Page 25 of His Dark Delights
I wasn’t sure where the combative attitude stemmed from, but my arm shot out, batting his handaway in mid-air. “Don’t touch me, you bastard. You summoned me here against my will!”
Soren’s mouth dropped open, and his expression flared as if I’d slapped his face. Crestfallen and ragged, his hand dropped to his side and curled into a fist. “Lilly, I hope you understand why I had to see you again—”
“Well, I didn’t want to see you ever again!” Those words of venom spewed from my lips, poisoning me with the lie as much as they did him.
Chapter Nine
Lilly
The shadows in the room lengthened and stretched, converging on me as Soren stole another step forward. With one impudent shout, I’d snuffed out the sparkle in the king’s eye. Something dark and borderline cruel replaced it, making him almost unrecognizable.
“You will not deny me, Lilliana. No one can refuse the king,” he vented in a low snarl. That wasn’t the Ren I’d fallen in love with any longer. Maybe he’d never really been that man at all.
“A king? All I see before me is a butcher!”
Soren halted, a frozen wall of man and muscle towering over me. He waited, carefully reading my expression while absorbing the vitriol in my words. Slowly, something in that hardened gazelightened a fraction.
“You know there are women in this city who would kill to be where you’re standing.”
“And I’m sure I’d be the first casualty.” As I’d be another fatality in the war if my heritage came to light.
The king huffed, shoving a hand through his hair and messing it up. The curls I’d enjoyed running my hands through weeks ago now fell over his temples. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit the fluffy dark hair wasn’t enticing me to reach forward now.
His Majesty bowed over the desk, slamming his fists into the sturdy wood. My heart longed to reach for him when he hung his head, and his shoulders sagged. Then he turned his face up to me. “I’ve thought of nothing else but you for the last two weeks, Lilly. I thought, perhaps hoped, that you suffered this longing the same as me.”
I curled my arms around my shoulders, holding myself together as his words threatened to tear me apart. “I don’t,” I replied.
“Your reaction on the farm. I thought I understood it. Now it seems I’ve misjudged you and your feelings.” He straightened up, smoothing a hand over the front of his fine clothing. The action meant to distract me from the war over his expression and the mask he failed to procure.
“So, what? You thought I’d had time to come to terms with your lies and deception? That you could summon me to your palace and the grandeur would lull me into a sense of comfort? Maybe that I’d be impressed and overcome with my desire for you, then I’d throw myself into bed with you again?”
His hand rose, and a groan scraped through his throat. He curled a fist and twisted it, lips twitchingwith all the things he wanted to say. “Yes, I know I lied,” he blurted. “Of course, I would lie about my identity at that moment, Lilly. It’d be unsafe otherwise. Do you know how many of my subjects would have taken advantage of me at that moment? Someone finds their king wounded in the woods and suddenly a new world of opportunity opens for them.”
“I wouldn’t have done that!” I gasped. A small, wicked voice in my head whispered if I would have killed the Fairy Butcher. My heart knew the truth—that I couldn’t even if I had the chance.
Agony twisted his face. “Would I have known that in the beginning? No. I do now, and I—I was going to tell you the truth before we were interrupted.”
“What did you expect would happen if you’d had that chance, Your Majesty? That I’d agree to come back to the palace and be your mistress when you weren’t off murdering the fae?” A pricking sensation built behind my eyes, threatening to spill over. I shoved down a sob before admitting, “No. No, I hated you the moment I realized who you really were.”
“No, I… Why—why do you despise me?”
My words were brittle. “Is your name not Butcher? How can I love a man with such a title?”
Voice thin and wrought with desperation, like he’d die without an answer, he said, “Could you ever love me?”
A heaving wave of emotions crashed into my heart. Weak to this man, I lost the battle against the admission, clawing its way up the back of my throat.
“But I did! I did love you. I loved you in a field of wildflowers when you were someone else.” My tears breached the surface, cresting over the edge and searinghot streams into my cheeks. “And I suffer for the space you’ve taken up in my heart. Oh, how I’ve suffered for it.”
Soren’s alluring eyes welled up with unspoken emotions upon hearing my wailed admission. A pulse kicked up at his temple, and his throat bobbed with his unsteady swallow. His body shuddered, and despite the frown on his lips, he crossed the distance.
The warmth of him swayed me. I rocked forward, unable to help myself. He pulled me nearer as if we were magnets and no force in the world could keep us apart. I internally raged against that fact, but complied with my dreadful need all the same.
“But I am still in there, aren’t I?” Soren placed his hand feather light over my heart. The warmth of his palm sucked a shaky breath from my lungs. He grabbed my hand and placed it on his chest, forcing me to feel the erratic pounding within. “I am still that man, Lilly. You could love me again, you know? I want you to love me more than I need the sun.”
“But you will never love me enough to end your war,Butcher.” I spat the nickname, and he visibly cringed. “You will kill innocents, and you will kill fae while expecting to come to my bed at night, touching me with your bloodstained hands. The thought alone is enough to make me sick.”
His hands shot to my shoulders, curling his fingers around me and digging them into my flesh as if to shake me. “I said before that you wouldn’t understand the reasons for this war, and that remains true. How could you understand?”
