Gleam: The dark fantasy romance TikTok sensation that’s sold over a million copies (Plated Prisoner Book 3)

Every single person at the table stiffens at Slade’s sudden appearance. But me…my body seems to relax for the first time since I came in here. My ribbons loosen, their lengths slipping out of their drapery, ends slinking beneath the table like they want to slither right over to him.

I get a bit of tunnel vision as my attention locks onto him, and my lips go warm, once again remembering the press of his mouth and the nip of his teeth.

Great Divine, that kiss.

His green eyes sweep the room, onyx hair perfectly disheveled and body encased head-to-toe in black tailored clothes with a simple brown leather strap around his waist. His gaze doesn’t land on me exactly, but I swear I see the slightest twitch of his lips curve up.

Slade walks into the room with all of the swagger befitting his uncompromising confidence. Behind him is his Wrath, each of them in full armor, including helmets. The only reason I can tell it’s them is because Osrik’s hulking form can’t be missed, and neither can Lu’s featherlight tread. Judd walks just behind her with a relaxed swing of his arms, while the fourth in the group…

My eyes flick back and forth from Slade to the Rip look-alike. Slade swaggers, but Fake Rip stalks. With booted steps striding forward, curved spikes protruding from the arms and back of his armor, he looks every bit the army commander I’ve come to know.

Except for one thing. No aura pulses around him. No inky presence of his essence hovers in the air. This person is definitely an impersonation. The question is…who the hell is he?

“King Ravinger,” Midas declares, watching as the four Wrath take up spots against the wall of the dining room, Ranhold’s guards shuffling out of the way to accommodate them. “When you didn’t arrive at the stated dining time, I assumed you had other obligations.”

A verbal jab, letting it be known that Midas doesn’t appreciate Slade’s tardiness.

“Pardon,” Slade replies as he sits down across from the prince and begins helping himself to the platters of food. “I didn’t intend to leech off of Fifth Kingdom’s dining niceties, but time got away from me.”

Niven goes as pale as his chowder, but for once, the prince has the good sense to keep his mouth shut.

The passing minutes are so thick with tension that it would take a knife sharper than the one at my place setting to cut through it. Everyone eats and talks while I push around my food and bob my head politely whenever someone says something, while my internal clock ticks.

The monarchs are all sliding looks at each other when one isn’t looking, their words nothing more than riddles fluent in derision or rife with fake flattery. The only one as quiet as me is Slade.

My eyes lift of their own volition to steal a look at his profile. I glance over the cut of his jaw, the reaching power barely visible behind the high collar of his shirt. Like he feels my attention, deep green eyes flash over to me, and I snatch my gaze away, trying to keep still as I stir my food around.

I shouldn’t look at him. Not with the way my heart is pounding, not with the observant eyes at this table.

And yet, the moment I look away, I swear I feel a brush of his gaze against my cheek again, as if he feels the pull too, the crave to collide. Instead of falling into that trap, I let my eyes rove over his Wrath.

Osrik stands like part-giant against the wall, more pillar than man, like he could hold up the entire ceiling if it came down. To be honest, he probably could.

Judd is next to him, head scanning left and right, while Lu stands perfectly still, hand resting on the sword at her hip, perhaps to remind people that she might be the smallest of the four, but she’s just as deadly.

If any of them notice me sitting here, they don’t let on.

As for the Rip look-alike…

My eyes fall to him the most.

I can’t help it. I keep trying to pick his appearance apart, as if I can spot all the differences. Yet apart from the empty space where his aura should be pulsing, there’s nothing I can see that gives me any hint as to who he really is.

“King Midas, I don’t think I complimented you on the throne room yet. It was positively stunning,” Queen Kaila gushes.

“A gift to Prince Niven,” Midas says smoothly, as if he did it for anyone other than himself.

“It was very generous,” the boy murmurs in monotone.

Queen Kaila’s lips pull up in a smile. “You know, I have always been captivated by your power, King Midas.”

“It’s nothing,” he replies with an easy smile.

I bristle. My ribbons sharpen like bared fangs.

It’s nothing.

Nothing.

My fingers clamp tightly around my spoon. So many times I’ve drained myself for this man, just for him to pretend that it’s his power and it’s nothing.

