“You’re the Lady of Chaos,” I breathed.
She touched the side of my face. “What?”
“Lady of Chaos. Ever since I first ran into you in that bar, you’ve lit every one of my plans on fire. You’ve destroyed everything I thought I understood.”
“Sounds dangerous. Maybe you should put me down, then.”
By the racing of her heart and the hot pulse of the magic around the room, I knew she wanted me as much as I wanted her. But how much of her desire for me was real? She was a succubus, responding to my lust magic. Lilu power thickened the air. That didn’t mean she cared for me one bit—it just meant she was high on desire.
Meanwhile, I cared about her far more than I should. And that was why I was burning my centuries-old plans to the ground.
It wasn’t her descriptions of John Robert Fox or the other mortals that had planted seeds of doubt in my mind—it was the fact that the mortal world had created Rowan. Could mortals be that terrible if they’d produced the perfect mix of terrifying and adorable, sweet and ferocious, that was Rowan Morgenstern?
“Right. I’m putting you down.” My whisper sounded choked, and it took a shocking amount of effort to release my grip on her.
She narrowed her eyes at me as she slid down my body, and my stomach turned in knots. “If you were trying to get into my head, it’s not working. The trial is still on,” she said coldly.
She moved away from me, climbing over the bed, and I felt a sharp sting at the loss of contact.
“I just wanted you to think of me and not Kas when you’re going to sleep.” Sweet Lucifer, why had I admitted that out loud? Idiot.
She shifted back under her covers, staring at me in disbelief. But I caught a hint of a smile, and then it deepened into something truly dazzling. “Hang on. Is the incubus king jealous?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I get jealous?” Gods below, exactly how often did I lie to everyone?
“Sure, you don’t.”
She saw right through me, of course. Which was strangely refreshing.
I leaned against her bedpost, unwilling to let the night end just yet. “Rowan. You saved my life in the underworld…” The rest of my thought died on my tongue before I could bring myself to say it out loud: Do you really think I was worth saving? And more importantly, would you still think that if you knew the truth about me?
She stared at me for a long moment, and a little line formed between her dark eyebrows. “Yeah, of course I did. And I’d do it again. I don’t trust you to run a kingdom without murdering everyone, but I want you alive.”
I could still taste her on my lips, sweet and salty. “What if you were wrong about me?”
“Oh.” Her expression shifted, eyes glistening. She looked sad enough that I wanted to climb over the bed and gather her in my arms again.
I was holding my breath as I waited for her reply, until her expression shifted again. Becoming more guarded.
“I can tell you want to say something, and you’re holding back,” I said.
“How can you tell that?”
“Your nostrils flare when you’re frustrated.”
“I can’t tell if you’re saying all the right things to try to get me to let down my guard, or if you’re genuine. But assuming you’re being real here…Orion, did you try to make me hate you on purpose? Because you wanted to beat me to the punch before I realized what you were like?”
The accuracy of her words was like a fist to my throat, and all I could do was swallow hard.
She bit her lip. “Because you do love to tell strangers that you’re terrible as soon as you meet them. It’s like you’re constantly trying to warn people.”
My chest tightened. She really could see right through every one of my defenses, and it left me feeling confused, completely without my armor. “I don’t have a lot of experience with people.”
She gave me a sad smile. “I think you’re crushed by the guilt of what happened to you. I still have hope for you. But I’m still going to kick your ass in the trial and become your queen.” She arched an imperious eyebrow. “Then we’ll figure out how to fix you.”
“We’ll see about that, love,” I said, almost to myself.
And maybe—now—it was here before me. The light in the darkness, the new plan.
At some point, I would take the greatest risk of my life: finding out if she still cared for me when she really knew me.
But I was getting ahead of myself. I wouldn’t play too much with the dangerous fire of hope, or I risked letting my last shreds of sanity go up in flames. Letting myself hope that Rowan could love me when she knew what I’d done—that was just about the scariest thing I could imagine. If she truly cared about me, then maybe I was meant for something other than avenging the dead. Maybe I had actual fucking worth.