Now he laughed and trailed his fingers gently across her face, smoothing her cheeks with his thumbs. He smiled and looked into her eyes (and they really were pretty eyes, for all that, it was true).

"I killed a king," he whispered over her, now stroking her hair just as softly as he had touched her face. "I poisoned him in his nightly cup of wine with a poison that burned him from the inside out. It took three days before he died. Will that do?"