That angry creature prods my ribs, rapping to get out. Coils of ribbons slither down my legs like serpents searching to pierce a vein and tear into sinewy muscle, but I hold them back.

“Oh, I’m so glad to hear that your power comes so easily to you,” Kaila replies. “Magic can be a fickle thing.”

“It can,” he readily agrees. “But I mastered it long ago.”

Mastered it.

It feels like my stomach turns to ash, burnt down by the flare of fire erupting from the throat of my cloying fury.

Mastered me, he means, this complete and utter piece of shit—

“So magnificent,” Queen Kaila says. “Could you show us?”

The hand on his goblet goes still, his eyes locking onto her. “Show you?”

The queen nods with excitement, her eyes glittering. “You wouldn’t mind, would you? I’ve heard so many stories of how awe-inspiring it is, and I would love a demonstration. I assumed since you’ve mastered it so completely, it isn’t such a terrible imposition? My brother and I would adore seeing it.”

Midas may look at her with that courtly smile still plastered on his face, but I see the tightness in his jaw. Feel the six taps of his heel on the floor.

In just a few short sentences, Kaila has trapped him. If he were to deny her, it would make him appear either weak or disagreeable. Neither of those things are what Midas is trying to prove.

After a silence that stretches on a few beats too long, he tips his head. “Of course, Queen Kaila. I would be happy to.”

She beams at him, looking so young and pretty, and yet there’s a thread of cunning that gleams in her gaze, as if this is a test.

“Auren, pass me your goblet, would you?” Midas turns to me, eyes flickering with pointed demand. We’ve played this game so many times. We’ve fooled so many people.

But right now, the fuming anger is in control, and the only person I want the fool to be is him.

With a saccharine smile on my face, I pick up the goblet and hold it out to him. In the past, I’d make sure to do a quick sleight of hand to make my skin touch the object at just the right moment as I passed it over, so that by the time my gold was spreading, it was firmly in his grasp.

But I do nothing.

Midas’s carob-pod eyes darken and deaden, falling off a branch to land down at my gloved hand. When he lifts that gaze again, we stay in limbo, both of us holding the cup, staring at each other in equal challenge.

His gaze is an order.

Mine is a threat.

In these loaded, heavy seconds, a tense silence stretches across the table, bound by the unwavering looks knotted between the Golden King and his gilded pet.

A tic appears in Midas’s jaw, and while his smile is still plastered on his handsome face, there’s a fury there buried in the depths, ready to dig me out and crush my defiance with a fist. I manage to keep the smile on my face with innocent levity, but my golden irises spark with the light of a fire.

He’s always towered over me to cast me in his shadow, and a shadow doesn’t like it when you burn it straight through. My chest leaps at the power I’m manipulating by not using my power at all. At everyone staring, waiting for him to perform.

And he can’t.

“Are you going to let go?” he asks lightly, as though it’s a joke, though it’s belied by the hardness in his jaw.

Are you going to do as you’re told? he’s really saying.

What would you do if I didn’t? my gaze says.

Seconds drag by of this public power play.

Several chairs down, I swear I can feel a rumbling laugh, though it’s silent inside a black-clad chest. My own seems to puff up a little bit more.

Midas yanks the goblet away from me and looks down the table with an amused look. “Apologies, I’m often distracted by my favored,” he says to excuse away our exchange, making a few people laugh politely.

His eyes move to the windows behind us, and I see the infuriated panic in the tightening of his lips as he realizes that night is about to descend. He has minutes, maybe even seconds. My power is about to go dormant, and his temper is burgeoning.

“Understandable. She is a beauty,” Keon says, shooting me a wink, but everyone is wondering. Doubting. Not quite understanding. For the first time, the pet has turned on her master, and the master doesn’t like seeing fangs bared that he thought he’d muzzled.

Midas leans in, not near enough to touch my skin, of course. He’s far too meticulous for that. “Careful, Precious,” he whispers, voice dropped down to a breath.

My rebellion falters beneath his smile pitched in threat. Midas looks at me to imbue his warning, though he pulls away like a king who just whispered intimate secrets to his favored saddle.

Digby. I have to think of Digby.

