A Throne of Ruin (Deliciously Dark Fairytales #2)(72)

“Thatta girl, eh? Give ’em what they got coming to ’em.”

“What in the goddess’s bustier are you lot doing?” Hadriel said to the loitering staff as he walked up, wearing a jacket covered in sequined flowers and a newly trimmed mustache. His bright pink velvet slippers didn’t match any part of the hideous jacket. “Don’t you have work to do? Leave Miss Finley alone.”

“Oh, look who’s a big man now suddenly, eh?” Jessab said, patting his stomach. “Go fall out a window, why don’t ya.”

“Hilarious, you backwater dish jockey.” Hadriel glared at him. “Go suck a wheel spoke.”

“You’ll have to get your dick out of it first.” Jessab turned slowly.

“Back to Miss Finley, then?” I smirked at Hadriel, heading to the library.

“Only to keep the status quo. Don’t worry, love. I haven’t suddenly gotten good at my job.”

The smile dripped off my face. “Yet they still went after you.”

“That’s because I was alone. Those types find the outliers. There aren’t many of those left in the castle. Now you see why.”

I shook my head as we walked down the hall. Doors stood open, and soft noises issued forth as people got started with their hobbies for the day.

“I can’t stand by and watch stuff like that happen,” I said. “It’s not in me.”

“The master said that in the beginning, too. The thing is…if you kill them all, the demon king just sends more. Worse ones, too. We lost a lot of people in the beginning because of people fighting back. If you have to kill, do it in secret.”

I stopped at the library door and put up a finger. “Stay here.”

“Why?”

Because I had the book and the annotations for Nyfain, and I intended to leave them in his mother’s secret book room. But I could tell no one about that room, so I settled for, “Because Nyfain gave me a secret, and I intend on keeping it.”

“How could you do that to me? You can’t just dangle something like that in front of me and not tell me the secret! I love secrets!”

“I doubt it is a secret you’d care about.”

“What a shitty hint. I need more than that!”

I rolled my eyes and hurried into the library, slowing as I passed the lounger. Nyfain’s smell permeated the area. I sat down, pulling the blanket up around me. I longed to just grab a book and lie there until he wandered in. Then maybe we could make love in our reading nook before curling up together and talking about books. What a dream come true that would be!

After a deep breath, I folded the blanket and got up. Maybe we’d be able to do it one day, after everything slowed down. Dare to dream.

I found a folded-up piece of parchment on the little table in the corner of the secret book room, right where I’d intended to put my book and letter. My name was written in Nyfain’s beautiful scrawl, and I snatched it up and opened it immediately.



Dear Finley,

I’m sure by now you are well versed in my bad tempers and worse moods. It seems sixteen years of being trapped in a pit, with no fair maiden to spring me out, has made me unpardonably surly. I wasn’t the nicest of men before the curse, and now I am generally considered unbearable. I applaud you for trying to keep up with my hysterics, as I know Hadriel calls them. You are a strong woman, and I value that quality more than I can say.

I do so apologize for my outburst the other night. I handled the news about the tea badly. Please see my note in the beginning about moods and tempers. I understand your point about a pregnancy being unlikely, but I do not wish to take any chances. You are already a target. I shudder to think what it would mean for you to bear my child. The demon king would kill him or her as quickly as he’d kill me. I wouldn’t be able to protect you. Either of you. And if you think I am possessive now, it is nothing compared with how I would act regarding my child.

So please, keep up with the tea and forgive me my alarm. By now you understand your situation. And if it is too late, and you carry my child, please know that it would fill me with such incredible reverence. I would be honored. I would also need to figure out a way to hide you both. I warn you, that might entail breaking the curse, accepting my fate, and making sure you both escape this kingdom to my mother’s village, where I hope they will harbor you. But we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

Regardless of what comes, you will have a future. I will make sure of it.

Very apologetically yours,

Nyfain



I leaned against the edge of a bookcase and read it again, smiling. Fuck, he was charming in his letters. If only the two sides of him could be united at all times—the charming prince and the brooding, possessive alpha who raged over my wellbeing. I would never be able to say no. I’d just fall onto my back, spread my legs, and say, “Have at me.”

Though, in fairness, I wasn’t all that far from that now…

Taking a deep breath, I folded up his note and slid it into my pocket. I replaced it with the letter I’d written and the notes with the book before roaming the room for a moment, reading titles.

Before I’d been taken to the castle the first time, I wanted to read about hate sex and hardcore fucking. Now, though…

I picked out what looked like a love story. I needed a sweet, happy ending. I needed to believe they were possible.