“Refill?”
She startled in the chair at finding him standing before her. Then she realized she hadn’t heard him move. She always knew where everyone in the room was at all times. She was always observing and anticipating, but this male was…
She was becoming far too comfortable. Too lost in errant thoughts and notions that didn’t matter. None of this mattered. She was a means to an end for him, and he was the same for her.
“No, thank you,” she replied, moving to set the glass aside, but he took it from her before she could get too far.
Setting everything on a nearby table, he returned, slipping his hand into his pocket and pulling out something small and onyx.
Her arrowhead.
He held it out, the thing seeming almost small in his large palm.Barelarge palm, but whatever.
“I am a male of my word,” he said with another smirk.
“You’re a male forced by a Bargain,” she retorted, staring at the arrowhead and longing to take it. Instead, she looked up at him and said, “I don’t want it back simply because of this Bargain.”
His brows crashed together. “What do you mean? You’ve been fighting me for this from the very beginning.”
“Yes, and you’ve been very annoying in all of it,” she replied.
“I don’t understand what has changed.”
“A lot has changed in a short amount of time, and that is unsettling. A lot has changed and nothing at all.”
He shoved a hand through his hair, pushing out a harsh breath. “Is this what it’s like inside that head of yours all the time?”
“Yes.”
He nodded, staring over the top of her for a moment before bringing his gaze back to hers. “While I think I understand your intention here, I would like to make sure. You feel as if you shouldn’t have this back because you need to…earn it. To prove your loyalty?”
“Maybe?”
He rolled his lips in clear irritation before releasing another breath. Pinching the arrowhead in his fingers, he held it up between them. “The whole purpose of this was for you to help me protect the people of this kingdom. We need your weapons and your skill. We needyou, Kailia. And you need this back to help. What better way to prove that loyalty?”
She dropped her gaze to her lap, smoothing the soft material of her robe with her fingers. “I don’t want everyone to know that this is how it started. That I was… I don’t want these people I’m supposed to help rule over to think I once was going to walk away and leave them to their curses.”
Cethin lowered to a crouch before her, one of his hands resting on the armrest. “Our story is just that, Kailia. It’s ours. No one needs to know. Our secrets can stay in the shadows between us for the rest of time if we wish.”
She found herself leaning closer, her heart thumping to an odd beat in her chest. “And what of the secrets we keep from each other?”
His smile was as dark as his magic, and he leaned in a fraction closer too. Close enough, she could feel his words dance across her lips. Her mind was screaming that he was too close,but every other part of her… She’d never wanted to pull someone nearer and shove them away at the same time. She didn’t understand any of it.
“It will be my greatest pleasure to uncover every single one, wife. Even the ones you don’t know you carry,” he said, his cadence low, and the words seemed to skitter along her skin, pebbled flesh left in their wake.
Then he stood, dropping the arrowhead in her lap before he grabbed his jacket off the chair and headed down the hall to the bedchamber.
She loosed a shaky breath, feeling the Bargain Mark on her skin lift as the Bargain was completed. A marriage, and, in exchange, her arrow and protection.
A means to an end for both of them. Nothing more.
Picking up the arrowhead, she twisted it between her fingers. The weight of it was comfortable. Familiar. Everything that this situation wasn’t.
Closing her fist tightly around it, she squeezed, feeling the edges slice her flesh and the blood well. This had never been about the arrowhead. She didn’t need it to create more weapons. That had been a lie. She lost them all the time, and it had never been an issue. Which meant having it back now would not fix whatever was wrong with her power. It wasn’t going to resolve why she couldn’t move through the smoke and ashes that called to her.
No, this had never been about the arrow. Not entirely anyway.
Opening her hand, she looked down, shifting the arrowhead to the side. The moon Mark shimmered among the red, as if anointed by a blood moon rather than pale moonlight.
