Restless unease makes me start to pace in the small space. “Why are you offering this?” I ask, bewildered. “I’m your prisoner, Rip. Your king no doubt wants to use me for some kind of ransom, and you’re the commander of his army that’s probably going to declare war tomorrow. You can’t ask me if I want to stay. You can’t.”
He stands as proud and as unyielding as a wall. “I can, and I am. You have a choice, Auren.”
I’m so confused, so damn shocked. “Your king would never allow it. Not if he already has a ransom in mind. He plans to use me, and he will.”
“Not if you tell me now.”
I stop to gape at him. “What would happen to you, to your soldiers?”
“You don’t have to worry about that.”
A noise of derision slips out of me. “Don’t have to worry? All there is to do is worry. I can’t stay, Rip.”
For the first time since he came in this tent, a flash of emotion crosses his face. Anger, dark and quick, thickens over his brow. “Why not?”
I press a hand to my forehead, trying to quell my thundering thoughts. “Because.”
He shakes his head, jaw tight. “Not good enough. Give me a real answer.”
“I don’t even know what you’re offering. To hide me? To make me disappear? I can’t do that to Midas.”
If I thought he was angry before, it’s nothing to the anger that brews now. It’s palpable, thickening in the air like a storm building to rage.
“Midas.” The word is spit from his mouth like a curse, something to detest. “What about those things you said on the beach? You’re just going to let him keep you again like a bird in a cage?”
“No,” I say with a resolute shake of my head. “Things are going to be different now. I’m different now. I meant what I said.”
Rip scoffs. The sound is ugly, distrustful. “If you think for a second that things will be different, then you’re a fool.”
My hands ball into fists at my sides. “I’m not a fool.”
“He keeps you like a pet. Uses you. Manipulates you. Takes advantage of whatever twisted love you think you have for him.”
He flings the accusations at me like a dagger, meant to pierce me.
“He kept me safe.”
“Safe.” He growls it like he’s a wolf who’d like to devour it whole. “Always the same damn argument. Yes, how magnanimous of him to lock you behind bars all day and call you his favored whore.”
I flinch from the slap of his words, a hit that makes anger and hurt blaze in my cheeks.
“You can think what you want, but no one else ever did that much,” I say, and I hate that my throat squeezes with emotion, hate that I can’t stay as emotionless as him.
“I wilted in the streets, starving, abused, hated. You think he uses me? It’s nothing compared to what I’ve endured at the hand of others.”
Rip goes lethally still. Fury radiates off of him and lifts the hairs on the back of my neck.
“What’s wrong?” I taunt. “Don’t like to hear that a fellow fae didn’t rise up in this world like you? So sorry that I didn’t sell myself to King Rot instead. Maybe if I had, I’d be commanding this army, and you’d be in Midas’s cage for people to gawk at and prod at your spikes.”
Those spikes stretch and tighten, like they’re imagining it—him being trapped behind bars.
“Stop being complacent. Stop being okay with being a pet in a cage.”
My lips pull back into a snarl. “Go to hell!”
He shakes his head. “No, Auren. You’re the one that needs to burn. You need to spark to life and fight. Stop letting him dull you, stop letting the whole fucking world trample you,” he shouts, making me flinch from the vehement demand. “If you tried, you could shine brighter than the fucking sun. Instead, you’ve chosen to sit back and wither.”
An angry tear floods past my eye and drips down my chin. “You want me to run like a coward, but I’m not afraid of him. Despite what you think, he loves me and he’ll listen to me,” I say, dashing the evidence of my hurt off my face. “Why are you even doing this? Why do you care?” I demand.