Page 46 of The Beast King's Bride

I nod.

“That is what you prefer?”

“It wasn’t all bad. I had friends. Well, a friend. Pete.”

“You love him.”

“Pete? In a way. Like an annoying little brother.”

He frowns.

“My brothers tried to kill me,” he’d said—so off-handedly as if that was normal. It’s no wonder he doesn’t understand.

He’s silent for a while, standing in the water that’s lapping at his hips, below his navel. Humans say the Fae are born from eggs or the ground, that they don’t have a mark of their birth—but here is the proof that yet again they are similar to us in so many ways, born of a woman, of a womb, born to suffer and delight in the same ways as us.

Finally, he huffs a frustrated sigh and turns away from me, his back held a tad too straight. “I give you my word as ruler of the Sapphire Court that when the moon is full again, you will be free to return to your world.”

I can do this.

One moon. Less than.

Sloshing through the warm water, I step out of the pool and grab the sheet Auria and Zylphia brought for me to wrap myself in. Cocooned in the thick material, I sit on the bench, shivering as the water starts to dry on my skin, and watch the king.

He hasn’t moved from his spot in the pool, turned away from me, even though he has to know by now that I’m out and covered. He paints a grave picture of a pensive statue, the water gleaming on his back.

Then he sinks into the water all the way until he vanishes in the milky liquid and I wait and wait for him to come up for air.

Gods, these Fae can really hold their breath.

“Yeah, stay under longer, why don’t you?” I mutter, tucking a dripping strand of hair behind my ear. “Show-off.”

I need to dry off and dress. I thought Auria and Zylphia would be back by now, maybe even Jassin. Not that I need help to dress—I just feel oddly exposed around this handsome king who seems to have given me a way out—a Fae that I’m so attracted to that I might do something stupid and kiss him—

I narrow my eyes. There’s a commotion in the water around the king’s submerged form, ripples and bubbles and movement.

Something is wrong.

“King!” I yell, jumping up from the bench. “Talen! Are you all right?”

But he’s still not surfacing and cold fear grips my middle. Something is definitely off—unless this is a Fae’s idea of a joke, which wouldn’t be that much different from a human idiot’s, and yet…

And yet the king hasn’t struck me as the sort of ninny who’d scare me half to death for a laugh, not when he’s barely cracked a smile since the moment I laid eyes on him.

I wade into the pool, the sheet trailing in the milky water. “Talen! Gods below, Talen!”

He bursts out of the water, white as milk, blood streaking one of his cheeks. “Run!” he bellows. “Run out of here now!”

When I don’t move, frozen, he wades out and takes my hand, hauling me toward the door. I look over my shoulder, morbidly fascinated by what seems to have scared him. “What is it?”

He says nothing, limping as fast as he can, shoving me in front of him—and then he falls, his face white, hands smacking on the floor, and is dragged across the floor, back into the pool, under the water.

So fast I barely have time for a breath.

“Talen!” I start back toward the pool and stop, torn between going to get him and going to get help. Something tells me that grabbing him and pulling him out won’t be that easy.

“Ash!” Jassin rushes into the bathhouse. “I heard a noise. What’s happening?”

“Help him! Something has dragged him under. It’s like there’s a struggle—”

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