Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
"—who will kill you himself if you say another word."
Devyn's voice cuts through my rambling like a blade.
And all I can do is freeze because I think...
I think I also want to kill myself.
What in the world did I just say?
Devyn points at my chair. "Sit."
I bow my head in shame. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
Someone snorts as I take a seat, and the sound is followed by another snort, and then there’s a third one...and a fourth one...and I stop counting when I realize that there isn’t some powerfully contagious virus sweeping over the room.
It’s just everyone...laughing.
At me.
Hewhay’s, if you’re listening...
Are you really sure I’m destined to be here?
Maybe you wrote wrong, and what you really meant is that in this world I’ll be...deluded? Deranged?
"This session," the silver-haired woman says with a voice that also seems to suspiciously shake with ill-suppressed laughter, "will reconvene when we have more information. The investigation continues."
It's not an exoneration. But it's not a conviction either.
That should be enough for Devyn to forgive my temporary insanity.
Right?
I START TALKING AS soon as the door to our chambers closes behind us.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't know what happened, I just—they were saying those things and I couldn't—and Mrs. Lyme told me all those stories and I—the puppy thing just came out and—"
Devyn is walking toward me.
Not walking. Stalking. Slow, deliberate steps that eat up the distance between us while I babble and back away.
"—and I know I shouldn't have said anything but they were looking at you like you were a monster and you're not, you're really not, even though you're very scary sometimes, and if you think about it, I never said anything that’s not true. Even your smile—”
My back hits the wall.
Oh no. Too late. I'm dead.
His hands land on my shoulders. Not hard. But firm. Pinning me in place.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
"No one," he says quietly, "has ever defended me before."
My eyes fly open.
He's close. So close I can see the gold flecks in his irises, the tension in his jaw, the way his chest rises and falls just slightly faster than normal. His expression is still controlled—still stone—but something underneath is cracking.
"What?" I breathe.
"Stood up for me. Put themselves at risk for me." His thumbs press into my shoulders, not painful but grounding. "No one. Ever."
Oh.
Oh, this man.
"Why did you do it?" His voice is rough. "You could have stayed silent. It would have been safer."
"Because they don't see you." The words come out soft. "Not like we do. Not like the people at home who know what you're really like." I swallow. "I just wanted them to see what I see. That you're not a monster. That you're actually..."
Don't say it.
Don't say it, Bailey.
"...the most caring, protective..."
Stop talking. Stop talking right now.
"...sweetest..."
I stop speaking when I see the color staining his cheekbones.
Don't say it don't say it don't say it—
"You're blush—"
He kisses me.
And yes, I know he’s doing it to shut me up, but...it doesn’t matter.
I melt anyway, and...oh.
This kiss.
It’s different somehow, and when he finally pulls back—
"You," he murmurs, "are impossible."
His gaze drops to my mouth.
Eighth time. I'm still counting.
And then I stop counting, because his hands are in my hair and his body is pressing me into the wall and I forget everything except the way he feels against me, around me, overwhelming every sense until there's nothing left but him.
THAT NIGHT, I FINALLY find the courage to tell him everything.
I leave nothing out. Abigail’s last words. My fears about him being her murderer. But also...how I came to realize that I need to make a choice. And so I chose to trust him.
I trust him. Because...I’m in love with him.
“There’s something else.”
And my king, being astute as always—
“I...um...”
I try thinking of something to distract him, and for once, my brain actually works.
“I want to know more about you. Your world.” I find myself nervously tracing a line along his collarbone as I speak, unable to quite meet his eyes because my words, while not a lie, aren’t exactly the truth as well.
“What do you want to know?”
“Were you and the other kings...also friends there? What kind of life did you—”
"We were in prison."
The words have me forgetting my discomfort, and my heart aches when my gaze meets his.
The past still hurts him, and that hurts me, too.
“All four of us were." His voice is flat. Matter-of-fact. Like he's reciting someone else's history. "Different cells. Same facility. We'd been framed—each of us, separately—for crimes we didn't commit."
As he speaks, his words frame a photograph in my mind. Monochromatic. Black and white and shades of grey, because I don't think my heart can bear seeing what happened to him in full color.
A young man. Beaten nearly to death. Framed for killing his employer—all because someone wanted the employer's wife. Thrown into a cell for a crime that was never his. Left to rot while the real monster walked free.