The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood #12) - J.R. Ward Page 0,131

respect for her. “God … how is it possible that you exist?”

“Still not telling me a thing.” She smiled slowly. “Although I like the way you’re looking at me.”

Trez shook his head, knowing she deserved so much better than he could ever offer her. “You shouldn’t. You really shouldn’t.”

“That’s for me to decide. Now speak—if you’re so determined to put me off of you, then use your words to persuade me of your ugliness.”

“The sex life didn’t do it already?”

“I am trained as an ehros. It is my expectation that males have carried their seed far and wide.”

He narrowed his eyes: Her face had suddenly become impassive, and that was a serious-ass tell. “There’s one other thing.”

“Which is.”

“I’m promised to someone.”

She almost hid her wince. Almost. “Indeed.”

“Yeah. Indeed. And if I don’t show, my parents are going to get slaughtered.”

“So you are not in love?”

“I haven’t met her. And I don’t want to.”

Some of the tension left the Chosen. “You have no knowledge of her at all?”

“None. Except that she’s the queen’s daughter.”

Those incredible eyes got wider. “You are to be royalty, then.”

He thought of how much fun Wrath was having on his throne, and all the kicks and giggles Rehv was rocking as imperial head of the symphaths—and at least they were allowed out into the night. Well, kinda, in Wrath’s case.

His future was going to be all about the gilded cage.

“My parents sold me when I was very young,” he heard himself say. “I was never given a choice—and now? Unless I go back to the Territory, the pair of them aren’t going to live long.”

Selena’s head eased to the side, her mind clearly working. “There is no chance for negotiating?”

“None.”

“Can your parents not give the price paid back?”

He thought of his mother’s cynical smile that night he’d last seen her. “Even if they could, I don’t think they would.”

Her brows rose again. “Are you certain?”

“It would be consistent with them.”

“Have you not asked?”

“No, I haven’t. But it would involve going back to the s’Hisbe, and that’s not possible.”

“Is there not someone you could send on your behalf?”

He pictured iAm going into the Territory. The contract was specifically for Trez, so it wasn’t as if the high priest, or even s’Ex, could do a bait and switch. They could, however, take his brother hostage. Or worse.

And that would get Trez back.

“I don’t think so. My brother’s the only one, and I can’t risk that. I won’t risk him.”

“And you think your parents will be…”

“No, I know they’ll kill them.” He massaged the nape of his neck. “You know, so much of this is sad—but I think the worst of it is the fact that I can’t even pretend to be emotional about those two. It’s, like … they made a deal with the devil. If something bad happens, they’re just getting what’s coming to them.”

Unfortunately, however, regardless of what happened to his mother and father … the debt would still be owed.

Even if s’Ex carved them up into little bitty pieces, Trez would remain on the line for what they had contracted for.

What had been set in motion … could not be undone. And as he kept looking at Selena, he mourned that truth now more than ever.

Selena’s hands were shaking. Had been ever since Trez had said that he’d been with … exactly how many human women? she wondered.

Dearest Virgin Scribe, she didn’t even want to think about that.

She could, however, at least try to get her hands to stop trembling. As Trez fell silent, she splayed her fingers wide and flexed them, hoping that it would stop things before he saw through her calm facade: She had the very clear sense that if he became aware he’d upset her, he would never say another word … and this intimate space that had unexpectedly opened up between them was even more sacred than the sexual experience had promised to be.

“I did not have parents as such,” she said quietly. “But I cannot imagine having a young and … selling them.”

Trez nodded, his arm cocked high so that he could continue to rub the base of his neck. “I know, right? I mean, my parents did value me. The problem is, I was a commodity to them, something to be bartered. You expect that from car dealers and rug merchants and people who run supermarkets and malls. And listen, I wish I was one of those well-adjusted motherfuckers so I could be all like, ‘They didn’t want me,