“The Enchantresses are not your people.”Galen once told me.
Maybe they’re not.
Maybe there would have been an uprising after all, and if we hadn’t been proactive, more people could have died. Far morethan the first uprising before my time as King. More people just like his sister, Rose.
Galen has written us in a way of saviors, and I’m a fool to have believed him.
Perhaps I'm still a fool. Blatantly ignoring the harm we’ve done. Especially now with the new prisoner to deal with.
“We need to discuss?—”
“No,” Galen says. “No more discussion tonight.”
His hand makes its way to the back of my neck as he draws me in. His lips find mine in the darkness with ease. His mouth is warm, soft, and I part my lips even further as the intensity of his kiss grows. I run my fingers through his hair again, gripping the strands and pulling him on top of me. “I have missed you,” he says, lighting a fire in my stomach.
I need him closer, because I know when this ends, he’ll be gone again. And we’ll slip into our roles. Galen as the quiet leader of our plans, and I as the corrupt king leading a country that despises me.
I chase the thought away and bury my fears into kissing him. His strong hands run over my bare chest, through my hair. Every touch ignites fire upon my skin. I moan against his lips, our tongues meeting briefly as his hand wanders down my body, memorizing the sculpted muscles of his arms and torso. My stomach flips as he pulls at the strings of my pants, but my heart breaks just as violently.
He’s leaving again.
He’s done it again.
Hurt someone.
I push the thoughts into the farthest, most shadowed recesses of my mind, and I kiss him and kiss him, until I’m drowning in the touch of his skin and the taste of his tongue.
Everything else can wait, everything else is secondary.
Right now, there is only this.
Only him.
The sun has risento mid sky by the time I make it out of bed, Galen up long before me. With only a few weeks until the Autumn Moon, there’s so much work to be done. Invitations to be sent. But if we’re to convince the Guilds we need their support, we must break ground on the Dyrsjel magick. Without it, our promises of unlimited power and magick will be unfulfilled and we can’t risk losing more of their trust.
“I think I’ll question the new prisoner myself,” I say when I emerge from the bathing chamber.
“Oh?” Galen shouts from behind the wall, still finishing up in the bath.
“Perhaps it’s time for a fresh set of eyes.” Harvesting magick hasn’t always been smooth. It was messy, at first, using the enchanted blade of Galen’s own crafting to expel the magick inside each Enchantress. But with the years we’ve had to practice, Galen has practically mastered it.
All but this Dyrsjel it would seem.
I run my fingers over the purple amulet that hangs from my neck. It pulses against my touch, full of magick that was never meant to be mine.
Ours.
Wet slaps sound from the bathing chamber as Galen plants his feet on the marble floor. It takes only a few seconds until he’s in my main room, nothing but a cloth wrapped loosely around his waist.
“Do you not trust that I’m handling it?” He crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe. “And why do you care how long it takes? I said it would be done and it will.”
WhydoI care?
Maybe because for the last five years Galen has withheld so much from me. Maybe because even though the magick we have harvested together has proven successful, and we have been able to wield it, I don’t quite understand how this Dyrsjel magick has taken so long to harvest. Or maybe I care because I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. Maybe because deep down a part of me wishes to be the one with the upper hand.
“Of course, I trust you can handle it.” I slip into my dark blue tunic and pants. “But this is different. There’s a much more powerful magick at hand here and seeing as how it’s been weeks of failed attempts, maybe it’s time to change things up. You can’t always be doingeverything, let me help.”
I cast him a smile but it’s left unreturned.
