YOU WILL NOT ALLOW HIM TO TAKE WHAT IS OURS!
I am the fucking king,I thought back, my words cold and precise.I am the one who wears the crown! You are a feral thing that lives in my chest, and you will be still.
The pressure didn’t leave, but it retreated a fraction underneath my own anger.
I looked at Corvin.
He was shaking his head slowly, the way he used to when I’d propose something reckless and he was the only man with enough courage to tell me no.
“No,” he said.
“No?” I smiled. “Interesting. Back in the tavern, when I interrupted you both, you seemed rather committed to the idea. Not only that, but I believe when pressed, you admitted you wanted her.”
“Those were your words, not mine.”
“Weren’t they though?” I let the smile settle into place and then allowed the cold to bleed through it. “I walked in on a very particular scene, Corvin. You were on top of her. Your hands were all over her, as were your lips. You looked very much likea man in the process of taking what he wanted.” I paused. “Now you have my blessing. So fucking well take it.”
“This is wrong, Arthur, and you know it. So, whatever game you’re trying to play—”
“—I don’tplay games. I’m simply offering you the prize you’ve been coveting on a silver platter, as it were. And now you’re going to accept your king’s generosity by fucking your prize.”
He shook his head. “I’m not going to do that.”
I noticed that the entire time this conversation was going on, she remained as close to him as possible, as if taking strength from the heat of his body. And he kept one arm wrapped around her while the other was fisted at his side.
He held my gaze, and I held his. “Is this about principle?” I asked, the laugh still riding my tone. “Or is this about weakness? Are you afraid to fuck her?”
He shook his head. “This isn’t you,” he said quietly. “This isn’t the man I knew, the man I bled with, the man who said he wanted to build something worth building.”
I laughed. The sound came out easy and genuine, and I let it fill the cell and bounce off the damp stone walls.
“That man,” I said, “died the morning I took the dragon into my blood. You were there for the end of him, Corvin. You’ve just chosen not to acknowledge it.” I uncrossed my arms. “And, in case you wonder, I don’t mourn him. He was soft. He believed that men would honor a just king simply because justice existed.” I let the smile go as anger began to work through me. In general, I didn’t like to deal in the world of memories because memories were dangerous. “He was wrong about everything.”
Corvin’s jaw worked. “This has nothing to do with justice.”
“You’re right,” I answered. “It doesn’t. It has to do with greed... Your greed.” I gestured at her. “So take her. Satisfy your needs.”
“And if I don’t?”
The question hung between us. He’d asked it quietly, without theater, which was the Corvin I remembered. He always chose the quieter option when a louder one was available.
I let the silence stretch before I answered.
“Then I kill one of you,” I said with a shrug. “Or both. I haven’t fully decided.” I looked between them. “The dragon has a preference, naturally. It would very much like me to kill you. I’m still entertaining the possibility.”
“No,” she said finally as she looked up at him and shook her head, her eyes wide with concern.
YES!The word came with a pulse of heat that was so violent my vision went briefly red.END HIM. END HIM AND TAKE HER. TAKE HER. SHE IS—
—Be fucking quiet.
TAKE—
—I said be quiet.
The heat subsided, but only barely. The thing inside me was in agony at the thought that its prize was about to get fucked by another man, and it wanted company in that agony, but I refused to give it any. This was the entire point, the exact reason I was here: to feel the dragon’s madness, to stand inside it and not move.
Because I was the king, and my word was law. Whatever happened next happened becauseIdecided it was going to happen, not because a feral beast with a hunger it couldn’t name demanded it of me.