Page 70 of The King's Maiden

Raising my eyebrows at her hand, I waited for her to release me. She only tugged harder.

“If you leave—if anyone leaves—we’ll all get in trouble.” Her eyes shot to Vivian and back to mine. “Please, just ignore her. Sit and talk with me, so we can get through this.”

Despite my better judgment, and the overwhelming number of red flags her statement raised, I sat back down. She calmed down, letting out a rush of breath and waiting until I tucked my chair back under the table to let my arm go.

The skin on my arm had five perfect half-moon indents from her nails.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked her quietly. “I feel like I’m missing something huge here, and it would be great if you could fill in the blanks.”

Her eyes shifted around the room. “Didn’t Landon tell you the rules?”

“No, or I wouldn’t be asking,” I snapped. But I reined myself back in when she grimaced. “Sorry, I’m just confused and on edge. Can you please tell me what’s going on? Landon told me basically nothing. He just ordered me to undress him.”

Elaine’s features tightened. “Yeah, it’s supposed to push us past the awkward getting to know each other part…I wish they gave it a little more time.”

“Wait, what? But you seemed so gung-ho about it when we met that first night.”

She blushed. “Yeah, when I thought?—”

“Oh.” I sat back in my chair, putting distance between us.

When she thought she was spending the night with Landon, her longtime crush, she’d wanted to rush to the good part. Instead, I ended up in his bed. She ended up with a Knight she wasn’t expecting.

“Why didn’t you just tell him that? Wouldn’t he have understood if you wanted to wait?”

Her eyes widened like I’d just told her to run naked around the room.

“What are you talking about? I mean, I know you missed the Maiden Introduction, but you know what we signed up for, Quinn. We have to do what they say. Give them what they want. When they want it. I thought you wanted to win this. Now, it sounds like you’re purposefully doing things to get yourself eliminated. Or worse—punished.”

I had to quiet the part of my brain saying she needed to rethink her priorities. But only because I was starting to think the punishment I envisioned when Landon let that slip out was not the same as what some of the girls experienced. Before I could respond to Elaine, though, a server approached the table carrying a large tray of plates.

Another followed, and as they started setting the plates down in front of us, my response died on my tongue. As I waited for the servers to leave the room, I thought over the way everyone had been reacting—like they were scared of the way their Knights would respond if they spoke up for themselves.

Once it was just the Maidens in the room, Elaine cut up a small piece of her chicken and took a bite. I stared at my plate, wondering how the hell any of them could eat if that was what they were worried about. But I didn’t understand why they thought they couldn’t speak up for themselves, too.

While Landon had been clear that The Quest came with certain expectations, he hadn’t threatened topunishme or pushed me toward sex once.

“Is that what happened when she spat on her Knight’s shoes by accident?” I kept my voice low so only she could hear me. “Did he punish her for that?”

Elaine swallowed and nodded her head.

“Why didn’t she use her safe words?”

Elaine shrugged. “Maybe she did. But most of us realize that’s part of this whole thing. Do what they want, take the punishment if we disobey them. From what the girls have said, the Knights make it worth their while if it comes to that.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “Plus, we don’t really want them thinking we’re weak. Or they might not vouch for us to go to Pendragon.”

“They’d really say you shouldn’t keep going if…What? You don’t blow them every time they demand it?”

Elaine took another small bite of food, nodding and eating like this all made perfect sense. “They can tell Kingston if they don’t think we have what it takes and we can be eliminated before we get to that part.”

“Do we get a chance to defend ourselves at least?”

“Yeah, but it sort of marks you as an easy target if your Knight doesn’t vouch for you.”

“Oh.” I stared down at my plate of food, feeling uncomfortable as fuck. “You guys see how fucked up all of that is, right?”

Again, she shrugged. “It’s tradition.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it right.”

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