Page 40 of Currency in Flesh

“Hello, pet.”

Incensed, I exploded. “What the fuck Cora? You literally suffocate me and then lock me in your room? What the fuck did I do to you?”

One of her brows raised as though she was surprised by my candor. “Did I misunderstand our arrangement?” She took a step toward me, running the tip of her nail across my tattoo. They were sharp again and my skin tingled from the contact. “You are my pretty pet, and you do as I say.”

My lips parted, but I didn’t know what to say. Had I imagined the change between us? Or was she simply following my lead? I had told her that I wanted Her Highness, and that’s certainly who stood before me.

Thick silence hung around us, pressing down on my resolve and urging me to be honest. It felt like too much at once.

I had finally felt ready to be done with Sean, had let myself punish him for all my pain. Lady Cora had crossed the invisible line that had separated us, pleasing me with no force or dominance, giving without asking for anything in return. She hadheld me when I cried, comforted me when I was overwhelmed, called me her treasure and told me she would do anything to keep me. She’d apologized for snapping at me when I asked about Tera and Anna.

Despite the appearance of cruelty, and the moments at the beginning when she had treated me like a possession, had she ever really been cruel? She stole my life from me, but then again, she had said that the moment Sean’s car pulled into Pluto’s parking lot, we were already gone from the earth. She’d caused me physical pain, but she knew I wanted it even before I was able to admit it. I told her I saw her soul, saw the compassion and care inside of her, and then I’d looked her in the eye and told her to her face I didn’t wanther,I wanted Her Highness.

My shoulders slumped, giving in to the heavy quiet and my loud mind. I went to her bed and sat, curling one leg underneath myself and resting my elbows on my thighs. She had one arm crossed over her chest, still sipping her sparkling red Champagne, and every muscle in her body was tense. I wasn’t even sure if she was aware of the way she seemed to be physically guarding her heart. Or maybe this was all in my head, and I was overthinking and overanalyzing someone who really did just want me as a sentient sex toy.

“Can we spend the evening together?” I asked, voice tentative.

Her nails drummed against the wine glass, and she took another long sip. “You haven’t become too frightened and resentful of me?”

The smell of her surrounded me. This room felt infinitely personal, as I looked around and saw casually strewn bits of her life. A shoe that had fallen beside its mate, a jacket on the back of the wardrobe, the soap she used beside the sink. “I don’t resent you at all. And I’m not frightened. I was angry, and I think you wanted me to be.”

She huffed a breath out her nose. “And why would you think that, Grace?”

“Because I hurt you.”

Rolling her eyes, she set down her glass and turned away from me, pulling off her heels and placing them beside her massive wardrobe. I waited for her to reply, but instead, she sat in the chair and looked past me with unfocused eyes.

“I don’t know who I am anymore,” I continued. “I don’t know what my future will be, if I’ll even have one. I don’t have friends or anyone to talk to, I haven’t had anyone in a long time. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m in a place I don’t understand, trying to figure out where I fit into the life of someone who I can’t even really comprehend.”

Her head tilted, but she didn’t speak.

“I don’t know what I like to do, I never had any opportunity to figure it out. When I went to the meadows and spoke with Tera the second time, I was trying to find… I don’t know, something that could be mine.”

“You can have anything you want here, I thought I had made that clear,” she said.

“You have! But I don’t know what that is.”

“And you think I am somehow hurt by your inability to know your desires?”

I looked at her face, the line of her jaw, and up to her eyes. “I think you were hurt that I didn’t say I desiredyou.”

“I am well aware that you want me, pet,” she said with a little wave of her hand. “I knew that before you did.”

“That isn’t what I mean.”

“Then speak plainly!” she snapped. Her eyes looked wide and afraid, and I wondered if she was just as scared as I was.

“You asked me if I wanted Lady Cora or Your Highness?—”

“I wanted to know how you wanted me to fuck you,” she interjected.

“I don’t think that’s true. I think you wanted to know if Ijustwanted you to fuck me. It doesn’t matter, you don’t have to admit anything to me, I don’t need you to acknowledge it. I’m telling you I’m sorry. I’m sorry I told you I wanted to be used instead of treasured. I‘m scared of what it means if I want you to be soft, and I’m terrified every time you kiss me and touch me like you love me!”

I didn’t intend to say any of it, and I certainly didn’t intend to shout. Fuck, until the words were out of my mouth, I didn’t even know I thought them. No, that wasn’t true. I didn’t want to think them, because it meant I cared, and that was the scariest part of all of it.

I stared at my toes, the pale skin of my foot silhouetted against the black floor like a Halloween ghost. And then there was another foot beside mine with a thin black seam running across it. She lifted my chin with the knuckle of her right hand, raising my eyes to hers. Her cheeks were highlighted by the glow of her eyes, and her mouth was soft—all of the harsh angles somehow less severe.

“I do not want you to be afraid,” she said. “I told you, you are my only weakness. Do you think that comes without a measure of fear? I have feared nothing in centuries, millennia. I have also had nothing save for this realm and the souls contained within. You wanted to know why Tera has no recollection of who she is? I will tell you, and I can only hope it does not make me abhorrent in your eyes.”

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