Glint (The Plated Prisoner Series Book 2)

This miser did prize her,

this golden gold vine.

His smile would gleam

at all of her shine.

He gave her his all,

so she’d answer his call.

Rejoiced every inch

that her length grew up tall

And I do feel betrayed. He tricked me. Confused me with a kiss and lied about who he really is. Maybe that’s unfair, considering I’ve lied too, but I can’t help feeling like he played me.

“You’re King Ravinger,” I breathe in hurt accusation, because it’s the only thought clanging through my bones and shrieking in my skull.

Rip’s mouth slowly pulls into a grin, and he speaks with the dark, sensual stroke of a villainous purr that matches the glint in his eye. “Yes, Goldfinch, I am. But you can call me Slade.”

Ravinger chuckles, and the rasp abrades my ears, like the splintered wood of a rotten log. “Oh Goldfinch, I asked you before if you knew who I was.”

My foot hesitates from its move to back up, my brows pulling together in a frown of confusion even as my heart pounds, warning me to flee. “What?”

Without warning, his power suddenly pulses out again and tightens like a fist, yanking a noose around my stomach. This time, it’s different, a surge instead of a reach.

I gulp out strangled air and double over, a cold sweat immediately drenching my skin as I breathe through my nose, trying not to be sick, trying not to fall.

My shaky hands grip the doorframe hard as I try to stay upright. My tired ribbons wince, curling up behind me and diving beneath my dress like they can hide from his magic.

Dizziness overtakes me with a hot flush as I lean against the wall, but right before I’m about to be sick, the power suddenly dissolves, like salt in a sea.

Panting, I look up, and right before my eyes, the reaching roots over Ravinger’s face recede.

He walks toward me, no longer half-hidden in the shadows.

As the veins fade away, his green eyes shutter, like his irises are soaking up all that black, putrid power.

His entire body shudders, and my eyes go wide with shock as his face changes, sharpens.

I’m stuck in place, unable to breathe, unable to even blink as the bones of his face taper like the edge of a blade. His ears pinch to a point at the top just as scales appear on chiseled cheeks.

“Great Divine...” Shock is infused with my tone, holding it under, suffocating me with the weight of realization.

Spikes stab through his arms and shoot from his spine. He unfurls, the wild, wicked fae, transitioning until all that’s left of his horrible power is the viscid press of a very familiar dark aura.

“You’re...you’re...” My tongue goes thick, catching up with the sheen in my eyes while the betrayal, heavy and solid, sinks into the depths of my soul.

Rip rolls his shoulders, as if his metamorphosis from rotted king to monstrous fae was painful. Though I can guarantee it wasn’t nearly as painful to him as it was to me.

The blacks of his irises that seem to have swallowed the power are the only indication of the foul magic lurking within.

That voice. Deeper, crueler than usual, but with a timbre of familiarity. I should’ve known. I should have damn well figured it out.

He takes one more step, and then he’s so close that I can feel the fiery temperature of his blackened soul, taste the press of spiced air as it passes from his lips.

He’s Rip and he’s Rot. He’s the fae and the king.

I swear, I feel a knife to my back all over again. But this time, it’s from a different betrayal, from a different man.