As soon as the king takes up the doorway, his eyebrows raise. I’m sitting on top of my bed in my hospital gown, my forearms slung over my knees. In one of my hands I’m playing with a scalpel that I lifted from the nurse that checked on me.

“Where’d you get that?”

I narrow my eyes at the king. “You don’t seriously expect me to answer that question, do you?”

He smirks, totally at ease with the fact that I’m playing with a scalpel in his presence.

Behind him I see Marco and some of the king’s bodyguards flank the doorway. “He,” I jut my chin at Marco, “better make himself scarce, or else this scalpel is going to find itself lodged into his chest.”

King Lazuli saunters into the room. “There is no need for threats, my queen.”

My eyes shoot daggers at Marco.

“Marco and his guards are going to wait outside while I spend time with my recovering wife.” The king’s mouth curves up at the last word.

Marco opens his mouth to speak. As soon as he does so, my hand tightens around the knife, and I rearrange my grip for throwing it. Marco’s eyes flick to my hand, and his mouth closes. Without a further word, he slips out of the room.

“You need to stop threatening my men,” the king says.

“Or else what?” I ask insolently. “You’ll divorce me?”

He sighs. “Is that what you’re trying to do? Make me regret my decision to marry you?”

“Absolutely.” Gone for the moment are my blossoming feelings for the king. Instead I can’t help but feel deeply disturbed once more by the king and his science.

The king leans in close—close enough for me to stab him if I desire it. He knows this too. I can see him daring me with his eyes.

“If I wanted to punish you for threatening my men, I’d find something infinitely more creative than divorce.”

I flip the scalpel around in my hand several times, a small smile forming on my lips. “You’re right. Divorce would hardly be punishment.”

Montes’s fingers touch my jaw, angling it to better face him. “Why are you so angry?”

“What have you done to me?”

The king’s brows lift. “This is about your surgery?”

“See, there’s where you’ve got it wrong,” I say. “Surgeries require this—” I raise the scalpel, “—and they leave scars. Most importantly of all, they don’t take two weeks.”

“My doctors have access to the latest technology. You were placed in a device called the Sleeper. It removed the cancer and regenerated healthy tissue.”

The king has equipment that can do that?

Before I can respond, the king wraps his hand around the base of the knife and tries to pull it from me.