“You can do that?”

My thumb strokes her skin. I’m practically vibrating with the need to take action. The weeks spent waiting for her to recover have tested my patience. Knowing it’ll be a while longer until my Serenity returns is almost too much.

“I can.”

“Then yes,” she says, “I want my memories back.”

Serenity

I DON’T LIKE doctors. Soon enough I’ll find out precisely why.

The king still hasn’t let me up from the bed. He has, however, stopped trying to kiss me. I’m horrified that mixed in with my relief is regret. His touch awakens all sorts of slumbering emotions.

I’m supposed to hate him, and yet he’s the first person I’ve encountered who treats me like I’m something precious. It’s heady, feeling cherished, and it’s making me question everything I’ve been told about him.

I do, however, believe he’s a bastard—otherwise, he wouldn’t be holding me down while the doctor comes at me with a needle.

“Let me go,” I growl, trying to push him and the other guard they called in off of me.

“I’m seriously questioning your memory loss,” he mutters under his breath. Louder, he says, “It’s just a needle.”

I don’t care if it’s just a needle. I’m tired of people asserting their will on me.

The king nods to the doctor. The man in the white coat captures my arm and steadies it. Before I can pull it away from him, the needle slips under my skin, and he empties the antidote into my veins.

It’s over before I can react. The king lets up as the doctor moves away. I glare at him as I rub the crook of my elbow.

Belatedly, I realize I’m rubbing my arm with my injured one. Only, it no longer hurts.

I’ve been too distracted by the king to notice what else about me is different. I roll back the sleeve of my shirt, expecting … something.

What I don’t expect is smooth skin.

It’s gone—the wound, the infection, the scar that should mark it. My skin prickles. Not only has the king saved my arm from amputation, he’s removed all evidence that there ever was an injury to begin with.

It reminds me eerily of my memory wipe, replacing the ugly and scarred with something new and unsullied.

“It’s gone.” I run a finger over it. When I look up at the king, I can tell he’s drinking in my wonder. “How?”

“The East’s medicine is better than the West’s. You’ve been inside the Sleeper for a long time.”

“‘The Sleeper’?”

The doctor’s lingering at the foot of my bed, and now he clears his throat. “Your memories won’t return all at once,” he says. “The bulk of them will come to you in three hours or so, but it’ll take up to several days for the drug to fully reverse the effects of the memory suppressant.”

“Is that all?” the king asks.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” The doctor bows to the king, and then he and the guard take their leave.

It’s just the two of us again.

My eyes meet the king’s.

“Want to see the rest of our home?” he asks.

My heart skips. From prisoner to queen. I may be trapped in a whole different way here, but I much prefer the king’s presence to that of Lieutenant Begbie’s. We’ll see if it’ll remain that way once I get my memories back.

I nod to the king. Hopefully a tour of this place will break up the strange tension crackling between us.

He extends a hand to me. I don’t bother taking it, not so soon after he held me down. I’m not above pettiness.

This, oddly enough, makes the king’s eyes twinkle. “Some things, Serenity, not even memory can touch.”

CHAPTER 6

Serenity

NOTHING’S HAPPENING.

Granted, it’s only been thirty minutes, but I’ve taken to stalking through what appears to be an honest-to-goodness palace. The king’s sly smiles only serve to make my foul mood even fouler.

The man beside me, for his part, has been cordial and chivalrous and completely and utterly fake. It makes me want to rake my hands through his hair and shake him until the calculation in his eyes drips onto his tongue and out his mouth. He’s acting like I’m a ticking time bomb and he’s waiting for me to explode.

I hate it just as much as I hate each subsequent room I enter. I don’t like the gold filigree that adorns just about everything, or the intricate designs carved into the very woodwork of this place. I don’t like the white, white walls and the polished floors. The delicate art and the crystal chandeliers.

The sheer opulence of it is an insult to the land beyond the walls.

“They were right about you, weren’t they?” I ask, rotating to the king. When I catch sight of him, déjà vu ripples through me, but I can’t place it—yet.

He’s already studying me, like I’m some fascinating creature he wishes to collect.

“Right about what?” He lays his hand on the small of my back, trying to steer me out of his drawing room—or is it his tea room? They all have absurd names and more absurd purposes.

“Your cruelty.” I shrug off his touch, striding ahead of him.

The ploy doesn’t work. He’s much taller, his legs much longer, and in a few short paces he’s cut me off.

The king looms over me, and he takes a step forward.

I stand my ground, though it means brushing against him.