Kingdom of the Cursed

“I have one final question for now, your highness.” I placed my hand on his chest, feeling the steady thumping beneath my touch. His attention dropped to that tiny connection before he dragged it back to mine. “Pretend there’s no curse. No magical betrothal. Or romantic urges created by our bond. Would you choose me? To reign beside you. To be your queen. Your friend. Your confidant. Your lover.”

“Emilia…”

“You tricked me into a blood bargain with you before I crossed into the underworld. Do you recall what you said?” I swore his heart stuttered a beat before furiously picking up its pace. “You told me to never make a bargain with the devil. ‘What’s his is his.’”

“It was a figure of speech. A blood bargain does not equate possession.”

“Perhaps not technically.” My hand fell away and I stepped back. “You did it as another means of protecting me. In case I didn’t want to accept our bond. You claimed no other prince of Hell would be stupid enough to challenge you. It was your secret way of offering me a way out of any contract with another demon House. The blood pact I made with Pride included. Am I wrong?”

“No.”

“Don’t answer now, but I want to know if what you said then stands.”

“You’ll have to be more specific. I said a great many things.”

“If I am still yours.”

He stilled. My words hung between us, heavy and lingering. Like his gaze.

“If I am, I would tell you that you are mine. That I am choosing you as my husband. There is no one I’d rather confront my demons with, no soul I’d travel through Hell with. And no one else I want standing beside me when I go to the Shifting Isles tomorrow.”

He was quiet for a long moment, seeming to gauge my sincerity and weigh it against his own feelings. “And if I don’t require time to think it over?”

Thank the goddess.

I exhaled quietly and moved from the balcony into his bedchamber, tugging the strings of my tunic loose as I passed by him. I glanced over my shoulder, noting with satisfaction the desire darkening his gaze as I slipped the shirt from my body and let it drop to the floor.

“Then I suggest coming to bed, your majesty.”

“Why violence?” My voice was quiet. “You did not need to unleash my wrath that way.”

“I offered you an outlet. Vengeance is poison, a slow death of self. Seek justice. Seek truth. But if you choose revenge over all else, you will lose more than your soul.”

“Assumptions are the death of truth.”

“You look like a beautiful cataclysm.”

“Love and hate are both rooted in passion.”

I’d acted out of fear and desperation—two essential ingredients in creating a disaster.

Especially when the future princess of House Wrath is so appealing.”
“You are a heathen. I just tried to murder a man.”
“Precisely.”

You wanted me to tell you that you are my favorite sin.”
His chuckle was low, deep. It made me ache for him all the more. “Am I?”
“At the moment, yes.”

“He, dearest darling, is the balance. And is usually the only thing standing between us and total destruction. Wrath is impartial justice made flesh. He is feared because he does not hesitate to carry out a sentence, to mete out justice on those deserving punishment. If he must send someone to the Prison of Damnation, what mortals consider their version of ‘Hell,’ it is no light matter.”

From somewhere far away, I could have sworn he whispered, “I lied.”