“And how will you know when my secrets no longer serve you?” I ask.

He presses me even tighter into him, until his body feels like a cage and I am his prisoner.

He’s quiet for several seconds, but not because he’s at a loss for words. He’s toying with me again. I can tell by the way he’s still calmly stroking my skin, building up the tension between us.

“You are not the only one with secrets, my queen.”

“Secrets like Marco?”

The king falls silent again, and now I do get the impression he’s at a loss for words.

“You met Marco?” His tone changes from threatening to shocked.

“Unfortunately,” I say.

He rolls me onto my back so that he can study me. The moon’s bright enough to cast him in shades of blue.

“I was going to tell you,” he says.

“Just as you were going to wake me from the Sleeper?” I say, the comment biting.

He moves a wisp of my hair from my face. “I felt it better to wait until you had adjusted. You hate me enough as it is. Marco was supposed to make himself scarce.”

“Well, Marco has his own ideas.”

Now that neither of us is pretending to be asleep, Montes strokes his finger down my nose and across my lips. “What, I wonder, did my vicious queen do to him?”

His hand finds my own and he rubs his thumb over my knuckles. Even in the dim light of the room I can see the smile he cracks when he feels the scabbed skin. “I’m disappointed, Serenity. Here I was hoping someone else might get a taste of your wrath for once.”

“I thought you had brought him back to life,” I whisper.

He stares at me for a long time. “You thought I had woken him and left you asleep,” he clarifies.

It’s times like this that I seriously question whether Montes was ever human. It’s not just his lifespan that’s unnatural. It’s the way he sees right through people.

“And you thought I’d be mad when I found out,” I say.

“You’re not,” he says it like a realization.

“I was. And then Marco explained it all to me.” Now I’m just disturbed.

The king brushes a kiss along my knuckles. “Your reactions always were so refreshing. How I’ve forgotten.” He presses my hand to his face. “How I wish to remember.”

Now I look away. Even though fighting this magnetism we have is futile, I won’t go quietly into it.

“Give me your eyes, Serenity.” The pitch of his voice his lower, more intimate.

Reluctantly, I do so.

His gaze holds a million things. He was never one to unburden himself with his feelings, but his eyes rarely lie.

Endless want. Hope. Grief. Love. Regret. Disbelief. I see it all.

I could resist him when he had no weaknesses, when I thought he was pure evil.

But this strange, time-wearied Montes who has lived a lonely existence for lifetimes and lifetimes, I can’t fight him. I can’t fight this. Us.

“I love you,” he says.

“Montes,” I say. It sounds more like a plea.

He lowers himself to his forearms, his bare skin meeting mine. “I love you,” he repeats. “I know that makes you uncomfortable. It’s made me uncomfortable for longer than I care to admit. But now I’ve gone a hundred years without saying those three words, and I’ve nearly lost the only person I want to say them to. So you’re just going to have to listen to them.”

He’s now petting my hair, combing it back with his fingers. Now all I can see of his face are the sharp slashes of his jaw and the shadows that caress his high cheekbones.

He’s terrible and magnificent. My monster. We are the two loneliest people in the universe, but we have each other.

“Tell me you love me,” he whispers.

I shake my head. “Never.”

“Liar,” he says softly, a small smile playing on his lips.

“I told you a long time ago you’d never get all of me,” I say.

He reaches over to the side of the bed and clicks on a side lamp. “And I have always told you that you’re mine,” he says, returning his attention to me. “Every bit of you. Even your love.”

He bends down, and I think he’s going to kiss me. Instead, he murmurs, “We’re going to play a little game.

His lips skim my jaw. “I’ll ask you a question, and you’ll either answer it honestly, or you’ll touch me where I tell you to.”

It’s an iteration of the drinking game we used to play. Only this one has managed to incorporate our deal into the mix.

“I don’t want to play any of your games.”

He shifts against me, and I feel it all the way down to my core. The bastard knows what he’s doing.

“Too bad,” he says.

I exhale. “I really pissed you off today, didn’t I?” I can’t help the satisfaction unfurls at that thought.

“You caught me off guard,” he corrects. “And I’m glad for it. My wife should be my equal. But now, you’ll pay for it.”

“The king and his games,” I murmur.

“Do you love me?”

He wastes no time diving right in.

I lift my chin. “Pass.”

He grins, his white, white teeth striking in the dim light. “Kiss me.”

I stare at him for a beat, and then, gently, I pull his head down and brush my lips against his. It’s over before it’s even begun. Not that I’m trying to get out of anything. I know how this ends.