Glint (The Plated Prisoner 2)

As I continue to kneel there, staring at the woman’s tortured face, Midas lifts my hood and places it back over my head and then lets out a long, heavy sigh. “It’s alright, Precious,” he tells me, tone softer. “I’ll fix this. You don’t need to worry about a thing.”

He’s being kind now, his voice no longer hard or accusatory as his hand comes down to pat me. His fingers graze adoringly over my head, a heeled pet to be stroked. And right then, I wonder how the hell I fooled myself into thinking this was love.

How did I look into his eyes every day and not see that when he looked back, he was devoted to the gleam of my skin rather than the love of my heart? How did I miss the blinding truth that’s been there all along? How did I mistake an owner for a lover?

“You’ve probably exhausted your power with this little tantrum,” he muses. “It’s a shame, because I have a list of things I need you to make gold for me, but no matter. I can wait a bit, and in the meantime, you can regain your strength.”

Midas talks and plans and goes along on his path, while I lie battered and bloody on mine. Bile floods my mouth until I’m choking on the acidity of heartbreak.

“I’m sorry I lost my temper with you, but you see now why I’m right. Why this is so important,” he tells me. “You’ll get used to this again, Precious, and everything will be as it was. Don’t worry, I’m not angry at you.” Something feral in me wants to growl and bite off his petting hand. “Now, be a good girl and roll up your ribbons. Stay put while I go to my meeting. I’ll have to get the cage door repaired tomorrow.”

All I can hear past my thudding anger is the cracking glass as it shatters between us.

Midas starts to leave, stepping over the door as he goes, but I turn, my voice stopping him just before he gets to the doorway of the room. “If you walk out now, I’m done. I will never forgive you. For any of it.” My voice is hard, enraged, pushed past the brink.

He hesitates a moment and then says, “I love you, but I don’t need your forgiveness, Precious. I just need your power.”

Chapter 39

KING MIDAS

In the corridor, I straighten my robe. It’s thick, but so is the draft in this ice castle. It doesn’t matter that the weather isn’t battered with blizzards here. The cold seeps inside in a different way.

I look back at the closed door once. The wood is thick, the walls thicker, so I can’t hear if Auren is still shouting, but I sent an entire contingency in there to guard her.

My shoulders are tense, jaw sore from how hard I clenched my teeth. I do not enjoy handling her by force. Not at all.

She has always been compliant, trusting. It’s one of the things I admired about her. That she had the capability of being soft and malleable, despite her circumstances.

Auren has never looked at me the way she looked at me just now, and I don’t like it.

I shouldn’t have lost my temper with her, but she caught me off guard. I expected to get her back broken and afraid, ready to crawl behind her bars where it’s safe.

Instead, she’s...changed.

But that’s a worry for later. I’ll fix things with her, resettle her. She just needs time. I failed her, and I need to prove to her that she’s still safe with me. She’ll be her old self again, and then we can get to work on this drab, icy castle.

Not a moment too soon either, because the nobles of Ranhold are becoming impatient.

I subdued them with the promises of gold, but promises are the debts of demands, and demands can quickly become the clamor of unmet discontent.

They want wealth lining their pockets and filling their coffers. I want to sit on the throne uncontested and merge the borders of Fifth and Sixth.

It’s all within reach, and when she understands that, she’ll come to heel. I’ll be the ruler of not one kingdom, but two.

But first...

I start making my way down the corridor and across the castle to where I’ll be meeting that bastard King Slade Ravinger.

I had the servants prepare the throne room rather than the meeting room or even the war chamber. A calculated move, of course. He’ll be forced to speak with me while I sit on a seat of power.

I’m giving him a message. That I am not cowering from the shadow that his army has cast or trembling from this display of power. I rule here as acting monarch, and his intimidation tactics will not work on me.

After years of plotting, everything is falling into place.

But first, I have to purge the rot.

As I walk, guards follow b