Page 14 of Reveal Me
We passed through an archway, and he paused in front of a door. With a slow turn of his head, he gave me a sidelong glance before pushing it open. Wait—had those been bedroom eyes?
The room we stepped into was a bedroom. Velvet drapes in deep hues, heavy wooden furniture, and intricate tapestries adorning the walls. It was a room fit for royalty, a perfect blend of opulence and history. The sheets on the bed looked like they’d be a great time to roll in.
Wait. This was my room. The room Stella had shown to me earlier.
“I know my fated mate is near.” Dion sat down on the edge of the bed and looked up at me. Once again, those cat-bright eyes pinned me in place, and I remembered that I was face to face with a predator.
“Does that bother you? You know, because you’ll have to give up your playboy ways?”
“Who told you I was a playboy?”
“Word gets around.”
“I suppose you heard about the threesomes at Blood and Beryl?”
“Threesomes?”
“Some threesomes, sometimes foursomes. I’m a magnanimous ruler. And I have a large appetite.”
Of course he did. All the more reason to reject him.
“But that lifestyle will be over once my fated my claims me.”
“You’re waiting for her to claim you? Like you have no say in the matter?”
His sigh was heavy as he settled into the soft silk, clearly deep in thought. After a moment, he shrugged, the motion slow anddeliberate. “I’ve been running from fate my whole life. It’s never been very fair. Took my parents. Took my cousin Stella. Cast her into a harsh life that she didn’t deserve. And now…now I suspect my fated mate will reject me. Maybe she should.”
For the first time in my life, my tongue was tied. I felt the urge to run. I felt the urge to go to him and comfort him. What I didn’t feel like doing was saying the R word.
“What makes you think she won't accept you?”
“She told me she would.”
Dion’s gaze finally made that circuit down my body. My nipples were waving hello. My belly rumbled. My inner thighs went slick.
“I know I could make her happy in the bedroom. Sonnets have been written about my tongue. But I’m not so sure about the rest of it. About the rest of this life. I don’t know if I can give her what she needs.”
I stood frozen for a moment, my mind reeling from his confession. Dion, the man who had been so confident, so sure of his place in the world, was afraid. Afraid of being rejected, of not living up to some imagined ideal. It was as if he had laid his soul bare before me, and I didn’t know what to do with it.
What struck me more than anything was that, in that moment, it wasn’t the king in front of me. It wasn’t the powerful, untouchable man. It was just Dion. Vulnerable, unsure, and real. For the first time, I saw the man beneath the crown.
“Maybe I’m just too broken for her.”
I sank onto the edge of the bed, the soft sheets shifting beneath me as I settled. His words echoed in my mind, each one like a stone sinking into the still waters of my thoughts. I could still see the vulnerability in his eyes—the cracks in the walls he had so carefully built around himself.
The tension hung in the air, almost as if the very space between us was charged, a buzzing current I could feel beneathmy skin. I tried to ignore the pounding in my chest. What was it about this man that made my heart race and my mind go cloudy?
“Tell me, what doyouwant, Dion?”
The panther king’s golden eyes held something I couldn’t place, a mix of frustration and longing. He took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling, before speaking his truth.
“I want to be a good king. A good father... a good husband. I just don’t know how.”
He spoke the words like a confession, like a plea for help. The weight of his past, of everything he had been running from, appeared to visibly press down on him. It gave me a glimpse past the king, past the arrogance, to the man who was scared of failing. He was scared of being inadequate, of not living up to the expectations that had been placed on him his whole life.
I wasn’t sure what possessed me, but I moved closer to him, drawn to the honesty in his voice, to the tenderness that felt so out of place for someone like him. We were so close now I could feel the heat of his body, could smell the faint hint of fur that was from his animal nature.
“Maybe you and your fated mate could learn how, together.”
