Page 110 of Hell Fae King

“I, uh…” I licked my lips, my brow furrowing.

“Hmm,” he hummed. “I didn’t think so. You asked me why I told myself I couldn’t have you—and I just admitted that you’re not mine to touch.” He brushed my nipple with the soap, stirring a gasp from my throat. “You belong to Azazel and Ajax and Melek. And they belong to you.”

I swallowed as he began massaging my breast with the bar, lathering the soap in slippery suds.

“But Melek wanted me to bathe you, to show you how to remove his mark. So I suppose that means you’re temporarily mine”—he switched to my other breast—“to caress.”

“Only temporarily?” I echoed in a whisper.

“Unless you choose otherwise,” he murmured. “Then yes, only temporarily.”

“But what about what you want?” I wondered out loud. “Why is it my decision?”

“Because you’re our queen, Camillia,” he replied. “That means you’re in charge.”

I arched a brow at him. “That’s not what you said in the bedroom.”

“Because I’m in charge there,” he returned, the soap bar slipping south to my abdomen.

I gave him a look. “Pretty sure you’re in charge everywhere, Typhos.”

His lips curled. “A good king knows when to bow to his queen.”

“And that’s what I am?” I asked, still trying to understand this shift in our relationship. “Your queen?”

He paused, his eyes holding mine as the bar remained against my lower abdomen.

I shivered, his kneeling position exceptionally intimate. He’d left me on the bench, just maneuvered me as needed and used the wand to rinse the shampoo and conditioner from my hair.

But now he was using that soap like some sort of sensual toy, stroking my overheated skin as he knelt between my sprawled legs.

It left him with an uninhibited view of my core, yet his gaze remained focused on me.

“Yes.”

A single response.

No elaboration.

Just uttered with a resolution that sent a tremble down my spine. “Okay,” I whispered. That was all I could say, merely a simple word of consent, something I knew he needed.

Which I supposed was the point. He’d said I was in charge, that the decision was mine as to whether this was temporary or absolute. And all it took was a few seconds of conversation to realize what he meant.

He considered me to be his; it was my choice whether or not I wanted him to be mine.

But we were already linked via our mates.

Which makes me a Hell Fae Queen, I realized. Not just because of my bonds, but because of my siphoning ability.

A talent that came from my Virtuous Fae ancestry.

A talent that rivaled Typhos’s gifts.

A talent that made me an ideal mate.

“Our souls are compatible,” I marveled aloud, the truth hitting me right in the heart. “They always have been.”

He nodded, his touch resuming once more as he drew the soap down to my hip and lower to my thigh. “Melek realized that the moment he saw you reading Vita in the library. He knewthen that you were meant to be our queen. And I think he’s loved you ever since.”