Page 36 of Kingdom Of Veil And Vow

“Siyala.” The bitter tone of my name draws my eyes to his, and my body stiffens at the look on his face. It’s as if the male I’ve known for all these years has morphed into someone else. The kind and patient expression he often wears is traded for furrowed brows and lips pursed in a tight line. Shutting the door behind him, he folds his arms over his chest. “Your heart is racing. Are you nervous?”

I don’t see the point in lying, so I nod. “My throat is dry.” The words come out slightly slurred, a side effect from the dark piya berry juice he slipped into the drink he gave me when I arrived. The bastard had poisoned me in order to get me to stay, and in the blink of an eye, I went from standing in his living room to waking in his bed.

“Here.” Walking over to a small table near the bed, he pours from a small glass pitcher into a glass, his gaze scrutinizing me as the bed dips beneath the pressure of his knee. Bringing the cup to my lips, I sip at the cool water, grateful that I don’t detect a hint of anything else flavoring it. He sighs as he stands to set the cup back down. “I didn’t want it to be like this, Siyala. I wanted to give you the time to realize what was right in front of you. To see in me what I have always seen in you. A partnership—”

“Kenji, you have been like a father to me. I have never seen you as anything other than that.”

“You have a father, Siyala, and I am not him. I want to care for you. To show you what it is to be loved, just as you are. Just as I have done throughout your life.”

“Kenji,” I say on a mangled sob, my hair draping past my shoulders as I rock forward. “No.”

“I have stood by your family for years. Even with the whispering. The rumors. I have given your mother money and your bellies food. Have secured good work for Tiare and Titus, despite how your father’s reputation poisoned your family’s name. And I did so because I knew it would make you happy to know that they were cared for. That I could provide for everyone in your family, not just you.”

Tears blur my vision, and my magic threatens the edges of my mind, but it can’t help me here. Not with the numbing effects of the berry. “I’m sorry, but I—I do not want this. I do not want to be here.” I look up at him, my eyes pleading. “Not with you. Not like that.”

For a moment, he looks stricken by my words. As if they genuinely hurt him. But it’s soon replaced with that same quiet rage I saw last week, and then he is working the buttons loose down the center of his tunic. “If you deny me this, I will take it all away. I will leave your mother to rot beneath the debt created by your father. I will ensure that Titus and Tiare never find reputable jobs in Honna or Molsi or any of the surrounding towns ever again. The king may be your cousin, Siyala, but he is only a figurehead. Those who run this kingdom do so undercover, and I will make it known to them that your family is one of liars and cheats. Never to be trusted.” He doesn’t look at me as he speaks, his fingers popping button after button loose until only a few remain. “I will ruin your family, and then I will tell everyone that you tried to bed me as payment. That you wanted to whore yourself out so that you would not have to answer for your family’s crimes.” Tugging his tunic off, he tosses it to the floor before working on the laces at the front of his pants.

“Please,” I whisper through trembling lips. “I just want to leave.”

“This is what you do, little kit,” he chides, and I look away as his pants fall past his hips. “You take, and you expect not to have to give. You expect the world to bend to your will when you can’t even function on your own. This is why you will always need me and why, no matter where you go, I will always be in your head. Reminding you that without me, you are nothing.”

The bed shifts again, and this time, the heat of his body presses at my side.

“I demand a payment for my kindness,” he says, tucking my hair behind my ears. “And you are my price.”

Chapter Twenty-Four: Xander

“Whoever did these stitches must have had the shakiest hand in all of the Mortal Kingdom,” Tienne chides as she dabs at the torn-open wound at my side. Blowing a shorter strand of hair from her face, I smirk when it falls right back. “Am I to take offense at the fact that you did not come to me?”

“No offense intended, but I needed to get down to see Bella and only had time to visit the infirmary after the trial.” I hiss as she presses a cloth to me that makes the wound sting. “Gods above, that hurts.”

She winces, apologetic eyes meeting mine. “Sorry.”

I tilt my head back and heave out a breath, my fingers gripping the arms of the chair. “It’s fine.”

She presses clean gauze over my skin before gesturing for me to sit forward so she can wrap more around me to hold it in place. She moves deftly, tying the cloth off near the front of my body.

“Did you find the woman I told you about?” I ask, noting how the corners of her mouth turn down at the question.

“I did.” Standing, she grabs my black tunic from where it hangs over the back of a nearby chair and hands it to me, turning away as I pull it over my head.

“And?”

“It took a little time to get her to open up to me,” she admits, shaking her head. “I’m still not sure that she entirely trusts me, but I’m afraid your assumptions about what the king is using her for are correct.” My chin falls to my chest as I blow out a breath. “Her name is Eve, and she comes from a small village a few days east of here.”

“Do you know how she came to be in the castle?” I ask as I stand, pulling the armor piled on a nearby table closer.

“I haven’t gotten the full story, but from what I can tell, word was sent out to the brothels that the king was looking for a woman with certain attributes.” Tienne’s voice wavers on the word attributes, and my stomach curdles. “Eve was chosen by her Madam, and then the king’s advisor arranged everything after that.”

“Fuck,” I murmur, buckling the chest and back pieces of my armor before tying the top half of my hair back. “Do you think she can be trusted?”

“Perhaps. I want to speak to her a little more first, see if I can get her to open up.” Tienne turns just as I slide my sword into its sheath at my hip, mentally double checking that my other weapons are in place. “And how are things going with Bella?”

The sigh that leaves me is heavy. “Things are… complicated.”

Tienne snorts, pushing a tray of remaining pastries on the table towards me. They are leftovers from the meeting, tensions high enough that food was the last thing on anyone’s mind. “That seems to be putting it mildly.”

“Bella is stubborn, reluctant to answer anything regarding the princess. I can’t help but feel like there is so much more to her story than she is telling me.”