"Oh shit, Samantha!" Kai yelled at me, his voice sharp and cutting through the tense air, thick with the frustration and anger that mirrored my own. His words hit me like a slap, and I could feel every inch of my body tense up with fury.
"What do you mean? What the—gods…" My mind was racing, so furious that it was impossible to make sense of anything. Everything felt like a blur, but my mouth was running on its own, the words tumbling out without any restraint. I didn't care about the damage I was causing or how much they might hurt him. "I called you the King's whore! I even thought you were his boyfriend, the way you talked about him! Why the hell didn't you tell me you were a fucking royal, you narcissistic, arrogant bastard?!" My words flowed freely, each one more biting than the last, and I could see the shock flash across his face, like he had never expected me to go this far.
"Calm down, little witch. Let me explain," Kai said, his voice oddly calm despite the chaos that was unfolding. He was trying to soften the situation, to rein it in, but his calmness only made me angrier. How dare he remain so collected while everything inside me was a storm?
"Then explain!" I snapped, my voice rising with each passing second, until it was near a scream. "Explain right now!" I was shaking with the intensity of my rage, and it felt like I couldn't hold it back any longer. I wanted to hear everything—everything he had been hiding, every last bit of it.
"First of all, if I had told you, you wouldn't have come here," Kai began, his voice defensive, as though he was bracing for the worst. "Second of all, you'd probably try to kill me with your katana because I'm a royal. Third of all, you hate royals, nobles, witches, and faes. You've made that clear time and time again." He paused for a second, like he thought I'd back down, but I didn't. I wouldn't.
He continued, his words coming faster now, his tone becoming sharper, more clipped. "Fourth of all, I need you. So I had to do this, because if you knew who I really was, you wouldn't have come with me. Fifth of all, again, you would've tried to kill me, without a second thought." His voice was growing more defensive by the second, and I could feel the anger creeping up inside me like an uncontrollable tide. Every word was like a fresh wound, and I hated him more with each one.
I stood there, frozen, a chaotic storm of emotions churning inside me. My anger was overwhelming, but as much as I hated it, there was something else inside me, something that resembled understanding, creeping in. It was something I refused to acknowledge, something I hated with every ounce of my being. "You stupid asshole," I hissed, unable to stop myself. "I hate lies—" The words flew out before I could stop them, my accusation burning in my throat like fire.
And then it hit me, the realization slammed into me like a punch to the gut. I hated lies, but here I was, a master of deception myself. How could I accuse him of something I was constantly guilty of? The hypocrisy was suffocating, and I couldn't breathe. I was a fucking hypocrite. The irony hit me like a freight train, and I felt sick to my stomach. How could I have been so blind to what I was doing to him, when I was doing the same thing every day?
"You hate almost everything, be honest," Kai's voice cut through my spiraling thoughts, his words too sharp for comfort. And as much as I hated to admit it, he was right. The bastard was right, and that only made me angrier. He was twisting the knife deeper, hitting where it hurt the most.
"I don't!" I snapped back, my voice far too defensive, brittle like glass. The lies, the half-truths, they were spinning around me like a tornado. I could feel the weight of them, but I couldn't stop. I wasn't fooling anyone, especially not him.
"Oh, so am I wrong?" Kai smirked, that damn smirk that made my blood boil. He had this way of getting under my skin, twisting the knife deeper when it was already in so far. The bastard knew exactly how to push me, and it made my rage grow even hotter. He had that power over me, and I hated him for it.
In a moment of ridiculous defiance, I shot back, "I love stew of snakes." The words came out before I could think better of them. I crossed my arms, trying to look tough, trying to mask how badly his words had gotten to me. But I knew deep down that it was pathetic. I wasn't fooling anyone. Not him, not myself.
Kai burst into laughter, and that laugh—it grated on every single nerve I had. It was that same laugh, the one that made me want to throw something at him, the one that made my blood boil. The bastard LAUGHED in my face. The sound echoed around us, like an insult, like he was mocking me in the most cruel way possible. And all I wanted to do was scream, to wipe that smug grin off his face, to take back everything I had just said.
"I want to go back," I snapped, my voice now tight with frustration. My patience had run dry. "Back to my tree house. Do your magic thing and send me back." I wasn't joking. I couldn't stay here another second, not with him looking at me like that, not with the weight of his lies pressing down on me.
"For the gods' sake, are you serious?" Boyd, the silent observer up until now, suddenly exclaimed, his disbelief apparent in his voice. He looked at us both like we were insane, his exasperation seeping through every word. He couldn't take the tension any longer, and I couldn't blame him. The air was thick with it, suffocating.
"Shut up!" Kai and I both yelled at him in unison, cutting him off immediately. We were too far gone, too consumed by our own anger to care about anyone else. All that mattered now was the mess we had created, the war of words that had spiraled out of control.
"I want to go back, right fucking now!" I growled, my face flushed with a rage that felt like it was threatening to explode. "You arrogant, narcissistic bastard. How dare you fool me with those lies about your perfect king?" The words came out of me like daggers, each one more cutting than the last. I was done being manipulated. I was done with all the lies, and I wanted to leave, to escape, to put this whole mess behind me. But even as I screamed, I knew I couldn't escape—at least not from myself.
"I didn't lie about that," Kai retorted, his voice sharp with irritation. "You stupid savage girl, I didn't lie. I just told you the truth. I am, indeed, a perfect king. All I told you was the truth." He was still trying to defend himself, still trying to convince me that everything was fine, that he had done nothing wrong. How dumb did he think I was?
"I don't believe you!" I yelled back, my voice raw and desperate. It felt like everything inside me was being stretched to its limits, like I was about to break. There was no trust left, no space for his lies anymore. I couldn't believe him. I wouldn't.
"Then go out and look at my fucking kingdom if you want to," Kai shot back, his patience completely gone. His words were cold and biting now, laced with venom. "You can't say anything about it because you never interacted with anyone here. You judged everyone by the rumors you heard in your stupid kingdom." His words struck me like a slap across the face, and I could feel the sting. Maybe he was right. Maybe I had judged them all too quickly, too harshly. But I wasn't ready to admit that. Not yet. Not when I was so angry, not when the storm inside me was still raging.
At least I wasn't the only one losing my cool. Kai had completely lost it, and in some twisted way, it felt good to know I wasn't the only one who could be pushed too far.
"You were too afraid to live with other people who could kill you," Kai continued, his voice now laced with venom, his words cutting deeper than I had expected. "That's why you isolated yourself, lived on your own like some savage, primitive creature. And you still judge my kingdom without knowing them. You judge everything without knowing anything." The words cut through me like a blade, and for a moment, I felt a knot tighten in my chest. Was I really that different from him? Had I really been so scared of the world, so terrified of the dangers that I had cut myself off from it? Had I been too afraid to trust, to live among others? The question lingered in the air, and I hated the possibility that he might be right.
The tension between us was unbearable now, my heart pounding in my chest, each beat like a drum. But I couldn't back down. Not now. Not when the words were already out. My pride, my anger—they were the only things keeping me upright. And I wasn't going to let him take that away from me.