Page 13 of King Elijah (The Zemiran Chronicles 2)

“Kindness?” Elijah said, watching her stumble over her heels, her butt hitting the tile floor. She craned her neck to look at him with furious indignation, but he refused to help her back up. “This, right here, is the least I can do. She did hurl a throwing star at my face.” He glanced back up at Aiden, who only bit his tongue before running to his sister’s aid.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed, Nelle?” he said, extending a hand.

She brushed out the dress before meeting her brother’s eyes and taking his hand. She didn’t appear pleased to see Aiden—more annoyed or ashamed.

Interesting, Elijah thought.

“I’d rather sleep in that dungeon than wear this ridiculous dress, brother. That pompous king is making me wear this to humiliate me,” she said, turning to Elijah again. “I want to take it off and burn it.”

Elijah bit his bottom lip. “Mmm,” he hummed. “That sounds like quite the party. I’ll wait,” he said, smiling so big it reached his eyes that time.

He leaned back slightly, looking at her with smug self-satisfaction as he blatantly sized her up. Elijah had intended to make her angry, which quickly had become his greatest source of amusement. Still, he found himself distracted by the sight of her, her body stunning him silent, drinking in every curve and the softness of her features. It was stoking a fire in him that he didn’t remember ever starting.

It felt as if time stood still, right before a butter knife flew toward Elijah’s nose. He had been so caught up in a gaze that he had barely caught the handle in time.

“Well,” he said calmly, placing the utensil back on the table with an air of nonchalance. He focused on appearing calm, but he felt himself shaking with anger. He swallowed thickly, trying to choke back the wrath coursing through him before he lashed out and did something he would immediately regret.

“Ella!” He looked up as his cook walked into the dining hall, carrying a tray of wine and water.

“Yes, King Elijah,” she said, her gaze bouncing back and forth between the three of them.

Elijah lifted his glass and sipped his water before placing it back down in front of him, the action doing very little to quell the anger boiling within him. “Please remove all of the butter knives from the table,” he said. “Maybe the forks too.”

Ella nodded quickly, hustling over to the table as instructed. Elijah kept his eyes on Janelle, who lowered her hands to her side and looked disappointed that she was unsuccessful in her second attempt to bait him.

“What in the stars are you doing, Nelle?!” Aiden cried. She still refused to make eye contact with him.

Elijah leaned back and calmly gestured for her to sit. He was almost tempted to make her eat on the floor.

“Now that we have gotten that out of the way,” Elijah said. “Sit.”

The staff opened the back double doors from the kitchen, spreading out in the dining hall and placing a wide array of food and drinks on the table.

Elijah observed as Aiden pulled out a chair next to him and gestured for her to sit. He drummed his fingers against the table while she took one last glance at him and sat where Aiden had suggested. Janelle’s eyes turned down, only staring at her brother’s hand. Elijah narrowed his eyes, wishing so badly he knew what was going through her mind.

“Nelle,” Aiden said. “I thought you had died.”

Elijah’s ears perked up to listen.

“The Fae told me you were eaten by trolls,” she said, rocking her head from side to side as if in disbelief to see him sitting at the royal palace’s dining table. “There was no reason for me to come back.” She reached out and placed her hand in his. “I heard you were alive and back in Zemira, but I didn’t know you sold yourself to the royal family. Working for him!”

Her eyes rose to look at Elijah with an accusatory glare.

Him, he fumed in his mind as his temper flared. Why would she say it like that?

The way she said that word almost sounded as if she knew Elijah, or at least the fictional version she was given from wherever she had come from.

She retracted her hand and reached for a warm dinner roll at the table, biting into it like a grown man, gnawing at it with her mouth partly open.

Gods, he thought.

Janelle acted nothing like the women in his kingdom, or at least, the ones he had encountered. She was crass and uncultured.

“I was told you fled the Eastland Forest, but you had most likely died out in the sea,” Aiden said.

She cut into her souffle, took a bite, and then placed her spoon on the table. Elijah watched her every move from the corner of his eye.

“After that bitch banished you to the Woodlands, I had to leave, Aiden. It was no longer safe for me there.”

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