Page 64 of Lord of Dance and Desire

“Do you know what it is?” I asked.

His expression smoothed. All right. Silly question.

“Why?” he asked softly.

“Would you allow another Lord to cage you? To control your life and death?”

His eyes flashed with fury, all the more bitter because of the hurt behind it. Hurt that hardened.

“What have I done to earn your distrust?”

“I don't know if distrust is the right word,” I said carefully.

Even tempered? Not at all. Try a Lord with a long, long fuse. Unfortunately for me, his fuse had been slow-burning the last several weeks and I hadn't known it.

“It's more that I understand what you are,” I said. “And I accept it. Like you should understand and accept what I am. Really cautious. Most of the time.”

He stepped forward. “This isn't about my lack of acceptance. This is about your fear.”

“You punished me, Andrei. You took away the one thing I need to—” I faltered. It always sounded ridiculous when I said it out loud. The one thing I needed to have a reason to live.

It was just ballet.

Just.

“You understood the reason for the punishment,” he said.

“I did. I do. Which doesn't mean I agree to subject myself to more in the future. And there will be more, won't there be? Eventually I'll mess up.”

He closed his eyes, taking a few long, slow breaths. When he opened them, they were teal. Only teal.

“I thought you understood the boundaries we must all live in are there for our protection. And the safety of others.”

“You believe what you're saying, don't you? Then why are humans told that if a Lord wants them, you're shit out of luck?” I shook my head, mouth twisting. “That isn't because you all haveboundaries, Andrei. Maybe the Low Fae do. But that's how it always works, isn't it? One rule for the powerful, one for everyone else. You even said once that if you wanted to murder someone in the street, your mother wouldn't like it but no one would stop you.”

I tried to grab the reins of the mockery galloping out of my mouth, and more or less failed. This wasn't like me. But whatever constraints I'd lived by for years had disintegrated with Dartanyon. I didn't have the energy to shrug things off anymore. Not the important things. Confronting him felt good. Too good.

His blue-green irises steadily brightened as I spoke.

“But, you know,” I added, “if Mommy is disappointed, that's enough of a deterrent.”

Andrei studied my expression, eyes slightly narrowed, his dislike of my words clear.

“If you understand that,” he said, “then understand I've spent my life trying to curb the worst of the abuses, starting with myself.Wehave power, Hasannah. We can ruin lives. There must be checks and balances, even on my mostly mortal consort.” His smile was thin and humorless. “As you’ve proven. Your death, which you so carelessly almost walked into, would have caused a war.”

“Give me a break, Andrei. It's not the possibility of war that bothers you, it's the fact you didn't start it.”

I pushed past him, or tried. He grabbed my upper arms, pulling me against his body.

“Let me go.”

The High Lord stared at me, cold, unyielding, his hands shackles. “And so you went behind my back, and you bargained with the Ninephene, who now knows my consort is afraid of me. What she knows, Ashlyun knows. She gave you the means by which you could escape me. With no warning, no discussion.”

He wrapped a hand around my nape and yanked my head back, his kiss brutal in a way he never inflicted on me, the strength and heat of his hard body now a threat rather than a sensual promise.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” I whispered, my voice shaking when he lifted his head, his eyes still bright and hard. “You’re refusing to see things from my perspective, and it’s not likeyou’re incapable of it.” I pushed my hands against his chest, which did nothing. “Let mego.”

Sometimes I forgot how intimidating Andrei could be when he shed the indolent Lord at rest persona.

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