Caught in the Basilisk's Gaze (Monsters of Faery, #4)

by Mallory Dunlin

" Excuse me?!" I squawked, startled into it. "My options are fuck you or die?"

Basilisks are a bit like dragons. We like to guard our precious things by sleeping atop them like a hoard."

Vaduin only lay there, breathing quietly, deep in a dreamless sleep. He couldn't die. He was home. How could he die now? "I don't deserve to be the one that makes it," I said, whispering the truth to him in a hoarse voice. "Don't make me live the rest of my life knowing I got you killed."

"Do you need to go cool down, Fury?" he asked, his voice chilly. "My appreciation for the casual fails to extend to rudeness to my mate, and your disdain for your soulmate's comfort displeases my sensibilities."

"Not my problem if he'd rather starve than be attracted to me." Vaduin's spine went stiff. He looked over at me, taking me in: my reddened eyes, wet face, fisted hands. "Is it seriously so awful to want me?" I asked, unhappiness making my voice waver. "You're happy to fuck anyone else in the Eyrie, but not me?"

she didn't have many people who treated her like a normal person. I understood that. I wasn't a Queen, but I didn't really have a place to exist as merely Danica, either. Here at Windswept, I was Vaduin's soulmate first, and then maybe the Archangel Michael second.

"I don't want to take away his home," I said, wrapping one arm around myself, not meeting his eyes. "I'm already… a lot. If I'm a breaker, I can deal with it on my own. It's not his fault." He already didn't want me. I was a complication—a big blot in his carefully-curated life, the metaphorical bull in the china shop. Vaduin said he didn't want me to be his ally, but it seemed like he didn't want anything else, either. Seeing his horror at how much he enjoyed the scent of my desire had hurt. How badly would he handle having to deal with me when I was a deadly danger—someone he needed to either protect or destroy? I didn't want to suffer through that.

The only thing worse than having other people decide my life would be having them do it in front of Vaduin. I couldn't shake the feeling that as soon as he found out, he'd look at me like I was less-than. A burden, or someone to be pitied. It had happened to me over and over. Men loved me as long as I was the playful, pretty girl they'd fallen for, with my big green eyes never wet with tears and my hourglass curves theirs whenever they wanted them.

Putting Danica in a glass box on the shelf, just like his pets. Keeping her safe, happy—and out of his life. Taking her out to say hi; putting her back when he's done.

"I missed you," he said, almost whispering the words. One side of his mouth tilted up. "Isn't that strange? I didn't know I could miss people anymore, but I missed you."

"My heart can break for what you've suffered without making that your problem."

"I feel like a ghost," he said in a low voice, sounding defeated. "A thing made of battlefield ash and remembered screams. I don't know how to be anything else anymore."

"If you're a ghost, haunt me. Let me hold you when your nightmares leave you screaming. Water the ash with tears and watch the wildflowers bloom with me." I rested my face against his, and he didn't pull away. "I always loved ghost stories. I can love yours, too."

"I am the crown prince of the Court of Mercy," he said, snarling the words, "and I am the soulmate of Danica Weller." The very tip of his tail wrapped around my wrist in a possessive band. "I will not show you mercy a second time. Never lift your sword against my princess again."

"I want you all the time. I want you in the morning when I wake up, and I want you when we flop into bed, and pretty much every hour in between. You're gorgeous and funny and way too good at things, and I am…" I took a breath, my heart feeling like it might escape my ribcage. "I am really stupidly in love with you."

"Then I'm yours," he said in a fragile voice. He took my hand and set it on his throat, his pulse under my fingertips. "Yours to harm or to harbor, and yours to succor or to strike. Set a collar around my neck, and I will submit. Set a crown on my head, and I will stand sovereign. But I beg thee, set thy hand over my heart, and claim what longs to be claimed." Vaduin's fingers traced over my face, seeing what his eyes could not. "Because I love you," he whispered, trembling, "and I'm already yours."

"She fought a land-duel and destroyed a castle for me," Vaduin said dreamily. "It was very romantic."