Everything she’d been told was a lie.
However, that didn’t excuse the ludicrousness of him telling her he was in love with her.
“You don’t know the rest of it, Draven, of what I am,” she continued. “You don’t know my past or my darkness.”
“Then share it,” he said as he stepped forward again, taking her cheek in his hand. “Share your past and your darkness. I want to hear it. Let me in.”
The anvil sitting on her chest grew stiffer, and she struggled to take a breath upon speaking. “I can’t,” she managed.
Hurt spread through every pore on his face down to the center of his core. He avoided her gaze a moment and caressed her knuckles. “Whatever you think you can’t tell me, you’re wrong.” He brought her knuckles to his lips and he kissed them lingeringly.
He stayed and helped her pack her bags, all the while making his usual sarcastic remarks and jokes that made her stomach flutter and her cheeks hurt with a smile. And once she was all packed, he had one of his men carry it down for her.
Leaving this time was not like the last.
His arms hugged around her as they stood on the porch, and for a few moments she allowed her eyes to close, her forehead to lay against his, the swim of his touch on her skin searing into her memory. She wouldn’t see him again until the next banquet.
And then he began to hum the Wyverdraki song.
His body started to move side to side, dancing with her, and she almost laughed.
Her voice joined his hum, and she whispered the words softly as he entwined his fingers with hers. He spun her out a time or two, swaying with her when he would bring her back in. And when she finished up the last of it, he wrapped her into him again.
“Who knew the Venari King was such a romantic?” she mused.
He smiled down at her, and his nose nudged hers. “Don’t tell anyone. You’ll ruin me,” he growled.
Her hand reached up to his face, and she allowed her eyes to memorize his features, this small moment engrained in her consciousness to last her for the next few weeks that she would have to go back to her regular duties. The press of his hand on the small of her back. The entwine of his fingers with hers, fitting together and not against. The small smile on his lips that rose to his dilated eyes.
“I don’t even know what to say to you,” she whispered.
He pushed her hair off her face and pressed his forehead to hers. “Just don’t ignore me when I come to Magnice in a few weeks and we’ll call it even.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“I STILL DO not know for sure that is what we saw,” Ash said five days later as he stood beside Aydra in the Chamber. Rhaif’s brow raised, and he stared between the pair.
Aydra rounded on Ash’s still figure. “Are you… you’re fucking joking, right?”
Ash shrugged, still not looking away from Rhaif’s figure in the chair. “I do not know the tricks of the Venari and Honest. Until we see men on our own shores, I see no reason why we should concern ourselves with the southern seas. The men we fought were half-witted sportsmen at best, not any true army.”
Her jaw clenched, and she felt the swarm of birds threatening to come inside the windows. Two crows squawked and landed on the windowsill, two more fluttering inside. The raven landed on her shoulder just as she felt her mind start to blank.
“Drae—”
Dorian’s voice did not heed her. Her fists tightened, and she turned full to face Ash.
“You… you fought alongside me. Alongside Draven. Nadir. Lex. All of their men. You watched as they and their companies laid their lives on the line. Watched as they died in front of you. We heldfuneralsfor them the next day. And you think it was all a sham by the Venari?” she nearly screamed. “How, Ash? How can you think such?”
“I never said it was a sham,” Ash argued. “I said the men were not of threat. You are blinded by your favoritism for their races,” he continued. “These men that died were simply not as good of fighters. They’d no business on the field to begin with.”
“I held Dunthorne’s hand as his life passed into the next,” she spat shakily. “I shot the arrow that killed the one that killed him. How dare you—”
“Calm yourself, my sister,” Rhaif called from his chair.
Aydra realized the crows were circling over head. And she took a step back, fist clenching and unclenching at her side.
“That is all, Ash,” Rhaif said then.
