I passed my gaze from table to table, watching for anyone who might want to argue with me. I saw plenty of scowls and glares at her, but nobody looked like they would violate my instructions.
Satisfied that I would not be made a liar again, I waved my hand at them, returning them to their meals. I intended to sit down at my table again, but my prisoner rushed past me in a blur of blue skirts. She parted the curtains behind us and disappeared.
I dropped a sigh. She’d already become far more work than I’d anticipated when I freed her brother.
Mylo stood up. “Rest, Your Majesty. I’ll watch her.”
I trusted Mylo, but I needed to put the fae somewhere still. And I was curious why she’d just run away.
I gestured Mylo back to his chair. “I’ll need your help with her tomorrow. I can take care of her tonight.”
He sat down, and I slipped through the curtain.
I found her on the other side of the anteroom, sitting on thefloor, with her back against the door and her head buried between her arms and her knees.
She wiped her face and looked up when I entered the room.
Wiped her face? What was this? Was she crying? But I hadn’t felt any pain…
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, standing up and taking a deep breath. “I couldn’t stay out there a second longer.”
Nothing bad had happened. Nobody even protested my announcement. “Why not?”
Her face morphed with incredulous surprise. “Why not? Did you not see your own people? They all hate me!”
She was not hurt at all then, only… distraught.
She shook her head. “You should have warned me. Told me that I would never have a friend again. That everyone here would hate me just for being part fae.” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s a ridiculous thing to hate a person for, you know. We look exactly the same. If you hadn’t told everyone I was fae, they would have assumed I was an elf.”
“Would you have preferred that?” I asked. “To masquerade as an elf and hide your true identity?”
She sniffed and tugged on a reddish-blonde lock of hair that had fallen in front of her shoulder. “No, I’d rather be known for who I am.”
That was a relief. Anyone who would prefer the deception she’d hinted at could not be trusted. Or perhaps she knew I wouldn’t trust that kind of dishonesty, so she changed her answer.
I shook my head. I wasn’t going to trust her anyway, so itdidn’t matter.
But that didn’t change the fact that I didn’t like seeing her stressed.
“If I had warned you of how my people feel about fae earlier, when we were in the meadow with your brother, would it have changed your mind about coming here? Would you have left your brother with me and embraced the freedom of walking away from us?”
She pursed her lips, shook her head again, and pulled harder on that unfortunate lock of hair. “No,” she said. “I would have made the same choice.”
“Then nothing has changed, and I am growing hungry.” I nodded at the curtain. “Come.”
She folded her arms. “No, I’m not going back out there. And I won’t keep following you around like an eager puppy every time you say,‘Come.’” She exaggerated all her features and mimicked my voice with that last word, like she was mocking me.
Mocking me after all the trouble I had gone through this evening to protect her! I pressed my rising anger down, refusing to allow even smoke to escape my skin.
Instead, I stepped closer to her, looming over her while she pressed her back against the wall. “Oh, really?” I whispered through gritted teeth as I set my hands on the wall next to her shoulders. “You won’t?” Did she not realize that I expected my own people to follow me if I commanded them to?
“No!” she whispered in a rush. “I won’t.” She stared up at me, ignoring the way my arms caged her to the wall. Her bold defiance filled the tiny space between us, pounding on my blood, screaming that I must insist on the respect a king deserved.
She did not drop her gaze, but her breaths sped up as a rush ofterror rolled through the bond.
Ashes and flames. If I didn’t have the cursed mistek bond, I wouldn’t have known she was scared.
Well, her near-panting might have hinted at it.
