Page 54 of The Death King
She wore a black satin robe with the string barely cinched, showing the lace bra underneath that exposed the swell of her breasts. She’d come here with intention—and that intention was on display.
“Natalie.” All I could say was her name because the anger was just too much to say anything more.
She looked at me with a mixture of emotions. Her eyes glinted with remorse, but the rest of her expression was hot in desperation. “I just wanted to talk?—”
“You did that on purpose.” Now that I could think clearly because my dick wasn’t hard, I understood. The servants must have told her I had dinner plans with my new guest, and that news sent her into a frenzy of jealous rage. She was determined to put a stop to it—and interrupting me was the only way to do that.
She was smart enough not to lie about it. “She’s a prisoner from the Arid Sands. Why would you want her?” Her strands of dark hair framed her beautiful face, and she kept her lips parted like she hoped I’d interrupt her to kiss her.
“And you think you’re better?” I asked incredulously. “You service the king for luxuries and a comfortable life. You fuck a man for beautiful gowns and diamonds in your lobes. You obey my commands for?—”
“I service the king because I want to.” Her steady voice ripped through my tirade, bringing my boiling anger to a quiet simmer. Her emotional eyes pleaded with me in their green glaze. Her feelings were written on parchment and presented to me as if in a diary. Her eyes dropped momentarily, like she understood what she’d just done and couldn’t take it back. When she found her strength again, she raised her eyes to look at me. “There’s nothing she can give you that I can’t.”
Instead of unleashing the anger that had been steeping all night, I forced it to submit. “Natalie, we’ve already talked about this. I feel nothing for you. I feel nothing for everyone. I’m incapable of feeling anything—for anyone. I meant what I said then, and I still mean it now. It was unwise to doubt me.”
Her eyes dropped quickly, like my words snapped an invisible cord. Her breathing had quickened, and a blush moved to her cheeks, not from embarrassment, but from pain. Her eyes didn’t rise again. “I still don’t understand your interest in her.”
“I don’t care to explain it to you. You’re dismissed from my service.”
Her chin jerked up at my announcement, her eyes wide like she’d been slapped. “What?”
“You heard what I said. I expect you to be gone in the morning.”
“Why?” She stepped farther into my bedchambers, forcing me to back up like she led the charge while gripping a spike. “Talon, please don’t do this.”
“King Talon,” I said coldly. “I have more reasons to get rid of you than to keep you.”
“But I don’t want to leave. You’re the man I want.”
“I can’t have a mistress who sabotages my conquests. I can’t have a woman who interferes with my private life because she thinks I belong to her.”
“It won’t happen again, I promise.”
“And I can’t have a concubine who aspires to be my wife. That is something I’ll never give you.”
“You must have an heir?—”
“Natalie.”
She did her best to combat the tears that pooled in her eyes.
“You’re a beautiful woman with a beautiful heart and mind. Give your love to a man who deserves it. I’m not that man.”
“King Talon?—”
“You will squander your youth and fertility waiting for a man who doesn’t care for you. Not only will I break your heart, but I’ll destroy your future happiness. You will be childless and alone. As evil as I may be, I don’t want that for you.”
The tears became too heavy, and they fell like pebbles down her face. “I would prefer to spend what time we have together, rather than apart?—”
“I don’t love you, and I never will.” I’d already said that to her nearly a year ago, but my words must have seemed insincere if she clung to hope. “I’ll never love anyone. You’re jealous I’m interested in a woman who’s not one of my whores, but I’ll never love her either. All I want is to fuck her the way I’ve fucked you and all the others. Your jealousy is misplaced. Now go, Natalie.”
She looked up at me again like she wanted to plead once more.
But I silenced the words before she could speak. “You’ll thank me for this—one day.”
I didn’t say goodbye to Natalie before she was dismissed from the castle. Commander Navarrese was instructed to give her enough money to buy a home in the village with sufficient savings to get by for a year until she figured out her next plan. But she was a beautiful woman, so I doubted it would take long for her to find someone to take care of her.
After sitting around and thinking all day, I let myself into Calista’s bedchambers.