Page 38 of The Beast King's Bride

“The Empress,” I whisper.

He nods.

“Why? She is your sovereign, shouldn’t she want your land to produce so you can pay her tithes?”

“She wants my lands,” he says. “She wants my kingdom for herself but can’t take it outright. The laws will not allow it.”

“So under what circumstances is she allowed to take it?”

“If it dies completely. If nothing more grows, nothing lives on it. If I give it up.”

“Well, then, that’s never happening. An entire kingdom can’t just die,” I scoff, wondering if more wounds and scars are hiding under his clothes and then feeling way too hot at the thought of removing them to check. “And you certainly aren’t giving up your kingdom.”

Has he noticed my flushed state? I glance up to find those pretty eyes on me, a light burning in their centers, like curiosity, like want. There’s a breathless quality in the way he’s gazing down at me, at my upturned face, my hands on his chest.

He snarls a curse and steps away, yanking his shirt back down, and I jerk back. “You should go. Jassin! Come in here and take her back.”

“But… I’m not done. The bandage, the wound—”

“Nothing you can do about it, Princess Elayne. You must go to your room. It’s already dark. It’s too dangerous for you here.”

Now that he’s calling me what I told him to call me, I don’t like it. “Because of those mysterious wild animals?”

“Yes.”

“You want me to believe that you care for my wellbeing?”

“Why is it so hard to believe?”

“Because you kidnapped me,” I want to say, “because you won’t let me go, because you order me about,” but Jassin comes running in and grabs my arm.

“Come, Ash, quickly.”

“Why? What’s going on? Tell me.”

“Take her away now!” The king turns his back to us, his fists trembling at his sides. “Lock her door and yours.”

“And what about you, Talen?” I ask as Jassin drags me away, something in the servant’s urgency sinking into me. Jassin also thinks there’s danger. “Will you be okay?”

The king casts me a glance over his shoulder, brows arched as if in disbelief, and that’s the last of him that I see as Jassin drags me out of the room and away.

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