CHAPTER THREE — HIS PRISONER, HIS PROBLEM

POV: VEYRA

The carriage stopped, and I decided I was done being quiet.

I had spent the whole ride staring out the window, counting my breaths, trying not to think about the man sitting across from me. 

It had not worked. I could still feel him. The heat of him, the weight of his eyes on the side of my face and the way my mark had pulsed every time he shifted in his seat.

So when the door opened and he stepped out without offering me his hand, I climbed down after him and let him have it. "You cannot keep me here."

Rhazek did not turn around. "You have said that already."

"I will keep saying it until it becomes true." I hurried to keep pace with him. 

The palace rose above us, all dark stone and sharp towers, and guards fell into step on either side of me like I was something that needed containing. "I have patients in Ashfen, I have a cottage with a roof that leaks, I have a life, Your Majesty. You cannot just take it away from me."

"You broke my wards." He said 

"I did not mean to." I pleaded 

"You unleashed creatures that will kill my people if I do not stop them." He added 

"Then let me help you stop them and send me home." I said 

He stopped walking.

I nearly walked into his back. I caught myself at the last moment and stepped around him, and then I wished I had not, because he was looking at me now, properly looking at me, and there was nowhere to hide from it.

"You will remain under guard," he said, "until I understand what your magic is and why it broke my wards."

"That is not an answer." I muttered 

"It is the only answer you will get." He growled 

He started walking again. I followed him through a corridor lined with tapestries I did not care about and past servants who bowed their heads and would not meet my eyes.

 They were afraid of him. I could see it in the way they made themselves small. I wondered what he had done to earn that, and then I decided I did not want to know.

We stopped at a heavy wooden door. He pushed it open and gestured me inside.

The room was bigger than my cottage. A four-poster bed, a fire in the hearth, books on the shelves, fresh water in a basin. It was beautiful, and it was a cage, and I hated it on sight.

"You will not leave this room without an escort," Rhazek said. "You will not speak to anyone without my permission. You will not attempt to escape."

I turned to face him. "You are keeping me prisoner."

"Yes." He confirmed

"You dragged me away from my home, my patients, everything I have ever built, and you will not even tell me why." I snapped

"I told you why." He said 

"You told me nothing." I crossed the room and stopped directly in front of him. Close enough to feel the heat coming off his body. 

Close enough that he had to look down to meet my eyes. "You are the Beast King. You could have questioned me in Ashfen. You could have summoned me. Instead you put your hands on me, dragged me into your carriage, and locked me in a room like a criminal."

His jaw tightened. "You are pushing me, healer."

"Am I?" I tilted my head. "Tell me something, Your Majesty. Do you always need a woman locked up before you can get her attention? Is that how it works for you?"

The air changed.

I saw it happen. I saw the way his eyes went from red to something darker, something hotter, and I knew I had crossed a line I could not step back over.

His hand shot out and caught my chin.

He tilted my face up to his, and his grip was firm enough to hold me still and gentle enough that I could have pulled away if I wanted to. I did not want to. That was the problem.

"You should be careful," he said, and his voice had dropped into something low that I felt in my bones. "You do not know what you are provoking."

I held his gaze.

My heart was pounding, ny mark was burning under my cuff. Every sensible part of me was screaming at me to look down, step back, apologize and I did none of those things.

"You are not nearly as frightening as you believe," I said.

For a long moment, he did not move. His fingers stayed on my chin, his eyes searching my face for something I did not understand.

 I watched him fight himself. I watched him want to intimidate me and want to be closer to me at the same time, and I watched him lose to both.

Then he let go.

He stepped back and dropped his hands to his sides, and something like frustration flashed across his face.

"You do not know what you are," he said.

"Neither do you." I did not move. "But I am not the one holding someone prisoner."

He stared at me and I stared back.

Then he turned to the guards waiting in the hallway.

"Move her room," he said.

The guards exchanged glances. "Your Majesty?"

"Move her room, she will not stay here." He did not look at me. "She will be placed beside my private chambers directly beside them. I want her where I can hear her."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

The blood drained out of my face.

"What?" I said.

Rhazek finally turned back to me, and his expression was unreadable.

"If you are going to provoke me, healer," he said, "you should know that I do not let my enemies out of my sight."

He walked away before I could answer. His footsteps faded down the corridor, and the guards closed in around me, and I stood in the middle of a room that was no longer mine, with my chin still warm where his fingers had been.

Beside his chambers. He was moving me beside his chambers.

I looked down at my wrist. The mark was still glowing faintly, pulsing against the leather like it was answering something I could not hear.

"What are you?" I whispered.

The mark did not answer.

But somewhere in the depths of the palace, I felt the beast stir. And I knew, with a certainty that made my stomach drop, that he had felt it too.