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Jealousy looks good on Lex Ashby. “It’s not the same and you know it.”

“It’s comfortable,” I say, tossing the towel on the counter and walking past him into the bedroom. “And that’s my biggest priority right now.”

One of the cruxes of being in West End is that I know, somehow, Pace has his eyes on me. The feeling used to be a phantom thing, a suspicion I figured I was conditioned to after months in the palace. Now, I know better.

There’s a camera on me right this instant.

I know it like I know Lex is about to stalk out of that bathroom, fists clenched.

A moment later, he does. “Take it off.”

“No.” I turn, walking out into the living room, aware of him following me. There are a lot of big windows in here. Pace would have had trouble getting tech into the loft, but somewhere else?

I pull my hair up, putting my back to the window.

“Verity.” Lex’s voice comes low and full of warning, and when I glance up, a dark smirk freezes on my lips. He’s by the kitchen now, idly inspecting a series of frames on the wall. “You shouldn’t provoke him. He’s having a hard enough time already.”

“A hard time doing what?” I ask, remembering the searing bitterness in Pace’s eyes when he bowed to me.May she reign. “Letting me make my own decisions? Trying not to own me? Not lashing out when he doesn’t get his way?”

Lex slides his gaze to mine. “Not coming in here and taking you back to his cell.” The word he uses is like a bucket of cold water, and he notices. “It’s the only way he knows to keep the things he cares about safe. He can’t help it, but he’s trying.”

Shaking my head, I let my hair drop, covering the name on the back of my shirt. “He doesn’t see reason.”

Lex fingers the corner of a frame, his amber eyes scanning the text of the old newspaper article inside of it. “The two of you have that in common.”

I look toward the bedroom, and for a moment, I wish it was Wicker here with me. He’d touch me, even though it’d be hungry and full of frustration. He’d be curling around me in bed right about now, half-asleep, yanking me aggressively into the breadth of his chest.

I’m not sure I can sleep alone anymore.

“Can you take those down?” I plead, watching Lex inspect all the articles about the Forsyth Carver. Rubbing some warmth into my arms, I explain. “They freak me out.”

Lex raises an eyebrow, tipping his head toward my chest. “Can you take that off?”

“Come to bed,” I challenge, fidgeting coyly with the hem, “and you can take it off me yourself.”

The shutters slam over his eyes, and with a tightly contained inhale, he begins taking the frames off the wall. “I have to sleep out here,” he says, gesturing to the couch. “You have to tie me up.”

It takes me far too long to realize the rope slung over the arm of the sofa has an actual purpose. I blink at it, jaw going slack. “Oh my god, you can’t be serious.”

He stacks the frame neatly on the counter. “That was the condition of me coming.”

“Lex, this is ridiculous.”

“Look,” he suddenly snaps, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, “it’s been a long day in another territory. I’m in a strange place without my brothers. I've seen three other addicts from group. Andmy Princessis wearing another King’s clothes.” When he turns to me, there’s a flash of something dark and barely contained in his eyes. “I don’t know what I’ll do.”

I approach him carefully, slowly, like a cornered animal, and when I reach up to cup his cheek in my hand, I don’t miss the slight twitch of his body—the incremental flinch. “You’re really worried.”

His eyes fall closed. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispers, voice ragged. “Either of you.”

It’s why, with a lump in my throat, I follow his instructions, eyeing the long, lean cut of his body as he stretches out over the length of the couch. His feet hang off one end while his head rests on a silk throw pillow.

He raises his wrists, expression inscrutable. “Thread it through that pipe.”

I do as he orders, the rope rough against my palms as I wind it around the large pipe. It’s sturdy in that old way—maybe cast iron—and has been painted a glossy, if scuffed, white.

Then I tie his wrists.

“Tighter,” he commands, giving the rope a gentle tug. Obeying, I cinch it hard, wincing at the loss of circulation he’s about to experience. It’s only as I’m standing back, drinking in the absurdity of the visual, that he makes a soft, frustrated sound. “Shit. Forgot about my glasses.”