Page 66 of A Kingdom of Pleasure and Torment

I narrow my eyes at Kathras. He is in an interference I will be glad to remove.

Arcus continues. “I couldn’t put my finger on what bothered you so about my lovely new mate. Then, the solution came to me.”

The king looks between me and his son.

“You want her,” Arcus says finally.

“That’s absurd,” Kathras replies.

“Why wouldn’t you want her?” Arcus goes on, dismissing Kathras’s denial. “She is intoxicatingly beautiful. A mortal, born of a faery wish. She’s like a story. You see it in her. How enticing she is.”

Kathras’s jaw is tight. “I’m happy you’re pleased with her, but I have no interest.”

No interest! After the labyrinth? After he pinned me down like a rutting animal?

“Come now. I know you better than that. You are my own flesh and blood. And my flesh and my blood are...” The king sighs helplessly as he looks me up and down. “Very interested.”

“Then I’ll leave so that you may indulge your interests.” Kathras heads toward the door.

“Don’t be petulant, boy. I’m offering you the chance to have her before she is queen and it’s forbidden.” Arcus waves toward me. “Take her now. Slake your lust, and this whole temper tantrum of yours can be over.”

Kathras’s spine straightens. “I do not object to the human on the grounds that I want her for myself, Your Majesty. I object because I do not trust her mate. I do not trust her.”

“He objects,” I insert myself, seething, “because he has had me before.”

Arcus goes deathly still.

“The reason you could not find me in the maze,” I say, locking eyes with Kathras, “is because your son was using me as if I were a stray dog in an alley.”

Arcus turns to him. “Is this true?”

“It is.” Kathras swallows, and I see real fear pinch the corners of his mouth. “It was dark. I had no idea I was coupling with a human. If I had, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“You had no idea?” Arcus strides to me and pulls back my skirt. I yelp at his fury, scramble back on my hands instinctively, but he plunges his fingers deep into my unprepared cunt. “You felt this, and had no idea?”

I shudder at his withdrawal and hurry to cover myself.

Arcus strides to Kathras and waves his fingers beneath his son’s nose. “You smelled this, and had no idea?”

Kathras, to his credit, keeps his eyes forward, looking past his father into nothing. But his nostrils do flare, slightly.

When Arcus drops his hand, Kathras says, “I’ve spent the past seven months fucking humans, father. The difference never crossed my mind.”

“It wouldn’t have happened,” Arcus says, repeating his son’s earlier words. “But you’ve been fucking humans for seven months?”

Kathras settles his cold gaze upon me. “Desperation sometimes overcomes disgust.”

“You will not speak to my future queen in such a manner!” Arcus gestures wildly to the door. “Out, before I banish you from this court!”

Kathras bows stiffly to his father before he leaves. I wait silently as Arcus watches him go. When the king turns back to me, his expression is still twisted and angry, but he covers it in a flash.

Now, I know what his insincere smile looks like. That will be useful in the future.

“This was not what I summoned you for,” Arcus says, leaning over me until I must lay back. The bed dips as he braces a knee on the edge. His mouth finds my ear, my jaw, my collar bones as he speaks. “You will never experience such indignity at my son’s hands again.”

No, I think. Only at yours.

I need to endure Arcus’s narcissistic, violent behavior until his death. I can endure it until then. And in the meantime, I can take my pleasure while pretending he’s in control.

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