I’m not his.
The door shuts with a snap, the sound dancing with the crackle of the fireplace as the flames gnaw and bite at the burning wood.
I turn around, hands clasped in front of me, and Midas grips me with his gaze like he wants to shake me from the inside out.
“You acted abominably this evening.”
I want to snort at the hypocrisy, but I keep my lips sealed like wax on a letter.
The right side of his face glows orange, making his tanned skin speckle with the flames. “Do you have any idea what Queen Kaila must think of you?”
As if I care. But he certainly does. Midas obsesses about appearances and how to use them to his advantage.
“I’ve allowed you a lot of freedoms, Auren. But I will not abide disrespect, and after our discussion, you should know better.”
My chin rises, right along with that feathery companion that seems to have nested in my anger. “Digby did nothing but be a loyal guard for years. You have no right to threaten him.”
He laughs.
It’s a cruel, cold laugh that contradicts the firelight he’s bathed in. Midas eats up the space between us until he’s blazing at my front while the reminder of an escape chills my back.
“Being a king gives me every right in the world. I own the rights, the rules, the laws. You’ve pleased me with your work this past week, but that stunt you pulled tonight won’t be tolerated.”
My winged anger sits up, a dark trill in the back of her throat that sounds like a promise.
“Explain to me what the hell you were thinking letting that disgusting man touch you last night?” His words lash, one after another. “If he was any other soldier, his severed head would already be draining in your bathtub for you to gild.”
Tepid bile crawls up the back of my throat, my stomach churning with the visual of that. Of Rip’s—Slade’s—head cut right through his neck, pale skin glossed over with the paint of red blood. It wouldn’t be the first time Midas has carried out something that gruesome and ordered me to gold-touch it as an example to others.
Midas leans down, and I blink the vision away, breath stuttering in my chest as his fury soaks up the oxygen in the room. “If you let anyone ever touch you again, you won’t like what happens. To you, to the other person, or to Digby.”
“I nearly collapsed on the stairs, and your guards wouldn’t help.”
“And they shouldn’t!” he bursts out. “No one is allowed to touch you except for me. That’s twice now this commander has disrespected me.”
A line digs between my brows. “Twice?”
“He lifted you off the horse when he brought you back,” he seethes. “I should have ordered an arrow to shoot him down right where he stood.”
And had the might of Fourth’s army attack him back? Not likely.
“Did you fuck him?”
The question lands like a crack renting the earth.
I blink in surprise. “What?”
“You heard me.” His tone is the low rumbling of a shaken ground, possessive fury coiling through every word. “Did. You. Fuck. Him.”
A churning, bitter hate coats my eyes, glossing it with a golden haze, and my angry beast roars in my ears. “No.”
Back and forth, his eyes flick between mine, fatal jealousy boring through them and snapping past his teeth. “Do you want him, Auren?” he croons with loathing. “Do you want that grotesque, ugly, spiked-up, magic-tainted monstrosity to bend you over and fuck you like a whore?”
The air decompresses, collapsing in on me like it’s broken up into shards that slice my lungs. I can’t think past the clamor in my skull, not with my outrage blaring so loudly.
How dare he.
How fucking dare he.
“You were watching him. I saw you.”
“Yeah?” I bite out. “Well, I saw you fucking your royal saddles all the time in front of me, so I think you can handle a glance.”
“Watch it,” he warns.
My tone drips with snarky disdain when I answer, “I did.”
It happens so fast.
One second, I’m standing there mouthing off, and the next, Midas’s hand connects with my face hard enough to rattle my brain.
I stagger back, head snapped to the right, my cheek flaming from the punishing blow. Tears drip unbidden down the aching flesh, like my eyes want to caress the spot he just smacked.
Time seems to stop.
A line forms between us, a fissure of cracked earth broken through from the force of a single hit.
He’s never struck me before. Never.