Kingdom of the Feared (Kingdom of the Wicked, #3)

by Kerri Maniscalco

“Right now, I want the demon, not the prince. Show me why they call you the Wicked.” I grabbed his shirt and tugged him to me, my lips hovering above his. “And don’t you dare hold back.”

He angled his mouth close to me and whispered, “Welcome back, your majesty.”

“Rise,” he said softly. “Just as they always feared you would.” His words, the very same he’d spoken to me weeks ago while I’d visited his House of Sin, drew my attention to his face. He wasn’t looking at me like I was pathetic. He looked like someone who understood, intimately, what it was like to lose everything. To be forced to stand when you wished to fall. To get up on your own and defy the hand of fate that brought so much pain by smacking you down time and again. To choose to live and flourish despite the bad. And most important, to dare to dream of better days while your current world was a living nightmare. “Rise, Emilia,” he repeated, his hand a lifeline. “Remind them all.”