Gleam (The Plated Prisoner, #3)

by Raven Kennedy

How satisfied he must be, to think he’s so easily hooked me again. What a pushover I was.

I might need to play along, to act like I’m once more ensnared by his charm, but I won’t go back to being a captive.

But my tiredness wins against stubbornness.

This line feels like me

For the innocent girl who lost the love she thought she had, I let her have this. Because this...this is her quiet goodbye.

Beneath my anger and the numbness are the bruised pieces of a broken heart. And that part of me, that girl who was doe-eyed and head over heels, she’s in mourning beneath my bitter anger.

So for that part of me, I let out a shaky breath that vibrates like thunder. Then I press my ear against his chest one last time to hear a s...

If we shifted, if it were his head pressed against my chest, would he hear? Would he hear the sound of my heart and know what it means? Would he recognize the lyrical loathing?

I let that girl in me break away beat by beat, saying goodbye in her own silent way.

If I don’t make a show of power soon, my grasp here might weaken, which can’t happen.

My mind spins, pulse pounding in my head like the sculptor’s hammer, a chisel to my skull as it chips down into aggravation. I don’t like surprises.

I straighten up, hands falling at my sides as I smile. No, what I need is an heir.

But if you look closer, you might see the gleam in my eye. You might catch the twist of my downturned lips that hints at the discontent lying just at the edge of my mouth.

Be quiet. Sit pretty. Play your silly music. Behave. Those old orders play in my head like an overdone song that I have no desire to listen to anymore. I use every old order, every manipulation to stoke my fiery resentment, to keep me lit up with focus.

He made me suffer for years. He took away my control.

Now, it’s time I take it back.

And even though it’s been hours, I’m still not ready to go back to my rooms. It seems I’ve developed a taste for freedom. Every time I take another bite, I want more. My spirit is ravenous for rampancy. Starving for wander. I want to go everywhere, see everything. For the first time, Midas isn’t here to dictate to me.

It’s so liberating not being told what to do. Not being a captive. Not being kept. It’s an indulgence I’ve never had the opportunity to enjoy. It’s a balm, cool and brisk, against a part of me that’s been tepidly stagnant for far too long.

When they first sprouted from my back, I hated them for making me stand out even more, for causing me more pain. It was just another thing I needed to hide. You’re ashamed of them. You think of them as a weakness, but they are a strength, Auren. Use them.

I have hated, resented, and been ashamed of myself for long enough. I don’t want to harbor thoughts like that anymore. By mentally breaking away from Midas, something else has shifted too. It’s time to start embracing who I am and what I’m capable of.

Violence sang inside my chest, like a bird of prey lilting as it circled, ready to dive for the kill. It was a daunting lyric for a dark need. How tempting that wicked song sings.

And yet, even though that beast is once again silent, I can still feel it there, watching. Some untapped creature ready to rise up.

Shove down weakness, and strength will rise.

The golden satin slams into Midas’s face, feathers bending around his head with a satisfying thump. Juvenile, sure. But it does wonders for my morale.

He may wear the crown, but I was the one who made it gold.

Men ruin all of women’s best laid plans.

Going back inside, I quickly go through my morning routine, getting dressed in yet another gown with a horrible boning bodice, snapping them all one by one. If females were meant to have their waists strangled and breasts shoved up all damn day, we would’ve been born with corset ribs.

I adopt a haughty look. “Of course it’s permitted.” The best way to convince people that you’re allowed to do something is to act offended when they assume otherwise. “You know who I am.”

I was obviously very good at lying to myself, because there’s no other way I could’ve convinced myself that he loved me.

We tell ourselves twisted lies to tangle around our wicked truths, all so that we can get caught up in the bind and not have to face bare regrets.

I have the power. Me.

“You see a commander from another kingdom’s army coming toward your king’s favored, and your instinct is to back the fuck up?” he seethes.

“I’m fine,” I say, though my voice is throaty, quiet. The prod of his aura reaching out toward me takes me by surprise, and I gasp at the feel of it caressing over my skin. “Oh?” Rip asks me with a cock of his brow that lifts the row of blunt spikes there. “Then stand up straight.”

“I will walk her to her rooms, and she’ll be far more protected by me. Unlike you two, I would never back up if a threat approached.”

The ticking time between us is marked only by the beats in my chest, one that seems to match the thrum of the pulse in his neck.

The intensity of his gaze lights a fire in my belly. “My own good was stuck on a pirate ship, with an aura like a beacon that flared across the Barrens,” he grits out, a thick spun voice meant to tie knots around me. “My own good was cowering before men who were nothing—fucking nothing—in comparison to her.”

“My own good hated me, fought me, argued with me, but I didn’t care, because I watched her slowly come out of her shell, peeling back one layer at a time, and it was stunning.” He raises a finger in front of my face. “I got one touch. One taste, and if it was an act of selfishness, then you should know, it certainly wasn’t one-sided, Auren.”

“I’m saying that you are my own good. And for you, I gave you a choice, but you chose him.”

My mind is full of the man who haunted my dreams, his words a heartbreaking melody that won’t stop replaying. I’m saying that you are my own good. And for you, I gave you a choice, But you chose him.

I don’t even blink. He can pop off the skin for all I care, and I’ll still sit rooted here like a damned daisy, because I won’t give him the satisfaction of wilting.

Tepid bile crawls up the back of my throat, my stomach churning with the visual of that. Of Rip’s—Slade’s—head cut right through his neck, pale skin glossed over with the paint of red blood. It wouldn’t be the first time Midas has carried out something that gruesome and ordered me to gold-touch it as an example to others.

That love-stained girl inside of me is gone. The one whose heart was broken with the pieces used to pin her up like a bug to a board. She was burned down with the force of his palm. Her ashes are now nothing but soil to sprout the stems of the wickedness that seems to suddenly bloom brighter.

After years of careful grooming, of teaching her to behave properly, I thought my influence over her was firm. Yet just a few weeks away from me, and her behavior slid like footsteps on ice. She’ll need to be reminded of who takes care of her, of who her master is.

I’ve never struck her before, but she pushed me to it with her antics at the dinner table. I glance down at my hand, as if I can still feel the sharp hit to her cheek. The look on her face after I did it…

Because the gods left me a gift, and I intend to take it.

His voice lowers, eyes bright and sharp, poking even more holes through me. “You think I wanted to sit there and do nothing while that asshole spoke to you that way?” he bites out. “You think I enjoyed his childish power play by ordering you to be carried to that harp? I wanted to leap over the table and crush his throat with my bare hands.”

As if to demonstrate his words, he lifts his arm, and his palm wraps around my neck. Except he doesn’t squeeze, doesn’t hurt. His dark words coil around my thumping heartbeat, while his touch encompasses my throat. His thumb brushes against my drumming pulse, not in a threat, but as a caress.

Every grip and stroke seems to fill an empty well inside of me. Despite the fact that he knows what touching my bare skin can do, he never hesitates. It’s like he can’t help himself, like he needs to feel me.

He touches me like he can’t resist, like he can’t go one more second without feeling me.

Fury pumps into the air around us, and then, with a voice as dark as the pits of hell, Slade says something that makes my eyes go wide. “Why the fuck is there a bruise on your cheek?”

Turning my face, featherlight fingertips graze over the spot of burnished gold, like he doesn’t want to put any pressure on it in case it hurts me.