“I hate that name.”
“Would you have had them feed the ovens, too? You have a strange sense of morality.”
“Okay, fine, you needed the weapons, but the batteries in these things belong in cars.”
“They are in cars. The ones you attacked me for forcing on my people, remember?”
“You can’t just make people do the right thing, my prince. They have to choose it.”
“What does it matter?”
“It matters. I don’t know why it matters, but it matters. Look at me.”
I’m caught off guard when he does actually look at me. God his eyes are beautiful.
I was going to say something but I forgot what it was.
“I am looking at you.”
“I…” I look away. “I’m trying to make a point and I’m not doing a very good job, I admit it, but you’re wrong about people. They have to be able to choose. The have to be able to be the people they want to be, even if there’s a chance they’ll fail, even if there’s a chance they’ll hurt themselves.”
“Why?”
I look at the floor. “I don’t know. I’m not that smart. I’m not going to convince you. I should just give up.”
“You’re doing better than you seem to think.”
I look up, confused.
The prince steps close to me, quick and light on his feet, cups my chin in his hand, and kisses me.
I pull back, shocked, and his fingers grip my chin harder. They don’t have to.
I kiss him back.
His lips are warm. He tastes like juniper berries, and his hand is rough and callous, not soft like you would think a prince’s hand would be. He kisses me like he doesn’t know how, with an earnest intensity that makes my knees shake. He’s so much taller than I am that he has to step close and I have to tilt my chin up. His hand falls away, and the backs of his knuckles brush my chest, his palm coming to rest on my hip.
I step away from him quickly.
“What is this? What are you doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is that what this is about? Are you trying to make me a replacement for your dead girlfriend?”
“I—”
“I’m not going to let you play dress up with me and make me some kind of a doll. You’re not going to mold me into somebody else. I’m not one of your subjects, my prince.”
I turn and bolt, running through the armory. I can find my way back, I have to.
“Penny, wait,” he says, but I don’t.
6
I slam the heavy oak door closed, and scowl because I can’t lock it. It doesn’t even have a proper doorknob. It relies on its own weight to stay closed. I thump it against the frame in frustration and yank at my dress, popping buttons and tearing seams as I harshly reject it from covering my body. Like an angry teenager, I grab a nightgown from the wardrobe and crawl into the bed, yanking the covers up to my chin as if the blankets will keep the harsh reality around me at bay, like warding off a monster from the closet.
It’s a dumb, silly, immature little gesture but it gives me some comfort, comfort I quickly begin to hate as I realize how helpless I am. I’m completely at this man’s mercy. I don’t even have clothes to wear, other than what he provides. This bed is his, the roof over my head is his. The air is his. He could probably order one of his minions not to breathe, and they’d suffocate themselves through sheer willpower.
What the hell am I going to do?
When I close my eyes all I can see is myself, standing in the armory with him as he touches me. His bare hand was different from being carried as he wore that suit of armor. He has hard, rough hands, the hands of someone who does work, not soft and perfumed like I would expect. I don’t know why I keep thinking about that, but I can’t stop myself.
I snort. How silly. I’m a modern, liberated American woman and here I am with my head spinning because a man touched me with his hand, over my clothes. Maybe it’s the dry spell.
Or maybe it was the kiss, the way he tasted and smelled, the way I fear him and feel safe in his presence at the same time. Thoughts that aren’t mine creep into my head, like the nonsensical urge to jump when looking down from a great height, and the harder I push them away, the harder they push back until they throb in my head.
It’s the little things. The way I had to tilt my head back when he kissed me and he bent over me, overwhelming me with his height. The electric sensation I felt when his hands brushed my shoulder, the way he kept staring at my neck and collarbone all night. The pangs of sympathy I felt when he pried himself out of that damaged armor beat at my head like drums, jabbing me in time with the beating of my heart.