This time, he made quick work of unwinding the straps and discarding my shoe. He started at the sore ball of my foot and worked his thumbs in slow circles over my flesh, smiling wider with every whimper and mewl I couldn’t hold in.
Diem one, Luther one thousand.
My muscles tightened and loosened, lust-charged blood pounding in my ears. “When you said you wanted to serve me, a foot massage isn’t quite what I had in mind,” I joked, my voice turning hoarse.
His face angled toward my leg, his lips nearly brushing my ankle. “Tell me then, my Queen, how would you like me to serve you?” Both palms dragged down my legs, resting low on my thighs and nudging them apart with the faintest pressure. “Shall I get back down on my knees until I earn another kiss?”
Heat exploded in my core. The room spun around me, my skin feeling like it might ignite with one more touch. I swallowed hard. “I doubt your lover would approve of that.”
His chin lowered. “Neither would yours.”
Game over.
The words were a bucket of frigid water on my desire. I tossed the dagger off, then yanked my leg from his hands and swung them to the side, hurriedly smoothing down my skirt. With several chains now broken, my dress hung off my shoulder by a single gleaming metallic thread.
I pushed past him and stalked to my wardrobe, snatching a silken robe. I threw it over my shoulders just in time for the last chain to surrender, sending the dress tumbling over my hips and pooling at my feet.
I wrapped the robe tighter and irritably knotted the sash, then slammed the wardrobe shut and whipped to face him. “You were sulking outside my room, so you clearly have something to say. Spit it out.”
Luther’s eyes narrowed, his pupils wide and midnight black. “Your first magic training session is tomorrow.”
“The ball is tomorrow.”
“The ball is tomorrow night. You can train during the day.”
“I need time to prepare.” I tried to remove my diamond hair clip and winced as it snagged in place. “It takes a lot of work to make me look this presentable.”
“No, it doesn’t.” He crossed the room and batted my hands away, deftly untangling the clip and setting it aside. “You forget the conditions I’ve seen you in. I know how easily your beauty shines through.”
He combed his fingers through my hair to smooth it back down. Tingles prickled down my neck as his hands wove through my long waves, catching on the knots and tugging lightly at my scalp.
My pulse spiked—at his touch, at the compliment, at the memory of all those times he’d seen me at my most pitiful, and how little it had done to turn his eye.
My mind felt hazy, my thoughts spinning out of control, and having him this close wasn’t helping. I leaned back against the wardrobe, grounding myself on the cool press of the wood. “Fine. Training tomorrow. Are we done?”
His brows drew in tight. “You’re angry with me.”
“Your skills of deduction are legendary,” I drawled.
He stepped closer, chest rumbling. “If this is about Iléana—”
“It’s not,” I lied, hating the sound of her name in his mouth. “You abandoned me at dinner. You invited me, and then you threw me to the wolves.”
“You seemed cozy enough next to the biggest wolf of them all.” His tone was cold, even for him.
I shrugged. “At least Aemonn stood by my side all night.”
Luther slammed his hands against the wardrobe on either side of my head. “Aemonn is using you,” he snarled.
I refused to flinch at his outburst, raising my jaw to him with an unrelenting glare. “You’re all using me. This whole gods-damned House is using me. Just because I’m choosing to play nice for now doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten that I’m a mouse in a pit of hungry vipers.”
“A mouse?” He leaned in, strands of my hair swaying in the gust of his ragged breaths. “We may be vipers, but you’re no mouse. You’re a fucking dragon.”
My chest pressed into his as it rose and fell in a harsh, unsteady rhythm. I made a half-hearted attempt to shove him away, but he only pressed closer. His eyes glittered with emotions that terrified me to name.
“What must I do to prove myself to you?” he breathed, sounding as desperate as he was furious. “Break from House Corbois, if you wish. It changes nothing—I will still serve you. Appoint every soul in the realm as your advisor but me. Marry your mortal. Worse, mate yourself off to that snake Aemonn.” His gaze turned dark as a moonless night. “Exile me from the realm. I will serve you from afar.”
“Why?” I demanded. “What could I possibly have done to earn such loyalty?”
Muscles twitched up and down his face, but he guarded his silence.
I laughed, harsh and humorless. “Do you know why I made Eleanor my advisor, Luther? Because she told me the truth. She didn’t hide who she is, or what she wants, or how it could benefit her. She didn’t keep secrets. There were no questions she refused to answer. She showed me all of herself, the good and the bad, and she let me make up my own mind.”
Luther looked away, his shoulders dragged down by some smothering weight. His mask cracked, exposing the struggle raging in his head against the words he held back, forever just beyond my reach.
I knew enough of him now to believe that whatever he was hiding, it wasn’t to hurt me. In fact, I was near certain he had convinced himself that his secrecy was somehow protecting me, in his own twisted way.
But I had spent my entire life being sheltered by people who thought their secrets would protect me. Because of it, I wore a Crown I was woefully unprepared for and faced a Challenging that would very likely kill me.
My patience for secret-keeping had come to an end.
“For all your hatred of Aemonn, at least he’s honest,” I hissed. “He makes it painfully clear what he wants from me and why. With him I know what to expect, instead of the endless gods-damned mystery that is Luther Corbois.”
Outrage washed across his face. “How can you say I haven’t been honest with you? There are things I’ve told you that I haven’t even confessed to Lily or Taran.”
“Why?” I shouted. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He looked miserable, tortured—but still, he did not respond.
My temper finally snapped.
“Well if that’s true, then how pathetic indeed that your closest friends and family know less about you than someone you are nothing to.”
His entire body flinched. He recoiled, pulling away and leaving me panting against the wardrobe door. A chill filled the vacuum that his presence had left, bringing regret along with it.
He turned his back to me and moved for the door.
“Luther, wait. I didn’t mean—”
“I’m glad,” he said, stopping in place. “I’m glad you see that you can’t trust anyone here. It took me years to learn that lesson. And too many innocent people died in the process.”
“Luther,” I said again, softer. I came up behind him and placed a palm on his back. He tensed, then pulled away.
“But you’re a fool if you think that applies only to the Descended,” he said flatly.
When he faced me again, his walls were built anew. All the churning emotions that had been pouring out of him moments ago had boiled off and floated away. Luther was gone, replaced by the cruel, uncaring Prince, the indomitable force who bent for no one—not even his Queen.