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Laurent’s hand moved between their bodies. He wrapped his fingers around his dick and stroked.

Varick reared back and seized Laurent’s wrist. “Did I tell you to touch yourself?”

“Please, baby,” Laurent gasped, silver eyes glowing. “You’ve got me so fucking hard.”

A rough hand in my hair yanked my head back, and Midian’s black eyes and malicious smile filled my vision. “They’re passionate together, aren’t they?”

I stared, tears smarting in my eyes as I felt individual strands of hair ripped out by the root. If he pulled too much at once, he might take scalp with it. My heart fluttered, skipping beats.

He shoved his face in mine, and his mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth as he screamed, “I. ASKED. YOU. A. QUESTION.”

“Yes!” I whimpered, and if I’d had anything in my bladder, I would have wet myself. My neck ached from the unnatural angle. “Yes, Y-Your Grace. They are.”

He withdrew slightly, and when a crafty little smile played around his mouth, his teeth were normal once more. “A little bird told me you like watching them together. That it makes you so very wet.”

Varick’s warning from the Middling tripped through my mind. Belatedly, I pictured a brick wall, but I knew it was too late. Midian had already been in my head.

“And what a simple little head it is,” he said. His face stayed his own as his voice shifted to Laurent’s. “Tell me, princess, how does it feel knowing the men in your life could never want you like they want each other?” He forced my head down again, and Laurent’s bedchamber became a room I’d never seen before.

It was round and small, hardly big enough for a bed. In fact, the bed was the room. There wasn’t space for anything else. Candles burned in holders on the walls.

And Laurent and Varick made love. It was slower this time, the violence of before given way to something deeper and more intense. Laurent was on his back, his knees drawn up as Varick thrust between his legs. Varick had Laurent’s arms pinned over his head, but Laurent tugged and Varick released them.

Laurent reached a hand up and palmed Varick’s chest, caressing the hard, round muscle sheened with sweat. White sheets tangled beneath them, as if they’d been making love for a while. Candlelight played over Varick’s back.

Which was covered in scars. Abruptly, I realized I’d never seen his back. When we were together that one time in Laurent’s bedchamber, he’d never once turned away from me.

Now I knew that was probably deliberate.

Midian leaned down and spoke in my ear, his cheek brushing mine. “Theirs is a bond you’ll never understand. They have so much history together. No wonder they don’t think of you as their equal.”

I held my breath as I watched the vision of Laurent and Varick together. Now, Laurent touched Varick’s cheek. Still thrusting deeply, Varick turned his lips into Laurent’s hand and kissed his palm.

“You’re a means to an end to them,” Midian said. “Just a convenient womb to give them what they want.”

Laurent pulled Varick down, and they kissed as their bodies rocked together. Varick hooked a thick arm under one of Laurent’s thighs and pressed it higher, deepening the angle of his thrusts.

“They don’t want you,” Midian murmured. “How could they? Just look at them.”

Laurent threw his head back and cried out. The sound of his ecstasy was like a knife twisting in my heart. Midian was right.

“Of course I’m right,” he said.

Laurent didn’t want me.

“No, he doesn’t.”

He never had. He only wanted me because of the prophecy.

Midian chuckled. “The savior of the realm.” Cool lips touched my cheek, brushing away a tear. “Such a lofty title for one so unworthy of it. Really, Given, how could you save anyone? You can’t even save yourself.”

It was true. A sob warbled in my throat, which was thick with unshed tears. Defeat settled over me, and I didn’t resist as Midian put a hand under my elbow and pulled me from my chair. Laurent and Varick melted away, and I walked in a fog, my head full of Midian’s deep voice telling me how I was a disappointment in every sense of the word. A daughter when my father had wanted another son to shore up his line. A halfling reviled in both north and south.

“The wicked product of unholy lust,” Queen Amantha hissed. She dipped into my path as I walked with Midian. Others appeared, too, forming a gauntlet that jeered and heaped scorn.

“Rebellious and troublesome,” my brother said, casting me a dour look before turning away.

“Simple,” Crasor the Prelate said, “an empty, pretty vessel, just like her whore of a mother.”