It’s all there in my face as I watch Midas. The determination. The refusal. He didn’t overplay his hand, he just didn’t realize that there was another player at the table.
A long, tense moment passes, with only the shuffling sound of feet being funneled through the ballroom archway.
“You want to leave? To be the whore of King Rot?” Midas spits.
The low growl from Slade behind me sends a shiver down my neck.
My teeth grit at that word, but I don’t let it show on my face. “Better the whore to the man at my back than the favored to you.”
Midas moves forward, maybe to try and strangle me where I stand, but Slade steps in front of me so fast he’s just a blur of movement. “You take one more step, and I’ll rot you where you stand.” Tension roils off Slade’s shoulders, billowing black with the blight of his magic, and I know he means every word.
You say the word, and it’s done. I’d end him in a breath, in a room full of people who’d run screaming, with monarchs who’d band together against me. If you wanted me to do it, I would.
Slade’s words ring in my ears as loud as the croon of my creature.
Gently, I reach up and press a hand against his back, the tense muscles bunching beneath my touch. Slade turns to face me, eyes drawn in like shutters. “Don’t,” I whisper. “I won’t let him make you into the villain.”
A gaze as sharp as thorns hooks into me, holds me hostage. “I told you, I’ll be the villain for you.”
Resolve bolsters my spine. “Yes. But so will I.”
Chapter 48
AUREN
Maybe Midas is too bold, but he takes another step so he’s only a few feet away, gaze moving quickly from the last stragglers of the crowd and then back to me.
“You want to leave, Auren?” he asks, his quiet tone belying something sinister that simmers beneath the surface.
“Yes.”
His jaw grinds, mine locks.
Seconds, minutes, hours seem to pass as we stare each other down. The king and the pet, the crime lord and the painted girl, the liar and the fool.
He lifts his chin and jerks it up. “Then go.”
It takes a moment for me to comprehend what he said.
He walks over with hate in his eye, looking us up and down. “Let Ravinger’s pollution leave this kingdom,” he announces with open disdain.
Slade wastes no time turning to me and the others. “Let’s go.”
&nb
sp; I’m stunned for a moment, so surprised that all I can do is stand there and stare at Midas.
He agreed. He actually agreed.
I’m going to be able to walk right out the front door, and I won’t have to hide or flee. I stopped Slade from unleashing his power and potentially causing the rest of Orea to wage war against him.
But that split second of self-satisfied victory is all I get. Because in the next blink, Midas’s guards have shoved at the Wrath, and an eruption of retaliation breaks out between them. Unfortunately, I realize a second too late that it’s just a distraction.
Midas grabs me, my back hitting his chest, making a burst of pain erupt down my spine. Before the black dots can leave my vision, I have a blade pressed against my throat.
“Use your magic, and I’ll slice her open!”
My hearing wanes as I breathe through the agony of my back, but when I blink enough to clear my eyes, I find Slade two feet away, looking absolutely fucking murderous.