Page 119 of Heirs of the Cursed

“Let go of me.”

Naithea immediately pulled free to get away from the warmth of his hands. The hands that had explored her body a dozen times and could make her fall under his spell once more.

“Naithea . . .”

“No, don’t touch me!” she commanded, but without Killian’s support, she felt unsteady again.

“The bloody hands of a commander didn’t disgust you, but those of your prince do?” he asked.

“You are not my prince.”

“Some would say it’s your duty to respect your future king,” Killian said ironically.

“You lied to me!” she yelled and her head throbbed with pain. “What about the respect that I deserved?”

“I had no choice.”

“There’s always a choice. And you chose to deceive me.”

“You have no idea the burden I carry with me for the life the goddesses had chosen for me. The things I’ve had to do for the title I was born with.”

No, she didn’t understand.

But she would soon.

“Rot in the Akhirat!” she spat with anger and sadness and love. For what she felt for the man before her was all that and more. “You were born swimming in riches and lands. You watched your people starve and did nothing to change it! It must have been so hard to be you.”

Killian recoiled at her words. “As much as I would like to change what happens in the kingdom, I don’t have the power to do so,” he excused himself. “I’m not the one who makes the decisions.”

“But you help enforce them, don’t you? You’re the monster that the king releases when he must discipline his people. Is that why you created this façade?”

“Yes,” he sighed with shame.

“Ward never existed.”

“He and I are the same person.”

She laughed wryly, turning to leave.

Another lousy idea.

A sequence of images of Ro’i Rajya unsettled her and Naithea gasped for air as she saw fragments of the dark castle beginning to be consumed by the holly of death.

She reached for a tree trunk to avoid the fall. The prince’s arm around her didn’t falter, determined not to let go of her. Still, it was Killian’s low sneeze that led Naithea to widen her eyes and stare at his hand.

There, along his palm and floating around them, was the familiar pixie dust. Behind him, the blue flowers growing on the bark of the tree had crushed under the weight of his body.

“Shit,” she whispered.

“That’s not a good sign.”

“Of course it’s not,prince,” she replied sarcastically as she dusted off her body and face. “Now let me go.”

“Stop.” Killian shook out his jacket, bluish dust flying around him. “I’m the same man you met that day in the market. The same man who told you about the punishments of a cruel father and the neglect of an absent mother. The same man who fell in love with you because of your audacity,” he said, lowering his gaze to her swollen lips, “and that big mouth that makes me lose my mind.”

His words echoed through Naithea’s bones.

Love, he had said.

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