He pads over to me. His hands brush my hair off my shoulders. “Scared?”

How have I ended up here? With no family save for Montes, the very person that took them all away from me.

“Of you? No.”

It’s my conflicted emotions that scare me. They’re sucking me under, and I’m afraid that once they do, I won’t like the woman they fashion me into.

“Then come to bed.”

It’s not a request, it’s a dare, and he punctuates it by pulling loose the tie around my dress. The fabric parts with a little encouragement from the king, and then my outfit slides off.

Montes circles me, his hand trailing across my flesh. With a flick of his wrist he undoes my bra. His fingers move to my panties, and he hooks them around the thin bands of material and yanks them down before returning once more to face me.

I blink, startled, as we stand naked across from one another.

Montes’s eyes dip down and then he’s backing up towards the bed. “Come, Serenity.”

I hesitate, but even this is a lost cause. He’s my husband. This is a part of the package.

Following him to bed, I slip beneath the sheets and keep my back to Montes. My muscles tense. I’m not going to fall asleep anytime soon.

An arm snakes around my waist and Montes pulls me against his chest. I can feel every naked inch of him pressed along my back.

He breathes in my hair, nuzzling the shell of my ear. “I will never let you go, and I will never let you die. You will be mine, always.”

HANDS GLIDE OVER my legs. Am I in a dream or out of one? I can’t tell.

I crack my eyes open. Early morning light filters into the room, and my lips crack into a smile. As long as I live, the sight of it will never grow old.

Montes’s lips brush against mine, stealing my smile. The kiss is quick, gentle, and his mouth’s gone before I can react at all.

He moves down my body, his hair tickling the skin of my chest as he drops lower.

I push myself up onto my elbows. “What are you doing?”

Montes skims a kiss along my ribcage, his rough cheek scraping my flesh. “Waking my wife up.”

This isn’t terribly out of character for him, but I’m still not used to it.

He presses my torso back to the mattress. His hand stays against my sternum until I stop resisting. His other slides lower. And lower.

I catch his wrist.

I’m so, so terribly conflicted, mostly because I enjoy doing this with the king.

“Let go, Serenity,” he says, gazing down at me. His eyes are too dark, his skin too tan, his teeth too white. His features are unnatural, just like the rest of him.

“You first,” I say.

Ever so slowly, he lifts his hand from my skin and holds it up in surrender. I don’t trust him to play by any sort of rules when it comes to being physical.

A knock on the door interrupts us.

He sighs. “Grab a robe.”

“Why?” I ask, but I’m already pushing myself out of bed and heading towards what looks to be a closet. The sheer quantity of clothing inside it has me reeling back. I’m not seeing a robe. This really would be easier if someone thinned out the clothes in here by a factor of ten.

I grab the first item I do see and don it. Too late I realize I’ve slipped on one of Montes’s button-downs, and now the door’s opening.

The king flashes me a heated look at my outfit. I want to knock the expression off his face. For his part, he’s managed to slide on a pair of lounge pants.

A group of women enter the room, and—oh God. No, please, no.

They’re carrying canvas bags in colors ranging from pink to black. I’ve seen those bags before. This doesn’t bode well.

“What’s going on?” I take a step back.

“Press conference in … ” he strides over to a dresser and picks up a watch resting on it, “three hours.”

“You’re telling me this now?”

“Someone has to keep you on your toes.” He flashes me a grin, like this is all good fun.

As soon as I reestablish myself here, I’m getting my own schedule.

The women bustle over to me, and my earlier fears are confirmed. They’re here to primp me up.

“I can do this myself.” I speak to the room in general, but it’s Montes who answers.

“I didn’t ask if you could.”

They usher me over to a chair and get to work, touching my face, running their hands through my hair, brandishing sets of jewelry for me to try on.

The only things I tend to accessorize are my weapons.

Montes pulls up a chair next to me.

“Oh, staying this time are you?” I try to turn my head to him, but that earns me a firm tug on my scalp and a gentle admonishment from the hairstylist hovering over me.

I give myself fifteen minutes before the last of my patience runs out and I turn violent.

“I need to prep you on your speech.” I can hear mirth in his voice. My trigger finger itches.

“What speech? Wait, my speech?” Just when I thought all of the morning’s nasty surprises were over.

“The video of you returning to the WUN has been leaked. The world’s seen the footage of you.” The footage of me drenched with my enemy’s blood.

And my father’s.

“They also know that the Resistance captured you—albeit, briefly. The terrorist organization released video and a statement on the event, and I spoke about it shortly after you were taken.”

For a girl who’s lived underground for the last five years, there’s an awful lot of media attention on me—and most of it bad.

“What do you want me to say?” I ask. I’m legitimately curious how the king handles affairs like this.

“What would you say if you were still an emissary for the WUN?”

“I’d tell them that you were the devil.”

Above me I hear at least one woman suck in a breath.

“That’s not what I meant,” the king says.

“I know.” And I do. “You want me to debrief them on my experience?”

“You don’t actually have to worry. We have a speech already written for you. All you’re going to do is read from the teleprompter.”

“You’re seriously trusting me with a microphone and your subjects?” I badly want to look over at Montes just to read his face.

“Our subjects. You’ve been practicing for this for the better part of your life, Serenity. This isn’t just my world; it’s your world and it’s their world. Do right by it.”