“I have responsibilities, yes, but I also know this was a transition for you. I was trying to give you space to adjust, but it’s causing some tension throughout the kingdom. Not to mention inside the castle and these rooms,” he added.
“I don’t know how there can be tension in these rooms when you’re never here,” she scoffed.
He pushed off the doorway, not stopping until he was right in front of her. Her head tipped back, exposing her slender throat,and his finger itched to slide along it. Feel her soft skin. That pulse fluttering beneath his touch.
“You keep saying things like that. I’m starting to think you miss me, tiny fiend,” he said, his tone low and a touch raspy.
“No.”
“No?” he asked, letting his magic out to trace the path he desperately wanted to. He heard the gasp she tried to swallow. This was a dangerous game to be playing when he was too exhausted to properly control his power.
“I simply don’t like not knowing my role. I need a purpose. Something to focus on,” she replied, the words a little breathy. “Ever since you brought me here, I feel as if I do not have one. I told you this when we discussed my role being in title only.”
“And what additional roles would you like?”
“Considering you never allow me with you, I don’t know the options,” she retorted. “But surely there are things I could handle so you can sleep more than once a moon cycle.”
“I sleep more than that,” he said defensively, rearing back some.
“You are a liar, king,” she replied, crossing her arms, then uncrossing them and shaking out her hands.
“You tell me a truth, and I’ll tell you one,” he proposed.
She eyed him, his darkness still lingering, and she slowly lifted a hand. He thought she was going to touch him, and he leaned a little closer, anticipating it. Craving it. But instead, she drew a single finger through his magic.
“Tell me a truth about these shadows,” she said.
“They’re not shadows,” he answered.
“What?”
“That was a truth,” he replied. “Your turn. Tell me a truth about your past.”
She paused, her head tilting a fraction while she continued to toy with his magic. “I didn’t see the sun for the first time until I was nearly twenty years.”
He recoiled fully, staring at her. “What?”
Surprised, she went still, her brows pinching together. “You asked for a truth.”
“I did, but…” He fell silent, unsure of what to even say to any of this. He wanted to pull her into his chest and hold her. Protect her from whatever had kept her locked away for twenty godsdamn years. If he’d been curious about her past before, he was desperate for it now. That seemed to be what she elicited from him the most: desperate need.
For information.
For understanding.
For her.
And therein lay the entire godsdamn problem.
But…
“Another truth exchange?” he asked.
She eyed him for a moment, but then slowly nodded.
“How long have you been in Avonleya?”
“Less than a year,” she answered.
