is yours, mistress. I saw its removal as beneath my notice for a time, and my princes were admonishing about leaving the clutter there, but it seems you care for such clutter?”

I leaned back on the wall, feeling the soft night breeze on my bare shoulders. “I guess kings don’t need to bother with possessions.”

His tone darkened. “Do you refer just to my supposed needs, mistress, or that of other kings? Have you sought audience with King Bring?”

“No,” I said honestly. “I have not seen King Bring.”

“Just his princes. Do not seek to play me with choice words. Your blindness burns pathways in my mind, catching sparks on whomever you come in contact with as surely as if fire explodes in the sky.”

“I do not mean to hoodwink you, sir. I have seen the princes, yes, but not King Bring, as you know. This is partly why I’ve come tonight.”

The skull under his hand cracked. “And why have you come? Speak no more in riddles and cryptisms.”

I’d been doing that? “My apologies. I speak of the matter of you claiming me.” I winced as the words left my puffy lips, and I felt more than saw the sudden stillness of the blurred king on his throne.

“What of it?” he snapped.

I was pressed against the wall by the balloon of his power, and my head was turned. I sucked in a breath and lifted a hand to my chest at a sudden tightness there. I wore a strange laced-up top with black jeans, and I could feel my breasts pressing against the firmness of the top with each frantic breath.

“My apologies, mistress,” he murmured. The pressure eased. He asked in a plainer tone, “What of it?”

I remained as I was because speaking about claimings felt easier in such a position. “I do not understand much of claimings and… I’ve been told that when a king claims a person, then what they’re really doing is choosing a princess. To be theirs.”

“Are you blushing, mistress? I believe I hear it in your voice.”

I lifted a hand to my turned cheek. “I am.”

A low moan. “I would look upon your dark blush, and yet your mind is newly healed. So your voice, like the softest sea wave, must suffice.”

His words were like those whispered between companions, and so eloquently and casually uttered too. Nothing like the awkward words of the occasional schoolboy brave enough to approach me. “Sir, I am grateful for your help. You never had to do half as much. But I do not seek a tiara.”

“Would that there could be a tiara in existence exquisite enough to adorn your head, maiden.”

“Sir,” I said with difficulty. “Please call me mistress again and not maiden.”

“I hear the blush, though, and this is a wondrous thing. If calling you maiden achieves this, then I must call you such, and if you blush for me time and again, maiden, why do you not consider my claim?”

I frowned. “Are princesses meant to blush? I had thought a princess wasn’t a wife.” Bring’s princes made the exchange seem impersonal.

“A wife? No, nothing so common as a wife.”

My cheeks burned like wildfire. “I am but nineteen?—”

“You are an ancient thing, even warped and broken for a short time.”

I didn’t care to look very hard within because my mind couldn’t consider what I was for too long. But did I feel ancient? Yes, I felt a lot older these days. “I haven’t felt nineteen since before my mother started to wither, and less so since I woke after her death. Then less again since the last slumber.” I frowned. He was right. I felt very old and not nineteen at all now I thought about it. I spoke differently and could do all manner of things.

My breathing calmed somewhat, and the tightness in my chest eased. I’d do my best not to choose this top again, though I’d begun to suspect I didn’t get a choice in what I wore. “I don’t wish you to feel that your claiming has been discarded, King See.”

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