I actually feel a tear roll down my cheek at that. I look over at Montes, and he must see my despair.

I can see wounds in those old eyes of his; my king’s finally been touched by his war, and his ghosts are eating him alive.

“The enemy fights more ruthlessly than we do,” someone says.

A day ago, I wouldn’t have believed it. Now I do.

A billion people gone. You really do reap what you sow. Montes has cultivated fields and fields of violence and watered them with bloodshed. These are his crops.

I draw in a ragged breath. I was never able to fulfill my promise of healing this broken world. Not until now, when so much has already been lost.

Not glancing away from me, Montes says, “Everyone, out. We’ll reconvene tomorrow at eight a.m. in the Great Room. Bring with you a comprehensive plan for your respective departments.”

The room clears in under a minute, but not before the officers bow and salute us. And even on their stoic faces, I swear I catch a glimpse of hope when their eyes meet mine.

Once they leave, I rotate to the king. “Why did you clear the room?” I ask.

He leans forward in his chair, his forearms going to his thighs. “You don’t like having an audience when you feel weak.”

My throat constricts at that. This man can be so cruel yet so considerate. And God, does he remember me well.

My gaze slides to the door. “They love you.” It’s both a statement and a question.

“Not as much as they love you.”

It’s easy to love a dream. It’s much harder to love the reality. Once these people understand who I really am, I doubt they’ll remain blindly loyal.

“I thought you believed all the good men were gone,” I say. He told me this long ago.

“I was wrong about many things.”

I peer at him closely. “Are you a good man?”

A devil-may-care smile flashes across his lips. He wants to touch me; I can feel his desire as though it’s a physical thing.

“Does it matter?” he says. “I’m still the King of the East, you’re still married to me, and the world’s still at war. Good and evil have little to do with it.”

Now I lean forward, until there are only inches between our faces. “They have everything to do with it. So which are you?”

He leans forward, closing the last of the distance between us, and just as his lips meet mine, he says, “Both.”

The King

I am married to a lioness. Some dangerous, beautiful creature that cannot be tamed, and she will eat me alive.

As my lips move against hers, and I take my conquered kiss, I expect those claws of hers to come out. She hates me, perhaps now more than ever.

Instead, she kisses me back. And now I’m not just reveling in the taste and the feel of her, but the memory of the time when she wanted this every bit as much as I did.

Eventually, she pushes me away, and the look on her face … horror and regret. “I’m not doing this with you again, Montes.”

I lean forward, refusing to let her put distance between us. “Is this one of your famous facts?” I say.

“Do you really think I’m here sitting next to you because I believe we can resolve our issues?”

Oh, the fire that burns within her. I want to stoke it until I can feel nothing but her heat.

“You’re sitting next to me because I didn’t give you a choice,” I say.

She gives me a hard look. “I’m here to fix what you’ve destroyed.”

What she doesn’t realize is that our relationship is one of those things.

I pull my chair as close to her as I can get, until our thighs are pressed against one another. “The terms are the same as they’ve always been, nire bihotza—if you want to fix the world, you’ll do it at my side.”

I think she understands this. I can see the concession in her eyes. I don’t want to be her second priority, and I don’t intend to remain one. However, if this gets her to give me another chance, I’ll take it.

“What happened once I was gone?” she asks.

I pick up one of her hands. She tries to pull it away, and I flash her a look.

“If you want information from me, you play by my rules.” It’s as simple as that. “One of those rules is that while I answer your questions, I get to touch you.”

She glowers at me, despite the fact that we began our relationship this way. She came to my land prepared to trade secrets for sex.

“Fine,” she says. I don’t know how she does it, but she manages to make the word sound like a curse.

Satisfaction spreads through me. “Good.”

I turn over Serenity’s hand, running my fingers across her soft skin. Time has long since wiped away the calluses she wore like jewelry. I find I miss them. I like it best when my savage queen displays her true nature. If I give her long enough in this world, she will wear those calluses once more.

“After you were placed back in the Sleeper, I continued to war with my advisors and some of the surviving regimes of South America,” I say, beginning to answer her earlier question.

She listens avidly.

“The West never much liked me, and the Resistance and other militia groups got behind South America’s fight. Within a year, what little gains I had made in the WUN were undone, and the political leaders who remained loyal to me were slaughtered.”

It should please her that the Resistance pushed me out, but she doesn’t look pleased. She looks worried. She’s must be thinking about the advisors who fled to South America. Those were not men anyone should get behind.