Crunching up my pride like torn paper in a fist, I discreetly tug off my glove in my lap. Lifting back up, I pretend to reach for a serving spoon, thankful for the icicle centerpiece that juts up in front of me. With intent attention, I time it precisely so that as soon as Midas sets his goblet down, I drag my bare palm against the glass tabletop right beside it and let my power unleash.

Gold erupts like a gushing wound bleeding across the table.

Several gasps ring out as the liquid spreads from beneath Midas’s goblet and spills into the entire length of the table like reaching floodwaters. It swallows the glass in its shiny pall, dripping down the sides and curling down the edges to spread beneath. Within moments, the entire table is gilded, the centerpiece of jagged icicles now reaching up like clawed fingers of golden greed.

Midas’s shoulders noticeably relax, and across from him, Queen Kaila claps. “How exquisite, King Midas,” she says with a grin, her tanned fingers running over the polished metal.

Keon laughs jovially. “Indeed. Why go for the goblet when you can gild the whole table?”

Midas gives a bared-teeth smile. “Exactly what I was thinking.” His malignant attention settles on my face, scraping it raw. “Did you enjoy that, Precious?”

“I did.”

I really, really did.

He turns back to his food, and I pull my glove back on, my gold-slicked palm sticking to the inside of the fabric. Taking care to stay composed, I keep my expression shuttered while my insides riot.

Stupid. That was a stupid, foolish risk I shouldn’t have taken. My pride is not worth Digby’s life.

But damn, it felt good to make him squirm.

A few minutes later, the sun dips away, and the dying day gives in. With the descent of night, I feel my power empty out of me. The claggy gold remnants on my hand soak back into my skin, and I let out a ragged, tired breath. Too much power too fast has left me lightheaded, and I’m clearly still recovering from my drain.

Everyone is talking around me, Queen Kaila fawning over the golden table while the others continue to eat and make small talk. Somehow, I manage to eat my tacky, cold porridge and wash it away from the roof of my mouth with a gulp of water.

AlI I want to do is run back to my room and escape to the balcony, to breathe in the crisp air, far away from prying eyes and courtly conversation. Midas’s presence beside me is the bow of a ship, looming ever closer, no matter how fast I try to swim.

When I bite into some syrupy fruits, I have the sudden urge to cry. But that wouldn’t do. It’s odd enough that I’m sitting here like a spectacle at a royal dinner. If I start weeping into my dinner bowl, I’ll be the talk of the court. But I hate this. Hate him. Gritting my teeth, I tell myself to pull it together, to not let him get to me.

Why is it that a man can make you feel like nothing, when you have given him everything?

Suddenly, like a whisper in my ear, I feel the faintest breeze of magic brush against my cheek. So subtle, like dipping a single fingertip into still water. Rather than the nauseating power he usually gives off, this is the balm of a cool caress that I’ve grown accustomed to when he’s in his spiked form.

At the stroke of his essence, I’m able to let out a normal breath. My throat bobs, swallowing down the regret and worry, and I grasp that composure I need. Just like that, Slade has calmed me, grounded me on stable earth.

Since I can’t look at him, I let my eyes lift to Fake Rip again instead, his slitted helmet pointing straight ahead, hands clasped in front of him. Who would I find if I pulled off that dark metal that hides his face? What other secrets does King Slade Ravinger have?

“Did you hear me?”

My head snaps to the left at Midas’s voice. “What?”

Brown eyes darken as his gaze skips from me to the commander I was just caught staring at. My stomach drops, and I know I’ve made another grave mistake tonight. All of the calming reassurance I received from Slade is instantly gone, crushed beneath the threat of Midas’s stare.

Midas jerks his chin up, eyes dragging to the harp by the windows. “Go play some music.”

Not a request.

Not even really appropriate, considering the setting and that I haven’t finished eating. He caught me looking at Rip, and he doesn’t like it. Not one bit.

“Your Majesty, don’t feel like you have to add entertainment on our account,” Manu cuts in across the table. “Besides, that harp looks awfully complicated, doesn’t it, Keon?”

The man looks up from the leg meat in front of his mouth. When he doesn’t reply right away, Manu elbows him. “Oh, right. Yes, awfully complicated.”

“My Auren is self-taught,” Midas boasts with another fake smile. “Well?” he prompts.

