He stepped away from the table, closer to her but not breaching her space. “I hope you’re not here on my account. You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“You would say that,” she said, grinning despite herself, “but Idoowe you an explanation, even if I can’t fully give you one. I just disappeared without a word when, well, when the course of this evening was heavily implied.”
Was he blushing?
He shook his head. “Don’t give it another thought. You have an obligation to your friend who I assume needed you. I do understand when obligations get in the way of… other things.”
“He does need me…”
“Then there is nothing to explain.”
She was dangerously close to declaring her love for him on the spot, but she wasn’t quite ready for that sort of whimsy yet.
“You’re making this way too easy. I don’t want you to think I wasn’t… that I didn’t want to finish what we started,” she said.
His eyes were staring straight through to her soul. How could she leave when he looked at her like that?
“Consider the misunderstanding corrected.” He swallowed, and nodded his head.
He was being too nice. Why was he being so nice? Why wasn’t he pulling her over the table and tearing off her dress?
Make-up your mind, Sera. Do you want him or not?
Gods, yes I do.
But…
Ignoring Seth so she could fool around with Kieran would not help her case. Seth already accused her of leaving him alone constantly in favor of Kieran.
“Goodnight,” she said, though it was still several hours before a reasonable bedtime.
His body tensed—a week ago she would never have noticed. “Yes, goodnight, Sera.”
Her feet almost went forward, straight for Kieran. But she turned and somehow managed to make it back to her room without stopping.
Hours later, she lay in bed staring at the lavish canopy. Sleep tormented her. She either dreamed of Kieran and woke filled with unsated desire. Or she dreamed of Seth leaving her, despair and loneliness dampening her pillow with tears.
Chapter Eleven
Kierancouldnotavoidhis responsibilities. No matter how appealing the idea had recently become. There was no word on whether Cole had been dealt with, though Kieran was following the newssheets and had started paying runners to report back to him on anything of significance in Demon Row. He’d sent word to Wraith that the Charm had been found. Now he simply waited for Wraith’s next move.
It was the first day of a long weekend and Levity’s ball loomed at its end. It was hard to focus on mundane life when the threat still lingered, and Sera’s continued presence proved more distracting than ever.
Typically, on his days off, Kieran would head out into the Court to visit those that requested his presence. The Courts had their own hierarchy, removed from the rest of the city, and he was the recognized leader of Winter. It wasn’t an elected position, like his status as alderman, and it granted him only marginal power since Unity’s laws superseded any act he might take. But he was responsible for the welfare of the Winterdenizens, for solving disputes or problems that lay outside the jurisdiction of parliament, and that included answering their calls for service.
Kieran had hardly slept the night before. Sera’s shift in mood the previous night was obviously not the sort she wished to disclose. She’d had the opportunity last night and yet hadn’t actually told him what was wrong. He did not need to know what had caused her upset.
Did not need to dwell on her well-being and yet, dwell he did.
For hours Kieran wrestled with getting up, leaving his bedchamber, finding Sera’s hallway, opening her door…
He had stopped just outside her room. He couldn’t bring himself to knock. Her worries were not his. Her mood was not his responsibility. He didn’t care why she had suddenly turned cold and distracted after meeting with Varian. Did not care why Seth had apparently needed her, or why it was more pressing than their plans to finally stop skirting around this damned attraction. Did he question his own understanding of her relationship with Seth? Yes. Perhaps he had read ‘familial’ wrong and it was in fact a romantic interest of some kind. Perhaps he had witnessed her jealousy that Varian might turn Seth’s eyes from her.
His knuckles had halted on the wood, jaw tense. He was desperate for an answer. Restless with the itch to know if their situation was simply one of her many options. It was unsettling how much that fact would hurt.
In the end, he’d returned to his room and, in the fleeting moments where he slept, he had dreamed only of her.
—
