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“Why are you here?” I could not contain the words any longer. It had been merely a few seconds after the Black Blade had disappeared through the tapestry before they had slipped out. They’d been on the tip of my tongue the entire time I’d watched the exchange.
I felt the vast space of the room pressing in on us, all too aware that Princess Odele and I were alone. I should have gone after Maisie, but Kai had done that. I should have spoken to Elias, but he had left. And now I was face to face with the mer I’d been searching for, and the anger slowly bubbling inside me was rising.
She looked at me with arrogance in her dark eyes. Unchanged. She was still a beauty, and she still acted as though the world was hers, and all who inhabited it should bow before her. Maisie had been right about that. About who she was.
“I already told you why,” Odele replied with exasperation. “I’m here to give my cousin her rightful place.” She smiled, and I could see it for what it really was. Venomous. She got up and fluttered about the room, hands passing over pastries on trays, picking them up and setting them back down again. I could only observe, and recognize her movements for the nervous gestures they were.
“It seems rather convenient that you came back just a few weeks before your birthday.”
She sighed and dropped a pastry. It thumped to the floor and bounced slowly. She turned to me, her every movement sinuous and inviting. Her eyebrow arched, her head cocked to the side as she studied me, observing and taking in pieces of me, much like the Black Blade collected secrets.
Except her glances affected me no longer.
Slowly, she sauntered over, swaying her hips in seductive movements that went ignored. When we were face to face, close enough to touch, she lifted a hand and ran a sharp nail down the side of my cheek. “You don’t seem so happy to see me, Captain,” she purred. “I thought you’d miss me most of all.” Her fingers stroked across my skin. “Didn’t you miss me?” She was slowly rising up so that our faces were level, so that our eyes met, and I could stare into those copper depths.
Copper depths that had me wishing for the polished glow of obsidian instead.
“Why are you here, Odele?” I repeated tightly.
“I told you—”
“I don’t believe you.”
Why would I, when all she knew how to do was lie? When that was all she’d ever done to everyone? What made this time any different? A liar then, a liar now.
“Oh, silly captain.” She rose higher, leaned in, until our lips were but a breath away. “Wouldn’t you rather kiss me instead of talk?”
I growled and pushed her away, slamming her body into the wall. She gasped out with shock at the action. I should have been shocked myself, but the feeling didn’t register. In my anger, I was blind. I pressed my forearm against her throat, keeping her pinned and at my mercy.
“You’re a liar, Odele,” I accused vehemently. “They don’t know you well enough to see it, but I do. You’re lying about why you came back here, and I want to know why.”
She squirmed against me, her nails clawing at my arm, pulling at the sleeve of my jacket. “What do you think you’re doing, Tiberius?” she demanded angrily.
I pressed tighter against her throat and then eased my grip, leaving her gasping and clawing at me. “Why are you here?”
“I told you! I want my cousin to have what was stolen from her!”
“You expect me to believe you’d be that selfless?” I pressed tighter, closing her waterway. It was like a demon had taken over me, and I wasn’t even a Draconian to claim that it was a separate being deep inside me. This anger, this rage directed at her was wholly my own, brought on by the fear of a threat against the mer I loved. “I know you, Odele. You haven’t done a selfless act a day in your life. Tell me the truth.” I eased my grip, but she didn’t reply. She glared, her eyes tiny arrows that bounded off my body. I didn’t care what or who she was. “Did you come back to harm Maisie? Are you merely befriending her as a trap, and when her back is turned will you help the queen stick a knife in it?”
It was the only explanation I could muster as to why she’d returned, to get rid of Maisie, the true heir to the throne, and then to get rid of the queen as well.
So that she could rule, without the weight of usurpers looming over her.
I’d not let that happen.
“I’m sworn to protect you,” I whispered darkly. “It was a vow I did not take lightly. But I swear to the gods, Odele, if you are here to harm Maisie, I’ll kill you myself.”
“Gods, lay off, will you?” She clawed at me. “I’m not going to kill my cousin, what’s wrong with you?”
“Then tell me the truth!”
“Alright!” she shouted. “Alright, I’ll tell you the truth, just get off of me.” I hesitated a moment before I pushed off of her. She glared and rubbed her neck with long, delicate fingers. “Ugh, you’ll leave a bruise.”
I frowned. “Talk.”
She blew out a breath. “Fine. I didn’t come back purely because I want Odalaea to take the throne, though that is a big part of it.”
Snorting, I crossed my arms against my chest. “Why should I believe that you’re willing to give up the throne?”
She kept rubbing at her throat. “You obviously don’t know me all that well, Captain.” She shook her head back and forth. “I don’t want the throne, that much is true. When I learned I had a legitimate cousin out there with an irrefutable claim to the throne, I had to find her. Because I don’t want it.”
I blinked, not quite believing that last bit. “You’d give up this lavish life?”
“Gods, no. But I would give up the throne. I’d give up ruling, because it’s a hassle. I don’t want to take care of mer I don’t care about. How boring. And I don’t want to marry that lizard prince, either. I’ll leave the boring stuff to Odalaea. She can have the kingdom she wants to save, the prince she loves, and I can have my freedom and just live here richly and happily.”
Gods.
This, I could believe. Even when she presumed to be selfless, it was all only in her best interests. She hadn’t done any of this because she actually cared about Maisie, because she cared that she had the life she’d missed out on. She’d only done it because she didn’t want the responsibilities that being a royal implied.
How had I ever imagined her to be vulnerable and sweet beneath this façade, if it was even a façade at all? Disgust with myself tremored through me. I’d been fooled by her pretty face too many times, by the imaginings of my own treacherous mind, hoping it’d find something that hadn’t been there at all.
So much time wasted on this mer who cared, as always, about nothing and no one but herself. And I doubted she ever would.
“Do you believe me now, Captain?”
I did, but I didn’t say it.
“You’re willing to harm Maisie to get what you want, aren’t you?” Despite them being cousins. Despite the way Maisie so obviously already cared for her.
“I’ll do whatever it takes, Captain.”
I reached for the front of her dress and tugged, pulling her close, so close that she could see the threat in my eyes. So she could see that I meant it. “Harm Maisie,” I whispered, “and I’ll kill you.”
Odele smiled and reached up to pat the side of my cheek mockingly. “Oh, Captain. I’d always wondered what it would take to get you to go against me. Now I know.”
I was going to reply, something vicious and cruel, when the door to the room opened. The small gasp that reached my ears was enough to tell me that Maisie had once again found her way back.