I’m frozen in place, completely unable to tear my eyes away, yet a thousand thoughts fly through my mind as I gape at the king.
Why is he here?
Where are his clothes?
Why is he continuing to remove his clothes?
The king, oblivious to my panic, moves deeper into the room, his glossy horns reflecting the dim light. “I apologize for my delay,” he says, his attention on his belt, which seems to be snagged on something. “I needed to tend to something urgent.”
He turns slightly, revealing a small pillow tucked under one arm. My heartbeat, already thunderous, throbs against my ears.
Stars above. He intends to stay here.
I start as he jerks the belt loose with a snap and begins winding it about his fist, the leather creaking against his hand.
“If you would kindly let me know,” he says, “which side of the bed you prefer that I—”
I can hear no more. Pushing myself back, I roll off the other side of the mattress and onto my feet, immediately dropping the rest of my body into a defensive position.
The Dragon King looks at me then. Gawks, really.
“What are you doing?” he says.
I don’t answer him. I’m not sure I can. My mouth seems to have stopped functioning. The cat, who has watched all this with little interest, yawns.
The king’s head tilts to the side. “Why is your face wet?”
“You will answer me first,” I say, my voice breathier than I wish. “What are you doing in my bedchamber?”
He gestures toward a darkened window. “It’s night. Where else would I be?”
I have the sudden and uncharacteristic urge to grab my own pillow and throw it at him. “In your bedchamber,” I snap.
He looks baffled. “Then how would the staff believe we are fated?”
What? My hands lower as my confusion overtakes my focus. “That we are what?”
Now he looks positively incredulous. He stares at me several seconds before dropping his pillow to the ground, sitting on it, and studying me as if trying to decipher some ancient tome.
“I was under the impression you understood the full terms of our arrangement,” he says.
Alarm courses through me. I can’t have him doubting my commitment. My people need this.
I soften my tone. “Perhaps you could remind me of the specific terms currently at play, Your Majesty.”
His brow creases. “Does your palace staff not gossip?”
Why must he speak in riddles? “Of course.”
“Then the same is true here, and we need them to gossip about us. My subjects will not accept a human queen, not unless we can convince them she is my fated flame.”
Fated flame. Lord Tallin used the same term, though he did so in a mocking way.
“Fated flame…” I repeat.
“My heart,” the king says, his gaze boring into mine. “My missing lung. My mate.”
I’d love to question him on the lung analogy but don’t dare. “Ah. So you wish for your staff to think you are here to…”
“To bed you.”
A wave of heat rushes up my cheeks at the brazen words. I was searching for a delicate way to address it.
“We are meant to wait for the wedding,” he continues, “of course. But if we are fated, it is expected that my passion overwhelm my reason, that we both be driven mad with longing. Hence, I am here.”
Embarrassment clogs my throat. What am I to say to that? How am I to feel? My hands fall to my sides.
“Now that we have reviewed,” the king says, adjusting his shirt sleeve, “I would be most grateful if you would tell me which side of the bed you prefer I lie next to so that I might avoid being stepped on.”
I barely hear him. I’m fighting with all my reason to reconcile myself to this astonishing turn of events.
I’m to pretend to be his mate? His heart? His missing lung? A wife I can be, but this sounds like something far beyond that. I find myself dropping back onto the bed. “How am I to do this?” I whisper.
The king blinks perplexed eyes at me before they drift to my throat, to the glittering jewel there. “Did we not send a competent representative to train you in our ways?”
I hold my tongue at the word “train.”
“Well?” he demands, a note of desperation there.
I’d nearly forgotten about Abely. After we disembarked, the man disappeared, and I hadn’t thought of him since.
Sheer shock prompts me to answer the king without a trace of diplomacy. “Whether he is competent or not, I don’t know. He spent nearly the entire time in the tavern.”
I regret my words immediately.
Actual flames leap to life in the king’s eyes. His muscles go rigid, like a predator preparing to pounce.
“What,” he growls out, “did you say?”