Page 27

“I’m going to needprivacy,” she warned, her breaths sharp, mouth tight.

Kaos stepped right up to her, and she retreated into the bedroom. He followed, closing the door behind him. Then locking it.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s the only door that still secures,” he said. “Unless you’d prefer we stay in my apartment.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’d rather sleep inside a collapsed tunnel.”

“Then I’ll stay here,” he said.

She grabbed a pillow off the bed and tossed it on the floor. “Then you’re sleeping there.”

Kaos looked at it. Then at her. “I’ll sleep in the bed. With a barrier. To ensure you don’t molest me.”

Her jaw locked in fury and fear.

Kaos didn’t smile.

But heburned.

Chapter Six

Jaxi closed the bathroom door and braced her hands on the counter. Her breath hit the glass in short, uneven bursts as the silence outside the door pressed in harder than his voice ever had.

He was in her room. He’d be in her bed. And she had no more venom left to throw at it.

Her chest rose and fell like it didn’t belong to her. Every breath caught in her throat, tight like she was choking on her own heat. Her reflection didn’t help. She looked like someone caught between a fight and a collapse—jaw tight, eyes rimmed in frustration, skin burning in places she couldn’t cool.

He was going to sleep beside her. Not across the room. Not behind a wall. In the same space. On the same mattress. In the dark.

And she was out of fury to stop it. She didn’t want him near her. Except she did. She didn’t want him watching her. Except she wanted to know if he did. She didn’t want to feel anything. Except her skin kept reminding her that he existed.

The heat of what he’d done got under her clothes, into her lungs, into places anger didn’t reach. And now she was alone with it. No paint to fling, no brushes to smash, no canvas to beat on. And no room left to lie about it.

She gripped the edge of the sink harder. Closed her eyes. Tried to think of something—anything—that didn’t feel like him.

Jaxi shoved off the sink and paced once. Then again. And again.

She slapped the sink with both hands and leaned into the mirror.

She took from me what she needed. Through breath. Through skin.

What a fucking line. What a perfect, holier-than-everyone line. Like the Queen floated. Like she bled rose water and moaned in riddles.

She could see it now. The divine light. The whispered prayers. Kaos with his hands placed just right while sacred wind blew through the curtains.

“Fuck off,” she muttered.

He probably thought it was honorable. Ritualistic. He probably bowed when he touched her. He probably lit candles and chanted before sliding in.

She scoffed and turned, still pacing. “Congratulations, you were a glorified charger with a dick.”

But it wasn’t funny. And it wasn’t helping.

Because he’dgiven himselfto someone. In a way Jaxi didn’t even understand yet. And now he was here. Sitting in her room. Clean and silent and made of exactly what she didn’t want to want. And all she could think about was how she wasn’t the first.

She shouldn’t care. She didn’t want to be first, second, chosen, or sacred. She didn’t want to be someQueen.