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“Princess Taelyn, I wish to come with you tomorrow.”

She turns to face me. “Why? What good will it do to have both of us in the wildlands? One of us needs to be here.” She sighs as though my very presence exasperates her. “Please don’t keep making me repeat myself.”

I hate how drawn I am to her. My palms tingle with the desire to touch her. My body aches to be next to hers. Even when she’s annoyed with me, I still want her.

“You don’t seem to have given any thought as to how it would make me look for my younger sister to ride out into the wildlands while I stay behind. The rest of the city will consider me a coward. I’m fully aware that my reputation isn’t the best, but I feel as though since I’ve been released from the cage, this is my fresh start.”

She arches her brow. “Is it because you are older that you believe you should be the one going, or because I am female? Would we be having this conversation if I was a younger stepbrother?”

“Probably not,” I admit.

There would be a lot that would be different if she were a younger stepbrother. I wouldn’t be trying to creep into her bed at night, or be constantly thinking about her, I’m sure. I keep this to myself, though.

“Well, then,” she says, as though that has brought the matter to a close.

She walks over to what had been the king’s favorite chair and runs her fingers across the back.

“I miss them,” she says. “I wish they were still here.”

I know exactly who she’s talking about, but she seems to have forgotten who she’s talking to.

“The king was a good man,” she continues. “A fair ruler.”

Sometimes I feel as though she is living in a whole different world than I am. “He had me locked away in a cage beneath the castle for what he hoped would be the whole of eternity. Me—his own son. How can you call him kind and good?”

“I don’t truly know his reasons for that,” she mutters, glancing away.

I can’t stand it.

I cross the room in a few strides, bringing myself in front of her. I grab her chin and yank her face up, so her eyes lock with mine—pale blue to almost black.

“I do. He was fearful I would take his place. He couldn’t stand the possibility that I might find favor with either you or your mother, and that ultimately you would prefer me to him. So instead of risking it, he had me locked away.”

“Find favor?” She gives a small laugh. “Do you mean sex?”

“Of course I mean sex. If you had to choose to fuck me or my father, which would you go for?”

She yanks her face out of my grip.

“He was like a father to me as well,” she spits. “You are disgusting for even mentioning such a thing.”

I huff air from my nostrils. Jealousy rises inside me, green and vibrant. “He was like a father to you, huh? Good to see he was a decent parent to someone, then, because he certainly wasn’t to me.”

“Maybe if you’d been a better person, he would have been.”

“I see. So, being locked away, with my hands in chains, for all of eternity, by my own father, was my own fault because I wasn’t a better person? Maybe if he hadn’t had my mother killed, so I’d had a caring figure to raise me, then I would have been.”

She flinches at that. “He had your mother killed? I don’t believe it.”

I scoff at her. “Really? You’ll believe he had me lockedbeneath the castle to slowly go mad, but you won’t believe he’d have a whore murdered?”

She hesitates, and I can see she’s considering this.

“Okay,” she says slowly, “but you’re still responsible for who you are, even without a mother. You still could try to be a better person.”

“A better person? Why am I not considered to be a decent person already? Because I need sex to survive? What’s so wrong with sex, Princess?”

Fuck, she’s so beautiful. I see the effect I have on her. The way my words cause blood to rush to her face, her cheeks pinkening so prettily. Her lips part, and she draws a breath. I’ve flustered her, and I find I’m enjoying the result.