Page 127 of Terror at the Gates

I probably should have let him go without a word, but I was angry, and I felt like stoking this flame.

“Can I ask you a question?”

He paused with his hand on the door and looked at me, waiting.

“I know you fuck,” I said. “So why not me?”

I expected some speech about the importance of our roles and the value of the system our forefathers created.It was bullshit, lofty language with no substance, like our religion, and we both knew it.

But that wasn’t the path he took.

“You really want to know?” he asked.

I tried not to fidget, but it was difficult beneath his stare. It was like he’d let his mask drop, and the force of his desire hit me hard.

Or maybe I was just horny.

“Someday I will have to watch you marry another man, and it will be far easier to do if I never fuck you.”

Zahariev

That was a lie.

It was never going to be easy.

Chapter Fifteen

I couldn’t sleep.

I was too desperate for rest, or maybe just desperate to escape my thoughts, which were fixated on Zahariev and his stupid reason for not fucking me.

I wished he’d just lied.

I would have rolled my eyes. I would have called him a coward and a fucking crit, but at least his answer wouldn’t have basically beenit will be easier on me.

Selfish prick, I thought.

What he failed to consider when he’d made that decision wasme. What ifIwantedhim?

I rolled onto my back for the thousandth time and stared at the ceiling. The darkness felt heavy, like it was beckoning, reaching for me with claws, desperate to pull me under, but I knew what waited on the other side, and I was not eager to return to that everlasting nightmare.

I hadn’t told Zahariev about the dreams. It was the one thing I’d kept to myself. Though they’d haunted me since the night I’d first touched the blade, my pilgrimage throughthe cave and desert didn’t seem relevant. Although I wondered if the blade could choose to come back to me, was it leading me somewhere? And if so, what was it trying to show me?

There was a part of me that didn’t want to know.

I gave up on the idea of sleep and took a bath instead. I hissed as I sank into the scalding water, but it felt good, or maybe it just felt better than all the messy feelings Zahariev had stirred inside me. After years of relentless teasing, Zahariev had given me exactly what I deserved.

The agony of desire.

I took a deep breath and let my head rest against the back of the tub, wondering what had changed between us over the last week, but I knew the answer. At some point, I’d decided I wanted Zahariev Zareth to want me.

“You are in so much fucking trouble,” I whispered to myself before I held my breath and let myself slip beneath the water.

***

There was a knock at my door.

I looked up from where I sat on my bed. I knew it was Coco. I’d heard her get up about an hour after I left the bath. She’d just gotten out of the shower, her hair and body wrapped in a towel.