Page 98 of Slaying the Shifter Prince
This night, a couple of days before my show, was no different. They’d played poker again, Sepher and I had cheated again, and together we’d won. He collected me from the theatre—practically had to drag me off the glowing hoop. Now it had been delivered, I could wholeheartedly admit he was right. It was incredible, like the sun or moon had been brought indoors and I got to perform with it.
Tonight, he didn’t fondle me as he carried me to our rooms. He stalked in silence, the shoulder I was draped over tense, his grip on my thigh tight. Something was wrong, but I didn’t dare ask while we were in a corridor where anyone might hear.
By the time he closed the door and set me down before the fire, I couldn’t take it any longer.
“What’s the matter?”
He held my shoulders and my gaze for a long while.
“Sepher? What is it? What’s wrong? If it’s something to do with the plan, we can work out a solution. We can—”
“It isn’t the plan. Let’s forget about that for tonight. This is…” His fingers flexed as his brow furrowed. “This is about us.”
42
Goosebumps crept over my skin. There wasn’t meant to be an “us.” Shouldn’t be. Not in any sane world.
He stroked my cheek, gaze roving over my face. “Zita, you have taken everything I’ve given you, every cruelty, every punishment, and you’ve transformed it. Such brilliant stubbornness.” The corner of his mouth rose. “Such brutal beauty. Such exquisite suffering.”
My chest echoed with the thunderous beat of my heart. This felt… It was like I stood on the highest catwalk of a theatre, teetering on its edge, with no safety net below. I was about to fall and I suspected he would be the one to push me.
“When you arrived, I found your stubbornness fascinating.” His teeth flashed in the briefest grin as his knuckles grazed my jaw. “Normally when I find something fascinating, it’s because I want to fuck it or break it—or both. And since you can’t fuck stubbornness…” He scoffed and shrugged. “Well, I had to break you, didn’t I?” His amusement faded as his eyebrows squeezed together slowly, like he was pained. “But when I thought I’d broken it, broken you… I realised I loved it. I wanted it.”
I slipped closer to that edge. Every frantic beat of my pulse roareddanger.
But for some reason, my foolish feet wouldn’t run.
His gaze pierced me, not with its hardness, but with the fact itsaw. “You know I never apologise. I did what I believed was right at the time. But this is the closest I can do.”
Not taking his eyes off me, he lowered to knees. Like a steel bar being bent slowly, he craned his neck back and bared his throat to me.
Mouth dry, I could only stare. At the pulse leaping. At the slow rise and fall as he swallowed. At the proud line of his jaw lifted to give me the most vulnerable part of him.
Sabrecats did this to their pride leaders, their riders, and their mates in a show of trust—of surrender.
Long moments passed before he frowned. “Don’t you understand? I submit to you.You’ve broken me.” His eyes widened as though trying to prompt me to respond. “I don’t even want revenge against the witch who cursed me. I only want you.”
What did I say to that? That I wanted him too, but he wasn’t theonlything I wanted? Revenge had to come higher up that list. I’d worked for it for too long. It was the only way I could come close to paying a debt long owed.
“If not words, then give me your actions.” His voice shook, raw, like I’d hurt him. “I lay myself before you. Do whatever you wish to me. Whatever revenge. Whatever cruelty. I am yours to punish and command.”
Beneath the bewilderment, something snaked through me. Something that whispered he was right. Hehadhurt me. He’d frightened me. He’d humiliated and degraded me, and although I’d risen to every occasion, he had deliberately done those things in front of his court to punish me.
He deserved to be punished in return.
Maybe he wouldn’t obey. Maybe this was a test or a trick.
There was only one way to find out.
I worked my tongue around my mouth as I lifted my chin. “Kiss my shoes.”
He bent and pressed two firm kisses to the silk slippers I wore.
The prince—His Princely Prickishness, my Prince of Monsters, the man who’d paraded me around as his pet, kissedmyshoes.
I took a deeper breath and lifted my foot. “And the soles.”
Golden eyes on mine, he cupped my heel and bent again, kissing the dusty underside of my shoe. He betrayed no hint of hesitation or dismay at doing it, which made that slithering thing in me coil tight and hiss its irritation.
