Crap. I hadn’t meant for this.

“Wait, no.” I cut him off, and stop him with a hand. “Dad, it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine, and I can’t watch this.”

If my father intercedes now, it could be game over. Scenarios dance through my mind, none of them good. The ripple effects could be disastrous. I can’t let that happen.

“Please, Dad. Sit down. I’ll answer the door.”

“I can’t ask this of you,” he says. “None of us can.”

My throat works at his admission. “It’s alright. This arrangement isn’t forever. Just please, go sit back down.”

My father stares at me for a long time, his nostrils flaring. For a man who’s good at masking his emotions, he’s not doing so well at the moment.

Finally he nods and walks back to his seat, his movements mechanical.

Hurrying to the door, I grab the handle and fling it open before I can reconsider my actions.

“Evening Marco,” I say when I step out into the hallway.

“The king requests—”

“I know,” I say, pushing past him.

“He wants you to wear your gift,” Marco says to my back.

“And I want to live in a world where I don’t have to worry about radiation poisoning, but neither is going to happen anytime soon.”

I can hear Marco’s huff, but he’s smart enough to realize a lost cause when he sees one.

This evening Marco leads me to a different area of the mansion. We stop in front of a solid wood door and Marco knocks twice.

“Come in Marco.” I can hear the king’s muffled voice on the other side of the door.

Marco twists the handle and ushers me inside. The king’s back is to me and he’s staring at the walls of the room.

I suck in a breath of air. The walls are covered with maps of every nation on earth. Strings crisscross the images, connecting one section of land to another. Pins hold the strings down, and beneath a few of these pins are images. Most are of people whose faces have been crossed out; only a precious few remain unscathed. My earlier nausea rises.

“Feeling better, Serenity?”

“Fuck off.”

The king turns to face me, his expression unreadable. “You’re not wearing my gift.”

“You can’t bribe me into liking you.”

The king’s eyes flick to Marco. “You can go.”

Behind me Marco’s footfalls fade, and a moment later the door clicks shut. There’s no one else in this room but the two of us. No guards, no servants. Like the pool last night, it’s just the two of us.

“I can’t have you clouding my judgment during negotiations,” he explains without me asking.

My hands fist. “Right. Because how awful would it be to compromise for once in your life?”

“I haven’t spent the last decade waging war with your country to finally compromise.”

“No,” I agree, “you haven’t.”

The king glances away from me at the maps that line the walls. “I’m not an idiot,” he says, not looking at me. “I know the WUN sent you here to seduce me.”

My body goes rigid. I have no idea why his confession shocks me; it doesn’t take a scientist to put two and two together.

He laughs, the sound hollow. “The problem is, it worked.” His eyes move over me, and something in them softens for a moment before he shutters the expression.

“Uh huh.”

His lips curl into a smirk. “You find that hard to believe?” he asks. I’d say that he was mocking me, except his eyes are too serious.

I fold my arms over my chest. Of course I do. “Why are you telling me this?” I ask.

“To warn you.”

“Warn me about what?”

“I get what I want. Always.”

“You keep telling me that, yet I haven’t seen any proof.”

“You want proof?” he says. His eyes are calculating, and the smile dancing on his lips is sly. He’s no longer the man I talked to yesterday; he’s the man who’s been taking over the world for the last three decades.

I take a step back. I shouldn’t have spoken just now; my words were careless, and around the king, careless words could mean the difference between life and death.

I shake my head and close my eyes. “No, I don’t want proof. I just want this to end.” I open my eyes. “I don’t want to see any more crossed out faces on those maps of yours.” I jut my chin to the wall behind him. “I don’t want to be hungry all the time. I don’t want to see the hollow-eyed looks of the people I live alongside.”

“I can give you that,” he says, slowly walking towards me, not stopping until the two of us are dangerously close.

“Of course you can—but you won’t.”

“That’s because no one’s offered me the correct price yet.” He says it like this is a simple matter of haggling.

I throw my arms up. “You can’t expect the WUN to willingly cripple our future economy for you.”

The king eliminates the last bit of space between us and fingers a lock of my hair. “That’s not the price I was referring to.” Almost lackadaisically, his eyes move from my hair and land on my face.

And now I get it. I take a step back, then another. I furrow my eyebrows; I think I’m going to be sick. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Even if I believed that was a legitimate trade—which we both know it isn’t—no.”

“You could end this all now, and you refuse to agree to it?”

“You’re asking me to make a deal with the devil.”

“You and I both know you already signed your soul away a long time ago, Serenity.”

“Because of you and your stupid war. I already told you last night, you don’t get to have me.”

The king prowls towards me, closing the distance between us once more. “I’m not just talking about sex,” he says.

But sex would be included in the arrangement. “I’d rather die than do anything with you.”

“If it’s death you wish, we can arrange that.”

The king reaches out to touch my arm, and I slap his hand away. “Don’t. Touch. Me.” I’m shaking; this was never supposed to happen. I’m getting played by the king, and I don’t know how to get myself out of this situation.