“I hate you, remember?” With all the alcohol thrumming through my system, I can’t put emotion behind the words.

“I’m starting to think you don’t, though.” His eyes laugh at me.

I push myself out of his arms, enjoying the way the water ripples over my skin. I do hate the king, just not right now. In the morning I will.

I hope.

I swim over to where the wine bottle sits. “I think I need more alcohol for this conversation.” I’m actually feeling plenty buzzed as it is, but I do need to change the subject before the king corners me into agreeing to the visit.

Just as I reach for the bottle, I see movement out of the corner of my eye. I jolt at the sight of King Lazuli. I hadn’t heard him swim up next to me.

He grabs the wine bottle and moves it out of my reach. “I think you’ve had enough for now, Serenity.” I shiver at the way he says my name. “Me on the other hand …” He flashes me a wicked smile before he tips the bottle back and takes a drink from it.

My abs clench at the sight of him. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was feeling lustful. He sets the bottle down, and when his eyes meet mine, heat pools low in my stomach.

“Let’s play a game,” I say quickly. He raises an eyebrow. “I’ll ask you a question, and you can choose to answer it, but if you decide not to, you’re going to have to take a sip of wine.” That’ll loosen his lips.

The grin he gives me is full of mischief. “I’ll play your little game, but only if I’m allowed to ask questions as well.”

I nod. “Okay.” I can live with that. “I’ll start you off with an easy one: what’s your favorite color?”

“Blue. What’s yours?” he asks.

“I’ll answer that only if it’s your official question.”

“It is.”

I watch the way the light from the water dances over his skin. I want to hold onto this moment, where we are no longer enemies. Merely a man and a woman discovering each other.

“Yellow.” The color of the sun and the stars, the color of happiness.

“Yellow?” The king’s eyebrows nudge up.

“What, you thought I’d like the color of spilled blood or something?”

He tips his head back as he weighs my words. “Yeah, I kind of did.”

“Next question: where are you from?” I ask, thinking about the roll of his words.

He pauses, watching me with an amused smile on his face. “I was born in the country formerly known as France.”

The water laps against us as I file away this new bit of information.

“Are you enjoying yourself at the moment?” the king asks.

I search Montes’s eyes. I could lie, make up an answer, or I could also pass. I do neither.

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “Maybe.”

“Maybe,” King Lazuli repeats. “I’ll take it.”

I glance out the window, where I can make out the moon. “How old are you, really?” I ask.

The king grabs the bottle of wine and drinks rather than answering.

“How old were you the first time you killed someone?” he asks.

“Twelve. And I killed four someones that first time.”

“Four.” He’s looking at me like he’s having trouble believing me. “What—?”

I hold up a hand. “My turn, remember?”

His eyes drop to my lips and he nods.

“Have you ever personally killed anyone?” I ask.

“No.”

His answer doesn’t surprise me. The king strikes me as the kind of man who doesn’t care about other’s suffering so long as he doesn’t have to see it. He survives his cruelty only because he removes himself from it. I think in some ways I might be the more brutal of the two of us.

“Why did you kill those four men?” he asks me. I knew he was going to ask me this.

“They were going to rape me,” I say. I look away from him as I remember.

So much is left out of my statement. How brain and bone flecked the floor like confetti. How one of them took an agonizing ten minutes to die. The entire time he begged me with the ruin of his mouth to put him out of his misery.

When I look at Montes again, his face is studiously blank, like he’s trying to hide his reaction. I realize then that my life might shock the king as much as his life has shocked me. I still can’t comprehend the sheer quantity of lives he’s taken through his wars, but maybe he is also having a hard time believing that I can kill so easily.

“Tell me how a decent man can be okay with leading a war,” I say.

“That’s not a question, and I’m not a decent man,” he says.

“You’re right, I forgot for a moment.”

The king presses in close to me so that my back is up against the wall of the pool. His hands rest against the tiled edge, trapping me between them. “Told you,” he says, his voice gravelly.

“Told me what?”

“I don’t think you really hate me.”

“That’s just wishful thinking on your part,” I say, but silently I worry that he’s right, that a few hours with him have weakened my long-held beliefs.

“Okay,” I say, changing the topic, “if you don’t answer the question I just asked you—”

“Statement,” King Lazuli corrects.

“—then you can at least answer this one: why do you like me?”

A sinful smile spreads along the king’s lips, and he shifts his body so that his slick skin rubs against mine. “You’re clearly new at this,” he says. I bristle at his words. “Attraction and chemistry don’t follow any logical rules. You’re not the prettiest girl I’ve ever met, nor the smartest, nor the funniest.”

I narrow my eyes at him.

“But you are the girl I’ve altered a peace treaty for, and you are the girl I’m spending the evening with.”

“You’re evil and deceptive,” I say.

“And you’re a kindred spirit.”

That stops me. It stops me completely. I’ve never thought of it that way. That the two of us might be the same. The more I think about it, the more frightening similarities there are between us.

The king shifts against me, drawing my attention to the sculpted muscles of his chest and the arms that pin me to the wall. My eyes trail up and rest on his mouth.