Page 38 of The King's Maiden

He dragged in another deep breath, and his heartbeat slowed. My body relaxed against him, the adrenaline fading.

“Thank you,” I breathed softly against his chest. “Thank you for coming to help me.”

“I—”

His muscles tightened under my hand.

It wasn’t exactly the best time to flex, but I supposed he couldn’t help it.

“What the fuck is this?”

Vivian’s shrill voice came from the door, snapping my head up. She narrowed her eyes on Max’s face before glaring daggers at me—the half-naked girl in his arms.

Oh, fuck.

Her complexion paled like white-hot heat, but that ice in her voice I already recognized.

“I’m getting your father.”

As soon as she spun on her heel and left the room, her parting statement hung in the silence of the room. It weighed on his face whether he realized it or not. He stared after the door where she’d disappeared.

This night had been a cluster fuck of confusion and fear. I still didn’t know what to make of what happened with Landon, but I couldn’t even think about that right now. Not while Max had me in his arms, holding me like I was his to protect.

What I’d felt between us earlier tonight, in those brief moments before his one-eighty, returned full-force. I reached up slowly and touched his face, drawing his eyes back to mine.

My fingers traced the line of his jaw. “Why would she get your father?”

His eyelids fluttered under the touch of my hand, eyes softening with that light I’d seen inside him earlier. But it quickly cleared, and he snapped back to the colder, shrouded version of him as realization dawned on his face.

Glancing sharply between the door and me in his arms, he spun suddenly, taking me with him. Before I could even get mybearings, he set me on the bed. He stood over me, his gaze hooded and his upper body so ridiculously, gloriously bare, I wanted to trace a path over every sculpted plane of his chest.

That was all I could think about as I stared up at him—how it would feel to memorize each defined muscle. First, with my hands and then with my tongue.

I also wanted to know what the fuck it was about this place that turned me into a wanton hussy, wanting to jump the bones of every hot guy I met even in the midst of a crisis.

Or at least three of the guys.

He stood frozen above me. Ice splintered through his gaze as he stared down at me, and I flushed at the thoughts that had run through my head.

Clearly, Maxwasn’tabout to make the start of those fantasies a reality.

“My father oversees The Quest. That’s why my Maiden went to get him. He’ll need to know you had an issue with your Knight.”

His clipped tone hit harder than I expected, and even if I didn’t want him asmyKnight, I wrinkled my nose when he called herhis Maiden.

“It’ll be up to him to bring this to the King and decide if you’ll continue to participate.”

My head jerked back so I could see him fully. “Wait, what? But I didn’t do anything,” I stumbled, flustered by the unfairness of it. “Why would they kick me out because he?—”

“It doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do, Princess.” He shook his head, unflinching in his delivery and the derision in his tone. “Not here. It only matters if you can please your Knight. For anyone who cares, from where they’re sitting, you sent yours running within the first hour.”

He flicked his tongue against the back of his teeth, the harshtskshaming me for failing so soon. It rushed throughme so quickly, my eyes watered. I dropped my head, hoping he wouldn’t see.

Unlike Landon, he didn’t stop me from hiding.

What he did was worse.

He scoffed. “If you’re going to cry about it, you really shouldn’t be here.”

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