A King's Weakness (Book 1)

Chapter 26

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME." At first, I believe the words are just a thought, but the frown that appears on Bastian's face proves that I said them aloud. Whoops.

"No, I'm afraid not. I assume you know of your origins, yes? Wardens and wardenesses and the like?"

I narrow my eyes, but nod.

"And you know who your mother was?"

"Yes," I reply tersely, trying to unclench my jaw. "Her name was Lilith."

Dante raises an eyebrow at that, bemused.

Bastian simply chuckles. "Yes, her name was Lilith. Is that all you know of her?"

I'm not about to give them anything they don't already have. They take my silence as an answer.

"She was the wardeness of a rather...unique domain. We were quite close, her and I. We shared a bond, you see," he muses, speaking more to himself than to me. The asshole clearly enjoys hearing himself talk. "But that's a story for another time. Please, Miss King, have a seat. I will not ask again." He doesn't bother to conceal the threat.

An internal war rages in my heart; half of me wants to call his bluff, to answer his challenge and rip into him with my teeth, but the half that tells me to be sensible and to sit ends up winning. There is not a single atom of me that wants to sit next to either of them, so I end up sitting at the middle of the table, as far from both of them as I can possibly get. My spine is absolutely rigid, my tension quickly betraying my body.

"Why am I here?" I snap, temper flaring. The fake pleasantries are unnecessary; there is no doubt in my mind that I'm a prisoner here, that I can't just walk out if I want to—and trust me, I want to.

Dante busies himself with putting food on his plate, completely unbothered by my attitude. In fact, he seems completely uninterested in my existence, like he kidnaps girls for his father all the time.

"All in good time. Now, please, eat," Bastian evades drolly, taking a bite of his own meal.

My mouth waters; I'm ravenous, and I hadn't noticed until just now. I carefully watch which foods Dante places on his plate before choosing the exact same dishes. I'll only eat what I am positive isn't poisoned. The food is delicious, painfully so, and each bite is a stone hitting my empty stomach.

Silence creeps across the table like a heavy fog, and no one speaks for a while. I have questions, so many of them that I'm nearly bursting at the seams, but I refuse to be the first one to break the blissful quiet.

Dante speaks first, surprising me. "If you'll excuse me, I have many matters to attend to." His father waves a hand to dismiss him, and he stands, pushing his chair back gracefully.

He doesn't look at me when he leaves the room, and his absence both frightens and relieves me. Something about the way he carefully controls every tightly coiled muscle when he moves leads me to believe that he is the bigger danger here. But he hasn't openly threatened me yet, so I feel a tiny bit safer with him than with his father.

The same father who is openly staring at me now.

"What?" I snap, dropping my fork discreetly into my lap. There was no knife provided with my plate, so the fork has become my sole weapon—for now. I don't have the liberty of being picky; if the opportunity to stay him in the trachea presents itself, I'm certainly not going to ignore it.

"You look so much like her," Bastian murmurs, studying my face with his eerie silver eyes. They are flat, emotionless, devoid of any warmth—cruelty incarnate. This show of his, ever the jovial host, is merely an act to disarm me, and I'm not about to let it work on me. But I might play along if it'll open up a means of of escape.