Gleam (The Plated Prisoner 3)

He didn’t.

Midas walks me back to my room as soon as dinner ends. His temper burns like a double-ended candle, flaring hot with anger on one side and arrogance at the other. I’d be trembling in my slippers right about now if I were still the same girl in Highbell, and that’s what he wants. The giant always expects the ones at his feet to scramble for his bidding, if only not to get trampled on.

As soon as we reach the hall, the guards in the corridor whip open my bedroom door so that we don’t even break stride as we enter. I go straight to the balcony doors and toss them open, not caring that the piled up snow blows into the room, scattering like salt over a sloppy dinner plate.

I need the fresh air. I need the openness these doors represent. Because after tonight, after that display of dominance, my spirit needs the reminder.

I’m not trapped.

I’m not weak.

I’m not his.

The door shuts with a snap, the sound dancing with the crackle of the fireplace as the flames gnaw and bite at the burning wood.

I turn around, hands clasped in front of me, and Midas grips me with his gaze like he wants to shake me from the inside out.

“You acted abominably this evening.”

I want to snort at the hypocrisy, but I keep my lips sealed like wax on a letter.

The right side of his face glows orange, making his tanned skin speckle with the flames. “Do you have any idea what Queen Kaila must think of you?”

As if I care. But he certainly does. Midas obsesses about appearances and how to use them to his advantage.

“I’ve allowed you a lot of freedoms, Auren. But I will not abide disrespect, and after our discussion, you sho

uld know better.”

My chin rises, right along with that feathery companion that seems to have nested in my anger. “Digby did nothing but be a loyal guard for years. You have no right to threaten him.”

He laughs.

It’s a cruel, cold laugh that contradicts the firelight he’s bathed in. Midas eats up the space between us until he’s blazing at my front while the reminder of an escape chills my back.

“Being a king gives me every right in the world. I own the rights, the rules, the laws. You’ve pleased me with your work this past week, but that stunt you pulled tonight won’t be tolerated.”

My winged anger sits up, a dark trill in the back of her throat that sounds like a promise.

“Explain to me what the hell you were thinking letting that disgusting man touch you last night?” His words lash, one after another. “If he was any other soldier, his severed head would already be draining in your bathtub for you to gild.”

Tepid bile crawls up the back of my throat, my stomach churning with the visual of that. Of Rip’s—Slade’s—head cut right through his neck, pale skin glossed over with the paint of red blood. It wouldn’t be the first time Midas has carried out something that gruesome and ordered me to gold-touch it as an example to others.

Midas leans down, and I blink the vision away, breath stuttering in my chest as his fury soaks up the oxygen in the room. “If you let anyone ever touch you again, you won’t like what happens. To you, to the other person, or to Digby.”

“I nearly collapsed on the stairs, and your guards wouldn’t help.”

“And they shouldn’t!” he bursts out. “No one is allowed to touch you except for me. That’s twice now this commander has disrespected me.”

A line digs between my brows. “Twice?”

“He lifted you off the horse when he brought you back,” he seethes. “I should have ordered an arrow to shoot him down right where he stood.”

And had the might of Fourth’s army attack him back? Not likely.

“Did you fuck him?”

The question lands like a crack renting the earth.