Page 207 of Dare

I halted on the leaf-strewn avenue and ground my teeth. The asshole had arrived earlier than expected.

At his question, guilt and fury punctured my chest. I couldn’t do this anymore.

“Go fuck yourself, Majesty,” I grunted, moving to leave but yelping in pain when King Rhys seized my bicep and crushed it in his fist.

Wraithlike, the man popped from the shadows, his long-ass mustache blending like soot with his black robe. “Mutation,” he sneered. “You forget yourself. I’m a king, your superior, and I know where you live. I know where your mother sleeps, should you fail to cooperate. So let’s try this again. Do they suspect anything?”

I bit my tongue hard, leashing the words. But when I thought of Mother resting defenselessly at home, my voice forced its way through. “They don’t know about him.”

Him. That was all I’d gotten out of this dickhead, which was a lot more than I’d wagered. Why King Rhys kept an illegitimate heir a secret couldn’t be the spoils of a one-night stand. In Autumn, that would be a scandal. But in every other nation, this douchebag could denounce a bastard son.

So yep. Whomever Rhys had messed around with behind his wife’s back, the consequences had a sharper edge. Something shady as hell.

In any case, I was being only half-honest, since I couldn’t guarantee the clan didn’t know anything about the chink in Rhys’s armor. Poet might have already guessed. Briar too. They were the hardest to trick. Except Jeryn was the smartest, Flare the most imaginative, and Aire … he was the most intuitive.

Any of them could find out. At any time.

Whereas His Royal Dipshit had only pulled this skeleton from his closet because he didn’t think anyone would believe me if I publicized the news. And with my mother’s life in his grip, I wasn’t about to try.

Turned out, my axe stunt on Reaper’s Fest hadn’t been forgotten, when my weapon had pinned Rhys to the pyre. If I hadn’t possessed the skills he’d needed, this man would have committed his ten-thousandth war crime and already had me decapitated for humiliating him.

His eyes squinted like the pits of a spoiled fruit. “What else?”

Shit. Under his scrutiny, betrayal tasted like piss in my mouth. “They know about the Seasonal army.”

The king grated, “Then steer them in a different direction.”

I hate you. And I hate this. And I never asked for this. And I want out. I won’t let you hurt them. So help me, I’ll hack off your nuts with my axe first.

True. I was a first-rate liar. Even I bought that empty threat, at least for a second.

It hadn’t started out this way. I’d teamed up with the clan, then Rhys had cornered me six months ago by angling a blade at my mother’s heart while she’d been sleeping. Proving how easily he could get into our home without me realizing it, he’d dropped an ultimatum at my feet.

The problem was, deceiving the cleverest band of revolutionaries on the continent for much longer was going to be impossible. The only reason I had managed thus far was because I’d gotten lucky.

But luck eventually ran out. It always did.

Rhys cocked his inflated head. “Is there a problem?” And when I refused to answer, enlightenment glossed his pupils like slime. “Ah. The knight in shining armor.”

I made the mistake of stiffening. To which, he sneered. “You care about those filthy rebels, but him in particular. Foolish girl. He’s a grown man, a decade past your age, and a soldier of noble birth with a court full of admirers. In short, he’s out of your league. And what are you?” Rhys spat, chiding me for having the audacity to fantasize. “A penniless peasant with a heathen mother who should be in chains and a deformity too grotesque to show the world.”

My chin wobbled. Someday, I would be older. But as for the rest, Rhys’s snub burrowed in like the markings covering me from head to toe.

Yet if he wanted to rub salt into the wound, he could waste his precious time. Although that gash had widened into a crater over the years, I refused to be easy pickings.

Eyes watering, I raised my head beneath the hood.

Rhys tsked. “Pathetic little pauper. He will never look at you in any other way. The only thing you’re good for, is what I say you’re good for. Liar. Cheater. Killer. That’s what you are.”

Correction. That’s who the Masters groomed me to be. What’s more, this lazy-ass tyrant was now taking the credit, capitalizing on the fruits of dead people’s labor.

Pitting Rhys with my best eat-shit-and-die glare, I taunted, “Must be one hell of a scary prince you’ve created, for you to be this spooked about his existence. One would think he’s got power over you.”

Something unprecedented flashed in the king’s eyes. Something like fear … and shame.

Recovering from the sucker punch, Rhys gripped me hard enough to bruise. I gnashed my lips, repressing a cry as he leaned in. “However long it takes,” he threatened, his charbroiled breath hitting my ear. “Get it done.”

Then he slithered into the bushes, where his cult waited with a set of horses. Mist choked the trees, their golden leaves trembling.

That dickhead may have me temporarily under his thumb, but it wouldn’t last. It might take years, but I’d find a way to outsmart him one day. I’d beat this wanker of a king at his own game. Whatever I had to do, I’d protect my mother and the clan. Even if it meant keeping my enemy close, duping the people I cared about, and losing their trust.

I thought of my friends, who had embraced me, who’d been nice to me, who welcomed me into their circle. Like a masochist, I pictured their disgust if they ever found out. The expression on Aire’s face if he learned the truth.

Liar. Cheater. Killer.

Rhys hadn’t been wrong. But with all the names I had ever carried on my shoulders, he’d forgotten one.

Traitor.

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