“Now?” I ask thickly, stalling.

Displeasure bleeds through his features. “Yes, now.”

I’m on thin ice, I know that. I honestly don’t know what’s come over me tonight. Or maybe I do.

It’s nothing.

I’ve mastered it.

He’s already insulted me, embarrassed me, sat me here to be his trophy, and bolstered his own image by pretending that he gilt the table. The last thing I want is to go over there and perform like a puppet.

Still, I’m surprised when I hear myself saying, “No, thank you.”

Someone’s fork screeches against their plate like a startled musician squeaking their violin string. The chattering along the table dims. From my peripheral, I think I see Slade smirk.

I learned long ago to read Midas’s subtleties, and right now, he’s so sharp with anger that I’m in danger of being pierced straight through. His voice drops low, like the threat of rain on a drowned-out sea. “No?”

I attempt to smooth his ruffled feathers by giving him a placating smile. “It’s been so long since I’ve played in front of anyone. I’m out of practice…”

He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. No, there’s a sort of furious yet gleeful anomaly there that sets me on edge. “Oh, Precious, you play so beautifully. You’ll get the hang of it again and be just as you were before.”

His double meaning is clear.

“I had no idea your gold-touched was so talented,” Queen Kaila says, drawing his attention.

“Yes, she haslearned some very good skillsto entertain me with over the years,” he says, looking back at me. “Isn’t that right, Precious?”

The innuendo has me burning from my cheeks to my ears.

He’s doing this on purpose. Humiliating me. Putting me in my place. Reminding me and everyone else here that I’m his possession.

“She’s always happy to entertain others as well,” Midas goes on, and for that split second he looks away from me, I allow my gaze to dart to Slade.

He’s sitting back in his chair, one elbow leaning on his armrest, and a goblet balanced in his other hand. He looks relaxed. Bored, even.

Except for the whites of his knuckles where he’s gripping his goblet so fiercely I worry he might shatter it.

Maybe shatter me in the process.

There’s a cough from the back of the room, and my eyes shoot to Fake Rip, whose hands drop back down in front of him.

This time when Midas’s hand comes up, his fingers pinch right on the sensitive underside of my arm. Even through the sleeve, it hurts. I stiffen and suck in a breath, tears springing up from the sharp notch of pain as he digs in.

With the way his hand is wrapped around my bicep, I’m sure to the rest of the table that it simply looks as if he’s bestowing me with an affectionate touch instead of this move of punishing dominance.

Some of them keep up polite conversation, but they’re really paying attention to us. After all, it’s not every day one gets to observe the Golden King with his elusive gold-touched favored.

As if that scrutiny weren’t bad enough, I can feel Slade’s eyes burning into the side of my face. I don’t know how I know he’s watching, or how I can feel his attention stitched to the place Midas is touching me, but I do.

“Don’t be shy now, Precious.”

One of my ribbons lifts, a beveled end perking up like a snake scenting the air. Every second that passes makes the pinched spot even more painful, feeling like a pin bolted straight through my skin.

Midas smiles at the look in my eye before blessedly releasing me. Though he finally lets go, it doesn’t remove the hurt, and isn’t that fitting? Every part he’s touched has bloomed with a blatant spot I’m left to ache with. Every touch radiates out with a mark from the spot he savaged.

“My leg and arm are a little sore,” I reply quietly, dropping a pointed look to my thigh that’s no doubt already forming a bruise as well.

“I forget how delicate you are,” Midas says, the pleasantness in his voice nothing but a farce to the edge in his eye. “Since your leg is so sore, perhaps the commander can carry you to the harp. He seems to have some practice at that.”

Shit. My heart stammers, a clumsy, knocking pulse to rap against my ribs. How much does he know?

Damn the guards for reporting my every move. Now that I think about it, the only reason I didn’t get Midas storming into my bedroom was probably because Queen Kaila arrived last night.

He was preoccupied.

He isn’t preoccupied anymore.noveldrama

Now, I’m going to pay for letting someone else touch me. No matter that it was his own damn fault I couldn’t walk up the stairs in the first place.

He lets his kingly voice boast out, “Commander, come help Auren to the harp.”

