Emyr laughed. “What is amusing is the way you still keep lying to yourself. A clone? I’m not a clone. I have all my memories intact, thanks to you. I simply inhabit a cloned body of myself. The fact that you bothered to clone my dead body and transferred my brain into it—which is highly illegal on all planets of the Union and would get you a life sentence if people were to find out—proves that you wanted me back. You wanted to look in my eyes, see my face, and have me remember you. All this effort and risk, just for a bit of revenge and help in politics? Stop lying to yourself, pet. You’re smarter than that.” Emyr looked her in the eyes. “But then again, you’ve always been excellent at lying to yourself. You even managed to convince yourself that I forced you. No one forced you into my bed, and no one forced you to enjoy being in it. But it’s much easier to paint me as a monster when you have to explain to your son why you cheated on his father, right?”
“I said no every time,” Dalatteya gritted out, glowering at him.
“Ah, yes,” Emyr said with a sardonic smile. “It might have been convincing if I weren’t a high-level telepath and couldn’t read your thoughts and feelings. And they said yes and please every time.”
“Shut up!” Dalatteya turned and all but ran out of the house, shaking with rage, guilt, and shame. No one could get under her skin like he did. Gods, she hated him. How did he manage to still look like he owned the world, like he owned her, despite being bound and powerless? It should have been impossible.
What he should have been is dead, a voice said at the back of her mind as she strode through the garden. He’s not wrong. You brought Emyr back. You brought back the man who poisoned your marriage and made you unfaithful, the man who murdered your dearest friend. You brought back a monster, because—because you can’t imagine your life without him.
Dalatteya staggered to the bench, and wept, crying for the foolish young girl who had naively thought she’d ever be free of Emyr’ngh’zaver.
She would never be free of him.
There was the sound of footsteps, and then she felt familiar arms wrap around her. Mentally exhausted, she laid her head on his wide shoulder, closed her eyes, and clung to him as he lifted her and carried her into the house.
***
Later, she lay in his arms, her body heavy with satiation. He was spooning her from behind, his softened cock nestled between her buttocks.
He kissed her on the neck and said, “I lied. I did put those protections in your mind.”
She opened her eyes and stared at the wall. “How? You said—”
“The psi-suppressors do limit my telepathy. But you didn’t take into account that I already have a pathway into your mind because of our natural compatibility and it’s significantly easier for me to use my telepathy when I’m touching you. You serve as a conductor of sorts.”
Dalatteya balled her hand into a fist. That cursed natural compatibility again. She had always both hated it and was grateful for it. She couldn’t deny that their mental compatibility had made things easier for her back in her youth: were they not compatible, sex with Emyr would have been physically painful because of her childhood bond suppressing her ability to feel arousal. But her body had wanted Emyr, even back then. She had hated herself for it, hated her body for being unfaithful and welcoming Emyr’s unwanted attentions, hated the ugly, unnaturally strong telepathic bond growing between them against her better judgment.
She had been right to hate it, it seemed.
“What did you do to me?” she said, her heart beating faster.
“Nothing bad. Mostly, the traps in your mind are aimed to prevent someone from learning about my continued existence. I did it to protect you.” He nuzzled her hair, his large hand cradling her waist possessively. “I’m telling the truth, Latteya. I did it to protect you. What you did—what you’re doing every day is a crime. Making a full clone of a royal is a very serious crime, since it puts in question the legitimacy of the line of succession.”
She tensed in his arms. “You can’t assume the throne. You’re not Emyr in the eyes of the law. You’re not a person.”
“I am aware.” His voice turned cold and hard. “You robbed me of my name, my throne, my power, and my freedom. If people find out about my existence, you will be in jail for the rest of your life and I will be eliminated as something that has no right to exist.”
She turned onto her back. “Do you hate me?” she said, asking the question she hadn’t asked in twenty years.