Page 264 of Between Two Kings

Tem pursed her lips.

“What happens, Tem?” Panic filled Leo’s voice.

Tem closed her eyes. Somehow it was easier to explain it that way. “You were right—the crest didn’t just make it so that I could give you orders. It created a bond between us. And if we don’t consummate it, you will die.”

Silence.

She could only imagine what Leo was thinking, how furious he must be with her. He was already angry at her for cresting him in the first place. And now he was learning that the crest had serious consequences—fatal ones.

Tem opened her eyes. “But if we consummate the crest,” she finished. “Caspen will kill me.”

Leo shook his head in bewilderment. “Why would he do that?”

“He won’t have a choice.”

“I don’t understand. Of course he would have a choice.”

“No.” Tem shook her head. “He wouldn’t. Our engagement is bound by blood. If I betray it, he will be compelled to kill me. His own father killed his mother in the same way. It won’t matter whether or not he wants to. He will have to.”

“Surely, he can resist.”

“No. He can’t.”

Finally, Leo fell silent.

Caspen had never been able to resist. No basilisk could. The call of nature was too strong—Caspen was bound by forces beyond his control, forces that would make him do things he didn’t want to do. Resisting, as Apollo had told her, was a distinctly human trait.

“Tem.” Leo placed his hand gently on her waist. “I could never kill you. I am sure it is the same for Caspen.”

But Tem just shook her head. Leo didn’t understand. And how could he? Tem was his only connection to basilisk culture, and she was hardly versed in it herself. He had no concept of the way things were done beneath the mountain, no idea how strange and different the serpent customs truly were. Why should he believe something so horrible when he couldn’t imagine doing it himself?

“You don’t understand,” she whispered. “It’s different for us. There’s magic involved—forces you can’t comprehend. We are bound by Kora.”

Us. We. Tem’s wording was not an accident. She needed Leo to understand that, as much as she was a human, she was a basilisk as well.

“But Caspen said there was another way.”

Tem shook her head. “I don’t know what he meant by that. If he runs away, he will only have to come back. As soon as we sleep together, it will trigger the curse.”

“Perhaps he knows something you do not. Perhaps he knows how to break the curse.”

“He would have told me if he did.”

“Would he?”

His words gave her pause. Caspen was always keeping secrets from her. Always. It had, despite the supposed honesty of the basilisks, become a core tenet of their relationship. Why should he treat this any differently? If he said there was another way, then perhaps there was one. It ultimately came down to the guarantee of Leo’s death against the credibility of Caspen’s word. Tem had to choose to trust him.

CRACK.

Leo once again threw his arms around Tem as the walls fractured around them. Basilisks were sprinting by, barely avoiding collision in the narrow passageway. Some of them were injured. Something was happening—something that, if Tem could not transition, she would be vulnerable to, just as Caspen said. Worse still, Leo was dying before her. She would not let that happen. She had to trust that there was another way.

Caspen was right. It was time.

“Follow me,” she said to Leo, grabbing his hand and pulling him through the passageway.

They ran together through the dust, using nothing but Tem’s instincts to guide them. The farther they got from the courtyard, the quieter the pandemonium became. When they reached their chambers, Tem slammed the door behind them. For a moment, they simply stood there, the weight of the truth between them. After weeks of wanting each other—of sitting through insufferable dinners and Evelyn’s constant, cloying presence—they were about to have sex. But how to begin? Tem said the only thing she could think of.

“Leo,” she whispered. “Can I touch you?”