Page 33 of Fae Champion

“Yeah, only because you were staring first.”

“Well, what do you expect? You’re fucking beautiful,” he growled. He was angry.

My own ire slipped from my mouth. “What? Why are you mad at me ’cause you think I’m beautiful?”

“Because you’re the last person I should want, and I do mean the verylastfucking person in this entire mirror world. I’d be better off throwing in my lot with Natania even though the thought of spending asingle day with her, let alone the rest of my life, makes me want to murder someone, and the thought of having sex with her, which I’d be forced to do, makes me want to kill several someones, I’d choose her over this madness. You’re off limits for a thousand different reasons, and only one of them has to do with your innocence. And before you go misunderstanding me another fucking time, the idea of being your first makes me hard enough to burst. But I shouldn’t be. Ican’tbe. Because I won’t be your last, and having you and then not being able to keep having you will only drive me insane, and I have a responsibility to all faekind. To my family especially. I can’t make what I feel any worse by tasting what I can’t have. I won’t be able to think of anything else but what it’s like to be inside you, I already know it. And I won’t do that to myself.” His chest heaved. “I won’t do that to you. Now do you fucking understand?”

Too many thoughts raced through my mind at once. “But why does that make you mad at me?”

“Nothing about this life’s been about what I want. Now I realize that’s never going to change. I’m as much a prisoner as you are. I do what I must because I have to. So I don’t get to choose you. I never get to choose you.”

The passion in his irises dimmed like a fire going out, making his eyes appear darker than usual, a thunderstorm gray. “I’m destined only to betray you.”

Whatever else I might have been about to say lodged in my throat. “How exactly will you betray me?”The pouring water nearly drowned out my whispered question; I leaned forward to shut it off.

His body was stiff all over. Whatever arousal he’d allowed himself before faded. “You already know. You’ve said it many times. I’m beholden to the queen. I have to do what she says. She questions me about you.”

“But you took me to the human dungeon instead of the fae one.”

“And I paid the price for it.”

I swallowed. “How? What’d she do to you?”

“What she does to me doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Well, it should.”

He shrugged, and for the first time I noticed how he might think he was broken. This strong, fierce, brilliant warrior drake had been forced to bend to the queen’s will to the point of breaking.

I wanted to kill her all over again.

I said, “You promised the king you’d protect me. I guess you told the queen you would too.”

“And I’ll never be involved in anything that harms you, not directly anyhow. I’d refuse that, I know I would.” He adjusted the tray on his hip and looked at a blank spot of wall. “But there are many ways to cause hurt, and the queen’s a master of most of them. It doesn’t matter what the king says in the end, she’ll find a way if she wants to.” He met my waiting stare. “And I fear with you, she very much does. She hates you.”

I chortled. “Despite my best efforts not to, I hate her back.”

He nodded, his eyesmorose.

I lapped some water over my arms. “Why are you helping me now, then? It sounds like you shouldn’t…”

“You’re right, I shouldn’t be helping you. But I promised you that you’d be safe in the dungeon. You weren’t. The queen left you to die.”

“I noticed.”

When he didn’t add anything, I asked, “Are you going to help me escape?”

“Yes.” His eyes seared their intensity into mine. “You need to get as far from here as you possibly can and never look back. Don’t return here for any reason, not for anything at all.” He nodded, as if assuring himself of something. “Or anyone.”

I splashed my fingertips gently through the water, mostly so I wouldn’t have to bear witness to the many emotions I could feel rolling off him but couldn’t accurately interpret. “I thought the magic of the Fae Heir Trials wouldn’t let me leave.”

“So did we. But obviously the magic isn’t as any of us have been led to believe, or the queen couldn’t have nearly killed you so many times already. Either the spells that govern the trials never held to the rules we were told in the first place, or the queen’s found some way to interfere with them.”

“I see. But won’t she punish you if she finds out I’m gone?”

“Probably. But there’s at least a chance she’ll think you left on your own. You’re quite capable.”

I smiled automatically, my cheeks already rosy from the heat of the bath, and nodded.

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