Crowned by Fire
this time her breathing was considerably faster.
    Finn stared at her breasts, thinking. Then he said, evenly, “You have ten seconds to take that dagger from my throat and decide whether you want to stay or go. If you want to stay, you'll give me the blade and beg me very, very hard, not to kick you out. On your knees. If you want to go, you may do so freely—but I won't be taking you back.”
    She leaned in, lips slightly parted, and he stopped breathing. Something hot and wet hit him in the face. Spit. The bitch had spat in his face. “Fuck you, Your Highness .”
    She plunged the knife between his legs, pinning him to the bed by the seat of his pants. Then she slid off him and headed for the door that separated their rooms.
    It slammed shut behind her.
     
    Fool.
    She should have left the moment the witch had made his intentions plain.
    Fucking fool.
    He wanted to rob her of the wildness that was as much a part of her as her beating heart—and from the sheer callousness of his words, the witch might well decide to divest her of that, too, and simply rip it out, bloodied and still beating. Bastard would probably even convince himself that he was doing her a favor by it.
    Because he didn't want a lover. He didn't even want a consort. No, the witch wanted a beautiful, exotic creature . Something domestic and tamed. A puppet. A servant. A slave .
    It shouldn't have come as such a shock. She knew what he was capable of, because he had not attempted to hide his cruelty from her in the past. It shouldn't have hurt as much as it did. So why did she feel so sick in the heart?
    Catherine collapsed on her bed. And then she was crying, with her face buried in her arms. Crying because that was such a terrible choice he'd offered, with so little thought. Nobody should have to choose between a cold heart and a dead heart.
    What he was offering, a life of servitude, would kill her—slowly, it would kill her.
    One way or another, he was going to be her death. He was an arbiter of Council law, and he had said so himself that, if pushed, he would not hesitate to betray her for crimes of the blood committed decades before she had ever been born.
    Who was the witch in her family tree? Who signed her death warrant with her birth?
    Why had her mother never warned her—her, or Lucas, who seemed to have the same affliction, considering his prophetic dreams. If they both had witch blood, why weren't they told? Was it just assumed that the problem would fade with age?
    Catherine wanted to scream with frustration.
    She didn't even have the pleasure of hearing the truth from her family. No, she'd had to hear it all from the Crown Prince, the king's own personal fucking bounty hunter.
    It was starting to make sense—the high price the Slayers had out on his head, his sense of entitlement, the obsequious respect Others were quick to show him.
    How had she not managed to assemble the facts until now? She wanted to kick herself for her stupidity. Because she had heard the stories about the Crown Prince, oh, yes; he wasn't just ruthless. As far as shape-shifters were concerned, he was evil, too. He had murdered hundreds of her kind as if they were livestock in an abattoir.
    And she had kissed him.
    The door creaked open and Catherine tensed, digging her fingers into the sheets hard enough to leave holes, but it was only Cassandra.
    “Is everything all right?”
    “ Yes,” she snapped, wanting the seer to go away.
    “ I thought I heard shouting. I know how nasty Phineas can be. He—”
    Catherine hastily swiped away her tears and turned her face away. “It's nothing.” The nightstand was growing blurry again. “Give me five minutes,” she muttered.
    Cassandra was at her side in an instant. “What did he do to you?”
    “ I said it was nothing ,” she snarled.
    Cassandra stared at her, not frightened, exactly, but wary. It was an odd way to react to an angry shape-shifter, making Catherine wonder fleetingly whether she had ever encountered

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