She stands up. “I don’t know what you are talking about. I was hurting, I was—” she swallows. “He just died so fast.”
“Why did you beg for someone to come?” I demand.
She blinks faster now. “Because it hurts too much. I can’t—I need someone to take it away.” She starts to wring her hands. I’ve never seen her like this, helpless. Worried.
My instincts are stirring, demanding I help her. “You want me to take away the pain.”
Her eyes go wide. “What? No.” Then her expression shifts, like she isn’t sure if she believes what she just said.
I look around her room, scanning her cleaned shelves and neatly arranged clothes before my gaze lands back on her. Everything does hurt right now. I would be lying if I said I didn’t crave her touch. “Would you feel better if I held you?”
She blinks. Something in her face is desperate, and I realize she’s straining. Protecting her thoughts. Something inside of me almost feels angry—we are right here. Alone. We both could find comfort in this moment. “You have me wound around your finger, refusing to take what is yours. Why don’t you touch me?”
She watches me, her eyes still wide. "Why would I touch you? Why would you want me to after the poison?” There isn't malice behind her words, she dares me to tell the truth.
The magic between us is troublesome. It asks me to forgive her too easily after days apart. I take a deep breath.
To hell with everything. “You know that there is a tunnel connecting our rooms, but you have never tried to use it.” I gesture to the wall where the door is, alongside my secret window. “You do not know that I can see through it.”
She swallows. “You… watch me?” There’s an unspoken question that hangs in the air. She wants to know why I did not come to see her.
I take a deep breath. “Occasionally, yes. I made sure you never left.” Honesty is liberating, especially after so many days dragged on in the pursuit of ignoring her. The constant nausea in my stomach eases and I can relax, despite admitting my secrets.
The softness in her face has been replaced with anger. “Show me?”
I nod and move toward the wall, unlocking the door and twisting the nob open. She stops breathing as I reveal the simple hallway between our rooms, then brushes past me to walk into the short space. Electricity skitters across my skin from where she touches me, and I hear her footsteps against the uncovered stones. The scrape of her leather shoes as she turns and looks at my window grate against my ears.
“It makes sense,” she breathes.
I swallow. My fear claws up my throat, threatening to choke me while I search for the words to tell her how afraid I was she would die. “You’ll have to forgive me. I have learned to protect what is mine after the giants killed my mother. I can’t lose you too."
She faces me. There is still no anger there. “You watched me bathe. That time, you barged into my room to ensure I wasn’t drowning.”
Shame is hot as it pours over my head and back. She makes me insane. “Yes.”
She bites her lip and takes a deep breath. She should be angry enough to cut my head off. The woman I stole from her masters would be.
Instead, she says, “I know about what you did with the giant queen.”
I blink. Of all the things I expected her to say, those words were not remotely in my mind. Shame heats my cheeks as she uncovers the part of my past I wish I could forget. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Those wounds are buried deep. I try to never think of what that woman did. Does she know what my father did while I was tangled up in Lijasa’s sheets?
“I think I do. I’ve hit a nerve,” Estela says, glancing at the window briefly before returning to me.
I ignore her question. “No one had the right to say anything to you. Who was it?” But even as I say the words, I think of Liana.
She raises an eyebrow. “So, you are able to be upset about me knowing something you did not share, but I am not?”
I clench my fists. “Be as angry as you wish, but I didn’t want to lie to you anymore.”
She steps closer, but I can’t handle the closeness now. I move back. “You were comfortable lying about the rest of your life.” She gestures to the window. “Slinking in the shadows like the demon I thought you were.”
Anger flares within me at her words. “I did not lie. I have chosen to reveal the truth at strategic intervals while making decisions for the survival of our people.”
“By keeping me here against my will,” she retorts. “And omitting the entirety of your history. You consider the window an act of dishonesty because you saw me naked—watched me sink into the depths of the water and didn’t like how you felt. I have seen many men in my life, most of them wanting me for what the king did. You are as easy to identify as a leaf,Teo. So sure that you will have me, that you will be the first to touch me—yet you want me willing.” She steps toward me, taunting me again.
Her words stir something inside of me. They confirm that the Second Prince had lied. She was left alone. It strikes up a primal need to claim. “What man would not want you willing?” I realize just how close we are. How easy it would be to touch her. To taste her, finally.
Then, something flashes behind her eyes and her haughtiness drains out of her. “The Giant Princes. Hell, even other slaves. I am the daughter of the Giant King's famous whore.”