Page 77 of Fall of Ruin and Wrath

Stay the night with me.My stomach made that idiotic dipping motion again. I shook my head. Why in the world did he want me to stay the night with him? I wasn’t sure I had pleased him beyond providing a release. Except, he had said I’d interested him, enthralled him.

“What happened?” Grady prodded.

Immediately, the memory of the Prince and me in that damn bathtub flashed in my mind. His hands on me. His finger inside me. Holding me. And it was the last bit that stuck with me. Theholding mepart. I dragged my teeth over my lip as I swallowed. “Not much.”

“Lis . . .”

“Grady?”

A muscle ticked at his temple. “You can talk to me about anything. You know that. So, if something happened that’s got you feeling— ”

“Nothing happened that I didn’t allow to happen,” I cut in.

“That’s the thing, though.” Grady scooted closer. “You didn’t really choose to go to him tonight, now did you? You felt like you had to, so were you ever in the position to not allow whatever it was that happened?”

I wiggled a little, discomfited with that being the second time I’d been asked that question. “He gave me a choice, and I did choose to go to him— something we’ve already established.”

Grady stared at me as if I had sprouted a third eye in the center of my forehead.

“Seriously. He gave me a choice in what we did— and we didn’t have sex,” I told him. “And so what if we had? I’m not a virgin, Grady.”

His lips curled, and though I couldn’t see the flush in his brown skin, I knew it was there. “I really didn’t need to know that but thank you for sharing.”

“You’re welcome.” Dipping my chin, I giggled at the glare he sent me. “He really did give me a choice, Grady, and I get that the whole idea of me wanting to do anything that I did is a complicated mess. Trust me. I know, but . . .” I thought of what Naomi had once told me when I confided in her that I sometimes enjoyed it when Claude sent me to find out information for him.Few things are black-and-white, Lis. Most of life exists in that messy gray area in between, but if you wanted what was happening— you enjoyed it and so did the other— then there’s nothing wrong,she’d said.Anyone who tells you different either hasn’t been where you’ve been or they’re just living a different life. Doesn’t make either of you right or wrong.I exhaled slowly. “But this Hyhborn . . . he’s different.”

“Different how?”

I shrugged.

“They’re all the same, Lis. Nice to look at and charming on the outside but demented assholes on the inside. Just because one of them made sure you didn’t get hurt and didn’t compel you into doing something against your will doesn’t mean they can be trusted, especially this one. You know what has been said about the Prince of Vytrus.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” He raised his brows. “He led the army that laid siege to Astoria.”

I found myself nodding again, but it was difficult reconciling the Prince Thorne I knew with the one who had been spoken about for years. Then again, I didn’t really know the Prince, did I?

But that didn’t feel right.

It did feel like I knew him, and he did seem different from what we knew of the Hyhborn, even before I knew his name. When I saw him in the gardens and farther back? My mind went all the way to the night in Union City. “There’s something I haven’t told you,” I began. “We’ve met this Hyhborn before.”

Grady stared at me for a moment, then sat straighter. His brown eyes widened the moment he clearly realized what I was speaking of. “Union City?”

I nodded.

He leaned back, then pitched forward. “And you’re just now telling me?”

I winced. “I just . . . I don’t know why I didn’t say anything earlier.”

“That’s a shit excuse, Lis.”

“It’s not meant to be one at all,” I told him. “I’m sorry. I should’ve said something before.”

He looked away. “It’s not that one who grabbed me, is it?”

“Good gods, no. It was the other one,” I assured him, frowning as I realized then that Prince Thorne had also led the Mister to believe he was a lord that night. “He hasn’t recognized me, by the way.”

Grady seemed to let that bit of news sink in. “Are you sure it was him?”