Gild (The Plated Prisoner, #1)(11)

“Are you threatening me?” Fulke growls.

“Not at all. But after an alliance of seven years, and with a common enemy, I’m offering you a way to solidify our collaboration. Having my favored is a gesture of my appreciation.”

My headache inflates, pressure popping behind my eyes with a snap of my mouth. “No.”

Everyone’s eyes slide over to me at my sudden outburst, but my heart is pounding so hard that I can’t focus on anything except the pain that somehow traveled from my head to my chest.

I’m not sure when I jumped to my feet, but I’m suddenly standing, facing Midas with my sliced hands held up in front of me as if I can ward this off. “No, my king. Please…”

Midas ignores me. Fulke’s eyes trail over my body, half of me cast in snowy shadow, the other in firelight.

“One night, no interruptions, to do with her as I wish?” Fulke asks in confirmation.

Midas tips his head. My whole body tips forward.

I catch myself on the bars of my cage, cut fingers curling around the metal, fusing myself to it in a shaky embrace.

“I want half of Fourth.”

“Of course,” Midas agrees, as if it’s a done deal. As if he’d been planning this scenario of negotiation for the entire time Fulke has been here.

One more sweeping glance crawls over my body. “I’ll agree to those terms, Midas.”

My king lifts his chin, a victorious tilt baiting his expression. “Your army?”

Fulke shares a whispering consultation with his advisor for a moment before he nods. “I’ll have them moving by tonight.”

My soul goes as sour as turned grapes, my stomach crashes with tumultuous waves that lick over my organs in bitter, biting acid as denial floods me.

He doesn’t ever let anyone touch me. I’m his. That’s what he always says. I’m precious to him. I’ve been his for ten years, and in all that time, he’s never let anyone near me.

Midas saved me. He pulled me from ruin and put me in a castle. I gave him my heart, and he gave me his protection. One look. He said he took one look at me, and he loved me, and I loved him right back. How could I not? He was the first man to ever treat me with kindness. How can he ruin that and give me to Fulke of all people?

My throat catches as I grip the bars, my vision tilting in unsteady panic. “No, Tyndall, please.”

I hear the gasps from Polly and Rissa at my use of King Midas’s first name. Nobody dares to speak so casually to him. People have been beheaded for less. But the name just flies out, unchecked. He used to let me call him Tyndall once upon a time, when I was just a girl and he was my vigilante knight in shining armor. But that was before.

My slipup is probably my mind’s way of trying to call back his protector role in my life, but I can see from the hard set of his jaw that it was the wrong thing to say.

His brown eyes cut into me like the knife on his place setting. “You would do well to remember your place, Auren. You are my royal saddle to be ridden by whomever I wish.”

Tears burn in my eyes. Don’t cry, I coach myself. Don’t break down.

Fulke tilts his bald head, watching me with unrestrained interest. To him, I’m already his. “I can punish her, if you like. I’ve been very successful at breaking in my own saddles.”

The first tear slips down my cheek even though I try to keep it balanced precariously on my lid. It tracks down like a noose, a rope of remorse falling limp against my cheek.

Midas shakes his head firmly. “No punishing. She’s still my favored.”

I guess that’s my bright side.

Fulke nods immediately, as if he’s nervous Midas will change his mind. “Of course. I won’t lay a hand on her. Just my cock.” He laughs uproariously, his giant belly jiggling while the advisors laugh nervously.

King Midas doesn’t join in, because his attention is locked on me. I’m stuck under his gaze, feeling a mix of hurt, fear, and subservience. I could kick myself for whining last night about how lonely I was. This is what I get for not being thankful for my cage.

“My king…” My voice is quiet, pleading. A last-ditch effort to speak to the core of him, instead of this staunch monarch who’d do anything to strengthen his rule.

Midas’s brown eyes hold no warmth. Just cold bark of a log forcibly cut from its roots. “I didn’t say you could stop playing.”

I blink at his words, my lips parting in pain as I drop my hands from the bars. He’s doing this. He’s truly doing this.

“Now sit pretty on your stool and play your silly music. Leave the men to speak, Auren.”

I flinch at his words as if he’d come forward and slapped me. My ribbons shudder on either side of my spine, as if they want to hide from his view. Slowly, I turn and walk back to the stool. My legs shake as I sit down, like a rock settling at the bottom of a pond, sediment billowing up, the depth of water keeping me oppressed from the sun.

I feel detached from my body as I see my bloodied hands lift up to the harp once more. The skin over the vein in my temple twitches, and my back goes ramrod straight, as if the hard lines of my shoulders can be a shield from piercing eyes.

The song “Shudder Serendipity” falls from the notes unbidden.

Each pluck of string is another incision that slices into more than just my skin, but into my heart. Every note is a lament, every movement a misery, every cadence a reverberating pang. Tiny drops of blood drip down the chords in sweet sacrifice.