Page 62 of To Charm a Dark Prince

“Like what?”

“I sculpt new creations.” He shrugged.

“Your armor minions?” She looked intrigued. “You sculpt them personally?”

“Indeed.” He was not sure why she was asking. But there was an eager kind of fascination in her expression—something that told him she wished to ask another question but was too timid to do so.

“I’d love to watch you work someday.”

His expression fell. “Perhaps. You may wish to be careful—playing two men like fiddles at the same time is a dangerous game.”

“What do you mean?” She blinked. “Oh! You mean Lancelot?”

“You did spend a great deal of time in the woods with him today.”

“It’s not—he just—” Her cheeks went pink.

He laughed. “Calm yourself. If you wish to cavort with Lancelot, that is your choice. It would not bemychoice or recommendation, but you are free to do as you wish.”

“Really?” She arched an eyebrow.

Sighing, he ran a hand over his hair to push it back away from his face. “While there is much about your situation that I cannot make equitable or reasonable, where I can, I do not wish to make you suffer unduly.” As jealous as he was of Lancelot’s easy way with women. And this one in particular, it seemed. “No matter how much of a monster he might make me out to be.”

“I don’t think you’re a monster.”

He huffed a laugh.

“It’s true, I don’t.” She sank another inch into the water, as if trying to hide. “I don’t think you’re evil. I know why you’ve locked up all of the magic. But…it still seems wrong to me.” She paused. “Can we talk about something else?”

“If you desire.” He was also not keen on discussing the merits of his methods of rule. He debated his next topic. “Tell me what you wished for in life before you fell to Avalon. You mentioned you wished to help animals. What else?”

“I mean, that was what I wanted—but I wasn’t going to get it.” She shrugged. “I don’t really know. I just didn’t want to spend my life trapped in backwater Kansas.”

“Well, I believe your wish was granted, if not entirely perhaps in the way that you would have wished.” He smiled slightly. “You are here now. Far away from this ‘backwater Kansas’ of yours.”

She snorted. “Yeah, until you shove me in the Crystal. I think I’d take Kansas over that.”

He supposed that was fair. “There may be a way to avoid that fate.” He could not even fathom why he was saying that out loud. Perhaps Percival was right. Perhaps he was growing weak.

“Oh?” The hope on her face felt like a knife in his gut. It would be that much more painful when he eventually crushed it.

“If I were to trust you—to know that you could not betray me—then I would have no reason to lock you away.”

“Somehow I feel like earning your trust isn’t possible.” She sighed. “Especially when you’re also telling me that the only reason you’re leaving me running around free is because I’mnottelling you everything.”

“I suppose the proposition I am putting to you is this—tell me all that you know, swear fealty to me, and I will allow you to remain free.”

“What does swearing fealty involve?” She wrinkled her nose. “You’re not going to put one of those weird crystals in my chest, are you?”

He chuckled. “Not unless you betray me.” Which was, in his mind, inevitable. He could not decide which was more tragic—having her locked away with all the others…or forced to serve him like his knights.

He could be a brute. But enslaving a hopeful lover was a depth to which he would never sink.

It seemed she was having the same thought, judging by how she was looking away from him, her features mirroring his own uncertainty. “Can I think about it?”

“Of course.”

“I believe what you’re saying, I just…”

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