Page 62 of Joined By Magic

He held out a grubby hand. “Forty galvars. I check for damage at two p.m. If it’s clean, you get ten back.”

An outrageous price for a shithole like this. I handed over the cash anyway, and he slid a keycard across the desk. “Room four.”

The shitty room matched my mood. Peeling yellow paint, a bed with sheets that smelled of cigarette smoke, and a minuscule bathroom complete with stained toilet and a dripping tap. Two glasses, covered with fingerprints, balanced on the sink. The prince collapsed onto the bed with a groan while I dropped to my knees and retched into the toilet bowl.

I took my time in the bathroom, brushing my teeth and washing my face, hoping with everything I had that he’d be asleep when I came out. That the magic depletion would have forced him into deep exhaustion, giving me a chance to work out what the fuck I was going to do.

In the panic of grabbing whatever we could carry and running, there hadn’t been time to think about what I’d say to the prince. How to explain what I’d done. I couldn’t lie. He was far too good at knowing when I did. I needed to make him understand why I’d wanted to leave him.

“Talia.” His voice, though strained, held steel. “Get in here, now.”

I left the tiny bathroom. He sat on the edge of the bed, face white but set in angry lines. “Explain yourself, and make it quick.”

He couldn’t keep going much longer. I sat beside him, and in a voice that came out almost steady, I forced myself to tell him the truth.

After a long, loaded pause, he ground out, “Why?”

“I . . .” The words caught in my throat. He watched me, those piercing black eyes tracking my every move. “You made me realize the potential I have, but in Atar, I’ll never get to use it. Coming here, it’s like the lid’s been ripped off a world I never knew existed. There’s so much I want to see, and—”

I almost stopped there. The next part felt too ridiculous to say out loud, too jumped-up and stupid, but I’d started now. “You mocked your brother for marrying his girl. His whore. That’s all I can be to you in Atar. If we were somewhere else . . .”

I let the words trail off. It was pointless.

He stayed silent for a long time, and when he spoke, anger and hurt simmered deep in his voice. “I saved your sister, and your friend. Killed to protect you. You’re an ungrateful little slut, and I’ll—”

“Stop it!” I shouted, and he flinched back in shock. “Stop calling me that. This—” I flailed an arm at him and felt all the words I’d never dared say rush to the surface. “This is why I ran. You don’t see me as a person. Just as a thing that you own.”

“I do own you!” The dark blue circles of exhaustion stood out starkly against his pale face. “It’s what we agreed upon, the deal we made—”

“Fuck the deal!” My brain cringed at the words I was saying, but I couldn’t stop. “I don’t want it anymore, Adante.”

“What did you call me?” The low hiss of his voice should have terrified me, but it didn’t. I felt immune to fear, as if the end of the tracks were already in sight and I could only ride the cart off the cliff and hope for the best.

“Your name! We’ve been together for months, don’t I deserve that? I give you all of me, and I can’t say your name behind closed doors, where no one else can hear? I want more than this. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life as a possession.”

I blinked tears back from overheated eyes.

His voice rose. “I gave you a lifelong position in the palace, a position you asked for. I raised you as high as a non-mage girl could possibly go. I—”

“That’s the problem! As high as I can go. Over here, there’s no limit to what I can do.” I tried, with everything I had, to make him understand. “I want to know what I’m capable of. How would you feel?” I met his searing gaze. “Try and imagine it. Imagine you couldn’t use your skills. Your intelligence. Imagine you’d never had the opportunity to even find out what they were. Would you be content? Could you be happy?”

He glanced away, and I knew I’d hit a nerve. Of course he wouldn’t. But when he looked back up, his face was ice cold. “How dare you compare yourself to me. You’re nothing but a palace slut with ideas well above her station.”

Anger obliterated what remained of my sanity. “That’s bullshit and you know it! If that’s all I am, then why the fuck am I here? Why didn’t you leave me with the others?”

“Enough,” he spat. He flicked a finger, and glowing rings of magic wrapped my neck and wrists. Magic wrenched me up the bed, and the collar and manacles locked to the headboard. Trapped. When the prince spoke, his voice sounded mushy, as if his energy were completely gone.

“Don’t speak again or I’ll gag you too.”

I clamped my lips together. Sleeping with a gag on would be hideous.

He flicked off the light and settled in beside me, not touching. “I’ll decide what to do with you in the morning.”

I didn’t respond. We lay in tense silence until the prince’s breathing evened out. Asleep. I ran a finger over the warm, glowing collar as panic unfurled deep in my gut. The last time I’d betrayed him, he punished me brutally. Even minor transgressions like a drink in the pub earned a cruel chastisement. What would he do to me now?

I passed a long, uncomfortable night with barely any sleep. The stinky sheets and lumpy mattress were bad enough, but a heater on the wall was on, making the room sweltering hot, and I couldn’t turn it off. My manacles didn’t move far enough to let me undo my jeans, no matter how I twisted. I tossed and turned as much as the collar would allow and watched the sun rise through the flimsy curtain.

My wild words from the previous night played on a loop in my head, mocking me. What the fuck had I been thinking? I should have been contrite and tried to bring him around, not yelled at him and called him by his name. I’d been unbelievably stupid.

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