Her touch guided me into a languid rhythm. Up and down. Up and down. I stared at her slender fingers, so tan on my paler hands, mesmerized.
“You have to be gentle to coax the butter, or it won’t come,” she said, her voice carrying a tone that made it suggestive.Lyr, did she want to kill me?
A hoarse chuckle escaped me as I stole a glance at her face, trying in vain to decipher her thoughts. “Are you sure about the order? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
“Well, that depends on the mood, doesn’t it?” The glimmer in her eyes told me she was aware of every impure thought flashing through my head. She had always been an unapologetic tease.
I had to look away from her too-bright gaze before I did something unwise, only to be caught up in the way the material of her dress clung to the generous swell of her left breast, wet and slightly transparent. The bluish tinge probably meant she had spilled milk on it earlier.
“Oh, has it been a long time?” Rada’s voice was mocking as she caught me staring. “I would have thought you had ample opportunity to slake any desire while earning your keep as a mercenary.”
Suddenly I knew why she had been teasing me all day, tormenting me with those little touches and barely veiled innuendos. Stars, how could I have been so blind?
She wanted to find out what I had been up to since my fall.
“Up to your old tricks, my queen? Seduction has served you well in the past, so why not use it again to make me do your bidding?” I asked coldly, my hands tightening on the wooden plunger. My lips twisted into an edged smile as I met her gaze. “As for your question—it’s been fifty years, give or take.” Forty years of a terrible war. Ten years since I had been condemned to mortality.
I would have rejoiced in the way my answer left her speechless, stealing all condescension from her expression as her hands tensed on mine, if only I hadn’t been reeling with my own memories. Of the last time I touched anyone with desire. The last time I touchedher.
“The wall of a back alley in Lyrheim, if I remember correctly.”
And I did remember. Every touch, every taste, every sound from her lips. Sharp desperation and frantic need. A tempest that consumed us both.
“On the way to Leander Lyrasen’s wedding, wasn’t it?” I kept my voice deliberately light, though it was a struggle. “You wore that scandalous dress the weaver guild gifted you, the one that looked as if the stars themselves were woven into the fabric. The neckline in the backwas so deep I’m sure it was only held up by magic. I pushed it up and pressed you against that wall and we…” I trailed off, the memory suddenly too vivid as I recalled how that night had ended. With Yggdrasil gone in a storm of Chaos and fire.
“Was I that unforgettable?” Rada abruptly let go of my hands and stepped over to the kitchen counter, fetching a small container and a ladle to collect the butter rising in the churner. She was trying to conceal the effect my words had on her behind a sarcastic tone.
“Yes.” I watched her closely, noting the slight tremor in her hands at my admission, greedily devouring every sign that I was finally breaking through her defenses. “I won’t pretend I have not shared my bed with others over the ages. But after Yggdrasil’s fall, I saw no point in it anymore.” I breathed in deeply. “In all the ages since we came to Aron-Lyr, I never called anyone my lover but you.”
I was hers—body, soul, and all the shattered pieces of my blackened heart. Irrevocably. Even if she rightfully hated me for all eternity.
“You’re lying.” Rada aggressively ladled the butter into the container, drops splashing down the sides.
“If it makes you feel better, believe that.” I had stopped working the churner, fully focused on her. “But no, I’m not.” And I wasn’t. Despite all the other things I had done, I had never lied to her. Unlike my brother.
Rada was silent for a long while, her eyes narrowed furiously at the rectangle of butter in front of her. I could tell her thoughts were racing. She never liked it when I saw through her attempts to manipulate me, and she hated it even more when I confronted her with unwelcome truths. Even Bane, who had crept into the room and jumped onto the kitchen counter to steal some cream, was shooed away by his mistress.
“Well, there were other men.” Rada’s mouth twisted as she hurledthe words at me like an attack. “A few meaningless fucks after I went into exile. Once a farmer who lives nearby.”
Barrage after barrage.
“Aramaz. When we tried to reconcile during the war.”
Leaving the most devastating for the end. The ruthless tactician in me could not help admiring her strategy.
“You don’t owe me any explanations.” My voice was flat, every emotion carefully kept in check. It cost me, oh, how much it cost me, to remain where I was, my hands gripping the handle of the plunger so tightly it hurt. Instead of lifting her onto that kitchen counter, shoving up that tempting little dress, and showing her exactly how she still belonged to me. I was sure I could make her body yield to my claim, but her mind was another matter entirely. It always had been.
Rada met my gaze, all righteous indignation, so sure in her anger at me. “That wasn’t an explanation.” No, it was an attempt to wound me. And it did. More than I believed possible.
The mere thought of any other man touching her, of mybrotherin bed with her, nearly destroyed me. Oh, I was no fool. I knew she had shared Aramaz’s bed in the past. Of course she had. They had been married for millennia. But part of me had hoped not after… not after she told me she loved me. But I had killed that love, hadn’t I? Had torn it from her heart with bloody hands.
Something in Rada’s gaze broke. One of the impenetrable walls of ice she had erected between us tumbled down, melted by the pain and dismay that I couldn’t hide. That I saw reflected in her expression—the bright mirror to my darkness.
I had forgotten. While I could see through her every pretense, could see the real her behind all the masks she had worn over the ages, she could do the same to me, penetrating all my defenses beforeI even knew I was under attack. Only this time, she did not use the knowledge to hurt me.
She was beside me, her hand cupping my cheek. How could her touch feel so tender yet still burn like fire on my skin?
“None of them were you.”
