Lips Like Ice

XXXIV

That's it. There's no other option, now. The Indigo Queen is going to kill Lydia, has every intention of it, that much is obvious. And, if the Prince fails again to get her pregnant, probably him, too.

Lydia wonders if that's why her first three husbands died. And if it really was their fault, or the Indigo Queen's.

The Prince can't get up, not yet, and Lydia's legs have turned to jelly, so she just collapses against his bruised ribs, and they hold each other. He reeks of decaying plant and fear-sweat, and Lydia determines that their next stop should be the bathroom, as soon as they can get up.

"What now?" Lydia breathes against his skin.

"What do you mean?"

"What do we do now?" Lydia sits back to meet his eyes. "What did she say to you?"

"She wants me to put you down," the Prince says quietly. "To drown you, like a litter of unwanted vermin."

Lydia grinds her teeth together. "Well, at least that's one thing that we both know won't happen." The Prince says nothing, and cold dread slips into Lydia's guts. She looks up, tries to make him meet her eyes, but he is looking away. "No," she says. "You can't... not after... not after everything that I've... aren't I good? Don't you want me?" She scrabbles at his face, trying to get him to turn to look at her, breathing coming in sharp, short fits, terror squeezing her heart, making it jackrabbit and flutter, terror scratching at her palms and the soles of her feet. Heat pouts out of her eyes, prickles the back of her neck, makes every hair she has stand at attention. His shirt, what's left of it, anyway, comes away in her hands. "You can't!"

"Why not?" the Prince snaps, reaches up and snares her hands between his won. "You... you! You have been nothing but trouble from the first! You! It's all your fault, it's all to do with you!"

"But you can't...!"

The Prince locks both her wrists in one hand, grabs her chin in his free fingers and tugs hard, forcing her still, forcing her to meet the fire in his gaze. "And I ask again, why not?"

"Be... because..." Lydia hiccups, stomach tight and her whole body icy with horror. "Because I love you!"

The Prince blinks at her, once, twice, and then he pushes her backwards, off her balance and away from him, onto her back like a helpless turtle, and laughs. It is cold, and cruel, and it hurts. It is terrifying, more terrifying than anything the Indigo Queen had said or done because the Prince looks and sounds genuinely insane. Like the pressure is finally too much and the force of it bearing down on him has cracked him, irreparably.

"Oh, my silly pet," he murmurs, and his voice is high and breathy, threaded with despair and hysteria. "Did you imagine your position has grown?" The soft brush of fingertips on oversensitive skin. "You're still a pet. Still just... an animal."

"Do not touch me!" Lydia shouts, leaping to her feet, brandishing his shirt in her fist, equally likely to snap it at his face or punch him in the nose. "Not if you're going to do it like that!"

"You are mine, I shall touch you how and when I like."

"No! No, not like that! You can fuck me, you can slap me, you can drag me around by the hair but you do not get to treat me as if I don't matter to you! As if you don't care!"

The Prince cocks his head to the side, and Lydia realizes with a lurch that it's a disconnected, scientifically curious gesture that she hasn't seen from him in months, not since he's begun to see her as a person rather than just a pet. Rather than just a fuck.

He's already bruised. He's already exhausted and covered in someone else's come, and he's already hurting. So Lydia doesn't feel that bad really when she balls up her fist and punches him square in the mouth.