She couldn’t know. Isca could never know what she did to me.
I heard her ask me a question, but I was lost. Utterly lost in her.
She smelled of lavender and sunlight and things I didn’t deserve. I didn’t want her to stop. Eventually, I shook my head in denial to a question I hadn’t heard.
She hovered close, her voice softer now as she filled my vision. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
I met her eyes then. Gods, those earnest eyes. So full of care, it made my throat tighten. I’d forgotten what care felt like.
“I’m fine,” I rasped, though I made no move to pull away. It was a lie, but the only truth I could allow her to believe. “An accident.”
Her hand stilled but lingered. Neither of us said anything.
I wanted to be the man I was pretending to be while she touched me, not the cursed prince. Not the monster. Just…Emrys.
“Okay,” she said, but her eyes still narrowed. “I swear I heard your ribs crack, Prince Emrys.”
I wanted to tell her to drop my title so I could hear my name from her lips without adornment. But that would offer familiarity when I still wasn’t safe. That single word would have to continue to be a barrier between us, flimsy as it was.
So I shook my head again, eyes never leaving hers. If I told her that she was right about my injury, she’d only worry, and I’d have to explain just how the curse had changed my body so I was nearly impossible to kill.
Isca said, “I wanted to make sure you’d make it to luncheon. You’ve been out here all morning.”
I raised one eyebrow. “Keeping track of me now?”
Anything to keep her here, talking, touching me.
Her cheeks turned a lovely shade of pink. “Yes. Someone has to.”
She’d probably meant it simply as a passing comment. And yet the stubborn part of me that was twisted by curse and craving heard it as a claim to my time.
The monster inside me purred at the thought of it becoming truth.
Shaking my head clear of the distracting thought, I looked up at the sky to see that she was right and I still hadn’t spoken with Owain about the reasons for his journey so far west.
Her eyes trailed to Owain standing silently behind me, still shirtless, waiting. He was taut with agitation, but he held his shadows in rigid check. The black pattern on his chest lay motionless, passing for tattoos rather than the living magic waiting underneath. Probably trying not to scare her.
He offered a tiny bow to both of us as he met her gaze. Even as he did precisely the correct thing in such a situation, savage, untamed jealousy gnawed at me. I choked down the growl that bubbled up in my throat as she appraised him, turning it into a cough.
Owain cast a questioning glance my way with one eyebrow arched. I ignored it completely. The curse wanted me to mark her, to bite her neck until she carried my scent. I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth groaned.
She wasn’t mine to claim. She’d never be.
The moment she stepped away, the beast rushed back in, hissing in displeasure. As I watched her walk toward the castle, I knew the curse wasn’t the worst thing I’d endure. The worst would be wanting her for the rest of my life.
Luncheon would be a disaster. Isca would sit too close. Owain would smile too much. And I—gods help me—I would remember the way her hands felt, and forget, for one fatal moment, that I was ruin incarnate.
If the gods had any mercy left for me, I’d need it to ensure that everyone, including what remained of my sanity, survived this meal.
Chapter 23
Isca
I spent the hour before lunch peppering Catrin with a flurry of questions about Larethia. More than a servant, she was quickly becoming a confidante, someone I felt I could trust. I would miss her deeply when it came time to return home.
Home.
That word tasted bittersweet now. The thought that I might doom them if I failed hung over everything I did. Today was about salvaging Owain’s visit, smoothing things over just enough to avoid word from Chancellor Maeron that my family would suffer for my failures.
