Page 27

What is wrong with me? Focus, you creeping lunatic.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were the prince?” I sigh, no longer yelling.

He releases his hair and lets out a slow breath. “I didn’t want to come. I was ordered to by my mother.” He’s waving his hands to punctuate his words and not even looking at me.

“That doesn’t really…”

“Oh, Divine fuck, Mika! The only reason I agreed was if no one else knew who I was, besides the people who already knew me. I am essentially being dragged along like a child because I am of absolutelyzerouse in helping to save my sister. But my mother can’t have me anywhere near her and lose another child. She can barely look at me.” He steps back, looking at the sky, breathing hard.

I know the queen lost a son fifteen revolutions past—Riley’s older brother—in a tragic accident at the age of twenty. I don’t understand what this has to do with Riley, but I do believe him, or at least I want to.

“So, you’re not secretly selling me to King Oferdu as a doxy?” I add to the silence.

Riley gives me a wild look, mouthing the word “no” with incredulity and a dramatic throw of his hands in the air.

I want to trust him. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“…Okay.”

At some point after our ridiculous four-word agreement that everything was, in fact, okay, he’d stepped back to being almost on top of me.His typical Riley smirk is back.

“And what the fuck is that look exactly?” I hiss.

The smirk cracks into a full-blown smile, and I’ve temporarily forgotten how to breathe.Blinded by the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, it’s like seeing a red sunset glowing through the horizon for the first time. I’m dazed and confused.

He leans closer—I’m unsure how that’s possible considering not even an inch of space is left between us—with both hands against the tree behind me, his arms framing my head.He’s looking down at me with unguarded desire smoldering in his eyes.

“Is the offer to get on your knees still on the table?”

I can’t stop my jaw from dropping, heat rising in my face…and elsewhere.

“You know that is not what I meant by getting on my knees,you pig.Or should I say, Your Majesty? Prince Ofnemoris? Sir? Royal Dick?”

That last one has me blessed with a full-blown, head-tipped-back laugh. I don’t think I’ve heard Riley laugh before, at least, not like that.

“Royal Dick does have a nice ring to it.” His smile drops along with the arms framing me. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

I have no idea what my face is saying that he should be so concerned. “I haven’t heard you laugh before.”

“Oh. I laugh. Beans’ jokes are funny sometimes,” he says as he shrugs like it’s no big deal.

“Not like that. Well, maybe not around me then.”

I hate myself when the last part comes out strangled, so I clear my throat to hide it. He probably does laugh like that, but of course, not in the presence of the Silent Assassin.

Riley lifts his hand toward me, to—I don’t fucking know—but I flinch. Instinctively. I don’t know why his hand would go so near my face! He’s looking at me like this is the most insulting thing I’ve done so far. He steps back, moving entirely too far away, the space between us a black void that triggers an involuntary shiver through me.

“Do you think I would hit you, Mika?” The hurt I hear in his voice is…unpleasant. I would rather he hit me.

“Riley, it’s instinct. It’s not you specifically, it’s a lifetime of being taken advantage of. Being caught off guard is dangerous. Men in particular have found great joy in taking whatever they want from me.”

He closes the distance between us in a flash, still not as close as before, but leans down so I don’t have to crank my neck up to make eye contact. “Firecat,” he purrs. "I would never force you to do anything you didn’t want to do. If there’s anyjoyto be had, I want you to give it to me with enthusiasm.”

He runs the side of his fingers from the outside of my thigh slowly up my body. And I meanslowly—so slowly that it’s leaving a trail of fire and ice, stopping at my ribs. His thumb reaches around and gently caresses the space beside my breast that my leather corset doesn’t cover. He’s making gentle circles with his thumb as he leans in closer. His warm breath caresses the side of my neck.