Page 136 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

He extended a hand.

“May I have a dance?” he asked.

I’d already taken two strides away from him, my back to the wall.

“I don’t dance with people who touch me without permission.”

Raihn had to kiss this man’s ass, maybe, but I sure as hell didn’t. Besides, I had a role to play:I’m the brute king, and you’re the prisoner wife who hates him.

Simon’s smile—a cryptic curve of his lips that seemed to hint at all kinds of unspoken secrets—didn’t falter. “It was rude of me to do that without introducing myself. I’m—”

“I know who you are.”

Delight sparked in his eye. “Did your husband tell you about me? How flattering. We’ve known each other for a very long time.”

I made a noncommittal noise of agreement and began to turn away, but he caught my arm, pulling me back.

I yanked it away.

“Do not,” I snarled, “touch me.”

But if he was fazed, he didn’t show it. “Like everyone else, I admit I wondered why he kept you alive. Now, seeing you up close, I think I understand.”

I didn’t like this man. I didn’t like the way that his very presence made me feel like I had a year ago—like a piece of meat to be consumed, an indulgence to be coveted. I gave him a smile that was more of a baring of teeth.

“I’m the exotic prize,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

Simon laughed. “You are. Rishan kings have always enjoyed collecting beautiful, curious things.” His gaze slipped back to Raihn, still engaged with his conversation across the room, and it shocked me how the way he looked at Raihn was exactly the same as the way these nobles had always looked at me—the same hunger, the same entitlement.

As if Raihn felt that stare as much as I did, he glanced over at us.

His haughty false smile for the Shadowborn prince’s benefit fell away.

“Not so very long ago,” Simon murmured, conspiratorially, “Raihn was the pretty exotic thing. Did he ever tell you about that? Probably not.”

I’d spent my whole life as a pawn in petty games of power. I knew how to recognize when I was standing in the center of a board. Simon was using me to toy with Raihn. Using me to humiliate him, two hundred years later, as revenge because Raihn had the audacity to become something more powerful than him.

I despised him.

Simon’s fingertip grazed my bare shoulder.

I caught his wrist.

Not what a subservient slave queen would do.

Not that I gave a fuck anymore about that.

“He told me all I needed to know,” I said, and I found a little satisfaction in the momentary flicker of Simon’s smile—ahow-dare-youfalter.

Good. How fucking dare I, indeed.

Suddenly, a large form was between us, one hand on my shoulder.

The smile that Raihn gave Simon was barely even the facade of anything but a threat—wide enough to expose the sharpest points of his teeth.

“She’s mine,” he said. “I don’t share.”

I’d never heard Raihn’s voice like that—like the grinding of bars barely holding against something much worse.

---