I have to hand it to him. The asshole really has some nerve, ordering Rip around like that, considering the commander’s reputation and the fact that Midas isn’t even his king.

All of Midas’s attention is pinned to Fake Rip, but the man is still standing stoic against the wall, powerful thighs shoulder-length apart. He cocks his head, not in Midas’s direction, but in Slade’s, and my embarrassment comes to a head.

“That’s not necessary,” I quickly state.

“Oh, but it is. I insist.” Midas’s tone is sharp enough to cut.

My teeth grit and grind. Desperate now, I look around the table, but everyone’s pointedly pretending not to be paying attention to this exchange. Even Manu and Keon are in deep discussion with their queen.

“I don’t need to inconvenience the commander.” I scoot my chair back too fast, the legs wailing out a shrill screech against the stone.

Before I can stand fully, Midas’s hand is on my wrist, halting me. “If it wasn’t an inconvenience last night, then it certainly shouldn’t be now.” The cold challenge is a blatant flex of control shoveled out from his words before he levels a look at Slade. “You don’t mind, do you, Ravinger? Your commander took such good care of my Auren last night, so I know he can do so again.”

My Auren.

Half of me is surprised at how blatant his play of control and possession is tonight. Yet it makes sense to me too, since I know he learned about last night. If there’s one thing he hates, it’s anyone touching me.

Slade regards him, head cocked, expression apathetic. Even when his eyes drop to skim over the spot where Midas is holding me, there’s nothing. Not a flicker of any kind of emotion.

I think that’s what bothers me most of all.

At least until Slade says, “By all means, Midas. Whatever you need.”

Something in me deflates at that, my ribbon settling down to lick invisible wounds. Was I imagining the bite of anger I saw earlier with his grip on his goblet?

Slade’s every action is always unexpected. But it isn’t until I feel this pebble of disappointment dig in that I realize I thought he was going to intervene on my behalf.

But he doesn’t.

Fake Rip is already stalking toward me, the black sheen of the spikes looking scarier on him than they do on Slade. All too soon, he’s right in front of me, taking my arm into the crook of his stiff elbow.

I turn and start the humiliating walk over to the harp, wishing I’d never opened my big mouth. I should’ve known that Midas would find it necessary to immediately put me in my place.

We’ve only taken a few steps when Midas calls out, “My favored can’t possibly walk on her own, Commander.”

Heels stuck to the stone, this stranger and I stay frozen for a moment. Then, nearly too quietly to hear, a sigh sounds within the hollow spaces of his helmet.

My shoulders tighten. “Don’t you da—”

Before I’ve finished my sentence, I’m picked up in Fake Rip’s arms.

Not bridal style. Not even flung over his shoulder like a brute.

No, he carries me like a sack of potatoes, hauling me up by my waist with one arm, balancing me against his side.

I’m too stunned to offer an objection as he stomps the rest of the way to the harp, every step jostling me like I’m an errant toddler on a mother’s hip.

I get dropped unceremoniously onto the stool in front of the instrument, and I hiss in protest, shooting a glare up at the man, while my ribbons practically turn to poke silken tongues out at him. I’m not positive, but I think I might see him wink at me through the slits in his helmet before he turns and strides back to his spot.

What the hell?

The dining room is achingly quiet for a second until Manu demands, “Why don’t you carry me around like that?”

“Because you weigh about a hundred pounds more than me,” Keon drawls.

“That’s a terrible excuse.”

Thankful that Manu and his husband have filled the awkward gap of quiet, I straighten my back and lift my chin before I let my fingers pluck against the strings.

I don’t play any particular song. There’s no need. Midas doesn’t actually want me to entertain anyone with a tune, that’s never what this has been about in all my years of playing. It’s a performance, but not one that has anything to do with music.

For the next hour, while the rest of them eat and drink and talk, my gilded fingers strum over the strings. It’s an indolent, vagabond melody with no focus that plunks through the flicks of my fingertips.

Not once does Midas say anything to me again. Not once does Slade, or any of his Wrath, glance my way. Manu eyes me every once in a while, but I don’t know him well enough to judge the expression on his face.

Behave tonight

Sit pretty

Play your silly music

Leave the men to speak

Those old words sing along in soundless lyrics. Same shit, different castle.