But he was always too far out of reach. And now he’s here. Close enough that if I extend my arm, my fingers will brush over his taut abdomen. Yet he seems farther away from me now than ever when I was in that tower.
This cruel reality would break my heart if he hadn’t already shattered it.
Wren flips the blanket, forcing me to grip it tighter to keep it from snapping free from my hold. When he climbs onto the mattress, he keeps to his side as if I’m so disgusting, no part of him can even graze me.
“If you despise me, why are you here?”
He settles under the blanket, and I think he won’t answer me. But then he does, his gruff voice cutting through the silence. “I fought too hard to get this far. You’re not worth one more night spent sleeping on the goddamn floor in the hall.” Then he sighs, the sound…pained. “I thought this would be easy, having you here.” He pauses, and I think he’s done complaining. He’s not, and his admission levels me. “I was wrong.”
His honesty is raw, and I smile into the dark as if I achieved a small victory. But I know I’ve gained nothing at all.
“Fine.” I toss off the blanket and sit up. Before my feet hit the floor, I’m hauled back on the bed and staring up at Wren. He hovers over me like impending doom. I want to smooth that mess of brown hair away from his scowling face. Run my fingertips along his lips. See something other than hostility in his intrusive brown eyes.
But I do none of those things. Instead, I keep my hands fisted at my sides, with his animosity a barrier between us.
“I didn’t tell you to leave.”
“I don’t recall asking for your permission.” My entire body sags with frustration. “What do you want from me, Wren?”
“I don’t know,” he admits, clearly annoyed—at me. Maybe even at himself.
I finally succumb to temptation and cup his face. The contact is electric. “I won’t be your villain. I’ll be anything for you but that because I can’t—I won’t—have you hate me.”
His eyes close, but only for a moment. When they reopen, they’re filled with so much pain that it shreds my heart. “Why, Rapunzel? Why didn’t you help him?”
“I’m sorry,” I breathe, shifting my hold on him to run my hands through his hair. But he rolls away to lie on his back. I can’t see much, but I don’t need to. His agony flows over me in violent waves. “Wren, please—”
“Just go to sleep, Rapunzel.” For once, there isn’t an edge to his voice. No, not this time. There is only…torment.
I wish I were made of different magic. The kind that could bring us back to the day I refused to go to my window when I heard his call. Because I would live that day so very differently. I would ignore a lifetime of fear and risk Rygard—risk everything—to save Wren’s father. Because that day, I did nothing. I hid. From Wren—and from myself. I’ve regretted that decision every moment since.
That day, I earned Wren’s hatred, and it’s a hatred that is well deserved.
I turn away from him, giving him my back to hide my shame. But the mattress dips with his movements, and his arms come around me. He hauls me against his chest. Cradles me into the crook of his body. I can’t breathe. Can’t think. I can only…feel.
Feel Wren’s hard body behind me.
Each deep and steady breath he draws.
My heart beats an erratic rhythm as my dreams of this moment become a reality. My breath shudders, and I squeeze my eyes closed to hold back tears. Wren can claim to hate me, and I can hate myself, but all that melts away under the cover of darkness. It leaves just…us…and as I drift into sleep, I cling to this moment, wishing I could hold onto this night forever, even as it slips through my fingers like the dirt he once crumbled when I asked him what the dirt felt like beneath his feet.
20
QUINN
My instincts are never wrong.
Warrick’s four-day absence warned me something was amiss. Fuck me if my soulless self wasn’t right. As I weave my steed through the carnage left behind in the wake of John’s most recent attack on Rygard, I damn near choke on the stench of death permeating the air.
This… This is senseless slaughter. None of it was necessary. John is more powerful than one man has a right to be. He doesn’t need Rapunzel. But need and want are synonymous to a man drunk on hubris.
Good people died here. Innocent lives wasted. Women and children, murdered along with the men. I shouldn’t care. I don’twantto care. But when I close my eyes against the gruesome scene, the terrible evil that lingers fills the emptiness left behind in the space my soul once inhabited.
My eyes fly open when I detect the faintest rumble of male voices. At the surge of bloodlust, the dark energy inside me spikes. I bring my steed to a stop and slip off its back. I have my sword palmed before my feet touch the ground. Following the sound, I creep silently through the burnt-out village. Past skeletal buildings and rotting corpses, until I come upon two soldiers pillaging the remnants of the blacksmith’s hut.
Fucking grave robbers, that’s what they are, masquerading as royal cavalry. They rummage through damaged weaponry, searching for whatever is salvageable, with the artisan’s charred body lying among the rubble.
Foolish bastards. They should have left with the others, because when I’m done here, there’ll be two more dead in the debris.
