Page 129 of Between Two Kings

Unfathomable pain flashed over his face. Surely, it mirrored the pain on hers. But the time for negotiating had passed. Leo hadn’t fought for her last week, and he wasn’t fighting for her now. He’d made his choice.

“You don’t get to take the easy way out. You don’t get to cheat. That’s not how it works.”

“Tem—”

She leaned closed, ignoring her body’s scream of desire. “You chose this, Leo. Now you have to live with the consequences.”

Tem lived every day with the pain of her decisions, and it was time Leo did the same. Perhaps she had been shouldering the guilt of her choice for too long. Perhaps, despite what her conscience tried to tell her, she had made the right call when she told Leo to go find Evelyn. Perhaps he deserved her, in every sense of the word.

The silence between them was absolute. There was nothing left to say anyway. Tem was prepared to accept this part of Leo—the part he got from his father.

“I will wait for you,” he whispered.

Tem didn’t believe him, so she didn’t reply. Instead, she walked into the dungeon, ready to face her fate with her head held high. The air was freezing—even colder than the staircase. There was a guard here, and he walked over to Tem the moment she entered.

“I’m to assist,” the man said.

“I’m sure you are.”

“Right this way.”

Tem followed the guard down the long row of cells until the very end. It wasn’t until she turned around that she realized the cell across from her was occupied.

“What brings you here, Temperance?” Maximus asked.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The former king looked weak. It made Tem happy.

But any happiness she felt evaporated the moment the guard attached the wires to her fingers. Each wire corresponded with a fingertip, and the moment they touched her, Tem gasped as they welded painfully to her skin. Suddenly she understood why her father could barely speak of the experience. The pain was horrible, but the feeling of being trapped was worse. Even the slightest tug on the wires caused them to pinch painfully. This is what her father endured for years? What all the other basilisks who were kidnapped had suffered through for decades until Leo finally made them stop? Tem couldn’t imagine ten minutes of this, much less ten years.

This was torture. True torture.

The guard turned to leave as soon as he finished attaching the wires. Just before he reached the cell door, he pulled a lever on the wall. Immediately, pain shot through Tem’s fingers. Without thinking, she cried out. The wires were taking from her—extracting blood from her skin and turning the metal slowly into gold. Through the fog of agony, she heard:

“Does it hurt?”

The question was so idiotic Tem wanted to scream.

“What do you think?” she snapped.

Maximus smiled. It was a disgusting smile, filled with nothing but malice. “Pain is inevitable, Temperance. It makes us stronger.”

Tem rolled her eyes. She didn’t need a lecture about pain right now. Especially from someone whose specialty was causing it.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” Maximus said.

Tem rather wished he would shut up. The bloodletting was punishment enough. “That makes two of us.”

“You never answered my question.”

“Which question?”

“What brings you here?”

Tem held up her entangled fingers, regretting it immediately when the wires pulled at her hands. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Maximus shook his head. “That is not what I mean.”