Page 22 of The Beast King's Bride

“Why would she send me to you? Who was your father?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know?” he yells. “Do you know anything at all?” He rubs a hand over his face. “Faerie sank into the ground and you patted yourselves on the back and thought you were done with us? Washed your damned hands clean?”

“I don’t know,” I whisper again. My heart is pounding in my ears, behind my eyes, a steady hammering. He’s going to kill me now, I think, shred me to pieces.

“You don’t know. Oh, Maab. I—” He suddenly folds down on the bed beside me, a look of surprise on his face. “What…?”

I jerk back as he blinks slowly. His hand presses into his side, and when he lifts it, it’s drenched in crimson.

Well. Look at that. The Fae bleed the same color as us humans—and for some reason, this little fact calms me down.

“Prince Elyar did this to you,” I say, “with his steel knife. So you’re not invulnerable after all.”

“Invulnerable?” He snorts as if amused, then presses his hand back to his side. His handsome face has gone ashen. “Ignorant human. You know nothing—”

“Yes, I’m ignorant, so you keep saying.” I reach for the knives in his belt. “You keep insulting me and think nothing of it, then wonder why we humans hate you.”

“The truth cannot be an insult. You don’t know of our courts, of the empress. Do you know anything about us at all?”

My fingers close around the handle of the knife. Carefully, I draw it out of its leather sheath. “I’m not a scholar. I haven’t even been taught to read. Never had tutors to teach me history or geography. How do you expect me to know such things?”

“I thought you were a princess.”

“So did I for a long time. But you saw it with your own eyes. The king and queen, the princes and princesses don’t think I’m a princess at all. They had no qualms in pawning me off to you so they could go on with their ball. Isn’t that why you kidnapped me? A woman who is and isn’t a princess?”

“I didn’t kidnap you,” he mutters.

“Violently and unjustly ripping someone away from their home, as you did, is kidnapping, King. Just so you know.”

“I carried you away. I didn’t harm you.” His head is bowed, hand on his side, the barest of glimmers from those blue eyes showing under his lashes.

“Is this how the Fae think? That you have the right to carry away people?” I lift the knife and press the tip to his chest, watching his dark brows draw together. “The right to take whatever you want? Anything you fancy?”

“I haven’t even been to your world since the Sundering.”

“So you say.” I lean closer to him, press the tip a little harder. “What would happen if I killed the Fae King?”

“I’m just one king of many. She will put up another in my place. Or perhaps not. Perhaps she will only claim my kingdom for herself.” He raises his head and gazes back at me, no fear in his eyes. “Are you going to kill me, human?”

I shrug. “I may.”

“Make up your mind.”

I get up and press the knife a little harder. “I said—”

“You don’t know how to kill.” He grabs my wrist, his hand moving like a striking snake, like lightning. In his crushing grip, my hand opens and the knife clatters to the floor. He snarls in my face, all sharp teeth, and I flail, trying to get away. “Enough!”

A stupor falls over me, but whether is magic or just the last of my energy leaving me, I couldn’t say. My knees buckle and I fall to the floor.

His hand releases me but I don’t move.

For today, I’m done.

“Where is the king?” I’m sitting on another bed, in another room where the other Fae, Jassin, has led me, huddled inside the leather coat.

“His majesty has to catch up with the correspondence from the other kingdoms.”

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