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Swiveling forward again, I lean into this idiot king, petting his cheek. In response, the room dims a little. Apparently, my mate has some objections to me petting other men.

“And who opened the tomb?” I breathe.

“I don’t know,” he growls.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I mean it wasn’t awhoat all.”

Losing patience.

“Explain,” I command.

Again, he hesitates. How precious. As if he can fight the hold I have on him.

After two short seconds, he gives up. “On the night the dead man rose—the nightGallegharrose—” he clarifies, making it clear that he knows exactly who lay buried in that grave, “it was a shadow that retrieved him.”

Chapter 12

I don’t thinkI breathe. Around me, the room darkens.

“A shadow,” I repeat.

Back to this insidious shadow. I’d almost forgotten about this aspect of the Thief of Souls. The Night Kingdom’s wet nurses had seen a shadow watching over the casket children, and in the Flora Kingdom I had heard about a shadow visiting the sleeping women.

I glance over my shoulder at Des, the two of us sharing a look.

“What did the shadow look like?” I ask, facing Typhus once more. My voice lilts as the glamour drips off my tongue.

Typhus glares at me, his fury still apparent. “It looked like ashadow. I don’t know, I wasn’t there. This is just what was reported to me. Godsdamn idiot slave.” This last part he says under his breath, just loud enough for me to hear.

The room darkens anyway. I don’t need to look behind me to know Des is all but primed for an attack. I don’t let him get the chance.

I click my tongue and grab Typhus’s chin, squeezing his jaw the way annoying relatives love to squeeze kids’ faces. I lower my voice to match his. “This idiot slave has your willpower by—the—balls. Now, apologize to me.”

“I’m sorry.”

It’s the least sincere apology I’ve ever heard.

I shift my weight, the reaction pulling a groan from him.

Definitelyin hate-bang territory with this one.

“What are you sorry for?”

He glowers at me. “Absolutely nothing, you cock-sucking whore.”

My claws sharpen, and my back pricks were my wings want to manifest.

Why do men like this always revert to the insults? It’s embarrassingly predictable.

“You’ll pay for that,” I say quietly. “After you give me what I want, you’ll pay for that.” I lean in to his ear. “Perhaps I will makeyousuck someone’s cock.”

Over my dead body would I make someone do that. But a little empty threatening does wonders for cooperation.

I pull back. “I could you know,” I say, my voice low like a lover’s. “I could make you get down on your knees for every single man in this room, and you’d be powerless to stop me.”

Typhus’s borrowed magic seeps into the air around us, the most obvious indicator that behind his frozen exterior is a firestorm of anger.