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“What? You don’t believe me? That wasn’t the first time I’ve been punished in such a way. If one can call it punishment.” She trailed a finger over the neckline of her gown. “If you really anger Kolis, and he’s in the mood to be entertained, he’ll give you to one of his draken for the evening.” She drew a plump, pink lip between her teeth. “And trust me, when their claws and scales come out, they fuck hard.” She laughed softly. “Normally, Kolis likes to watch, and I enjoy it even more. When I come, it’s while looking at him. Sadly, whatever you said put an end to things before they got real nice and—”

“Convincing me you speak the truth seems really important to you,” I interrupted, not wanting to hear any more. “Or are you trying to convince yourself that you liked it?”

Her finger halted in the center of the bodice.

“Maybe you did.” I stepped close to the bars. “I’m sure Kyn’s sadistic roughness speaks to your sadism. That is what makes you wet.”

Veses’ nostrils flared.

“But I also know what I saw in your face when Kolis summoned Kyn. You may have gotten off, but you did not want it at first.” I held her stare. “I’m sure both mortals and Primals call that the same—”

“Don’t,” she warned, her lips peeling back, “even finish that sentence. It was nothing, and I owe you no gratitude.”

“I wouldn’t want it even if you did.” I looked down at her. “How are you even here?”

She let loose a delicate yet still-somehow-attractive snort. “I could ask you the same question.”

“I think it’s obvious why I’m here.”

Her stare turned shrewd. “Perhaps.”

My eyes narrowed on her, unease building.

“But to answer your question, I had to…chew myself free.” She lifted her slender arms as my brows shot up. “If you’re thinking I had to chew through my muscle and bone on both arms, you’d be correct.”

I gaped at her, my mind immediately filling with grisly images. “Really?”

“How else do you think I got free of shackles made in the same way this pretty little cage of yours was?” Veses glanced down at her arms. “Growing these back from the elbow down took some time.”

“That is…disgusting.”

“You should’ve seen me when they were just mangled stumps,” she replied. “Still, I was far more attractive than you.”

I rolled my eyes.

“I’ll admit, it was extreme, but when I felt Hanan’s death, I just knew it was our dear Nyktos who’d done it,” she said, and my teeth started to grind at the our-Nyktos part. “That’s what woke me from stasis, if you care to know.”

“I don’t.”

Veses smirked. “Anyway, no one else would dare do such a thing. But as I said to you before, Nyktos can be so…deliciously unpredictable in his anger. I figured Hanan had gotten his hands on you, you were dead in one way or another, and it was best if I made myself as scarce as possible before Nyktos returned and blamed me for something I had nothing to do with.”

“Are you forgetting that he imprisoned you because you tried to kill me?”

“That’s irrelevant.”

I stared at her.

“But imagine my surprise when I arrived in my Court only to be told that Kolis had a new pet who also happened to be the recently crowned Consort of the Shadowlands.” A glow of eather pulsed behind her pupils. “It was nearly as shocking as hearing Kolis call you his graeca, the same freckled mortal Nyktos sought to keep hidden, who happens to have the Primal embers of life stowed away inside her.”

“Did you mean to say disappointment instead of surprise?” I retorted.

She eyed me. “Disappointed cannot even begin to adequately describe what I felt. Devastated? Heartbroken? Yes.”

“Exactly how devastated could you be when, not that long ago, I saw you grinding on another man’s lap?” I countered.

“Just because what I want has been out of my reach doesn’t mean I cannot take what is.”

But she had taken what was not within her reach.