“Why?”
“Because I am teasing you, Kailia. Nothing more,” he answered, pressing the dressing to the wound. “Hold this, please.”
Her fingers brushed his as she took over, and that one simple point of contact had his thoughts going places they shouldn’t. Wondering what those callused fingers would be like brushing along his arm. How her fingertips would feel dancing across his lips. How’d they feel other?—
Fuck, he needed to get his shit together.
It’d been a long time since he’d satisfied those needs. The last time he’d fucked, his title had been prince, not king. It had become too complicated to bring anyone to his bed in the beginning, so he’d handled matters himself. Weeks had turned into months, and months into a year. Now, for reasons he’d long stopped trying to figure out, the one person he’d even consider couldn’t stand to be touched.
And yes, he’d asked himself if that was the appeal. Was it some sick and twisted subconscious challenge? But that couldn’t be it. He hadn’t known about her aversion to touch when he’d met her at the Esbat Festival. If anything, she had some opinions of him he didn’t understand, and he couldn’t figure out why it mattered to him at all. Why he cared that some female from across the sea thought he was the worst the realms had to offer. And why was she going along with any of this to begin with?
Maybe in the end, it was a morbid curiosity about how far he could push her. How far could he take any of this? Maybe the challenge was to figure her out. All of it a distraction from the mundane. A way to turn this fucked up situation into something more intriguing. Perhaps that was just as dark and twisted, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
He wrapped her torso without conscious thought, going through the motions, not realizing he was finished until he was tucking the edge of the bandage into place.
Kailia lightly cleared her throat, stepping back and putting space between them. “What did we need to discuss then?”
“I have a proposal,” he said, the words lacking his usual confidence as he tried to get his thoughts back in order.
“I already agreed to that,” she said, wandering to the balcony door.
He quickly moved past her, seeing where she was headed. Pulling the door open for her, he followed her out.
It wasn’t a large balcony by any means. It held a small round table and two chairs, and an onyx railing ran along the edge of a raised stone wall one story off the ground. Kailia moved there, her hands gripping the rail as she looked out over Shira Forest. Cethin took a seat at the table, his fingers drumming once atop the iron surface.
It was his turn to clear his throat. “That’s not the proposal I’m referring to. I mean, it is, but not?—”
He stopped, frustrated with himself for fumbling over his words, and she’d turned to study him again. She did that all the time, and he understood why. She was studying him as much as he was studying her. Gathering information and tells. He’d teased her about being a busybody, knowing she watched people from her power, but they were one and the same. She just didn’t realize it yet.
“Can you tell me anything about the attack?” he asked, switching tactics. “Anything that would help us figure out who they were? Or why they did this?”
Leaning against the railing now, she said, “I thought some of the others went to see if they could identify them?”
“They did,” he replied. “I’m still waiting on a final report, but if they’d found anything useful, we would have heard by now. Which means I need any information that you can recall.”
“This is the proposal?”
“No. This is what is leading to the proposal,” he said, rubbing at his temple in an effort to assuage his irritation.
She fell quiet, and he watched as she sifted through memories and debated what to say. He wanted to encourage her to simply tell him everything. Every errant thought that was flitting through her mind, but she was too calculated. A blessing and a curse really. Something she’d need as queen, but something that was currently fucking him over greatly.
“I don’t know that they said anything,” she finally answered. “I was… When I—” Her lips thinned, gaze darting to the side before she turned back to the railing once more.
Cethin stood, moving to her side. Propping his forearms on the cold rail, he clasped his hands, staring out at the horizon too. Not touching her and giving her space. Her fingers gripped the railing tighter.
“You were surviving,” he finally said. “Your focus was on survival, nothing else. It’s okay.”
She glanced at him sidelong. “What would you know of surviving, king?”
He flashed her a grim smile. “You don’t live for centuries without having to simply survive at times.”
“You grew up in luxury.”
“I grew up with expectations and responsibilities,” he countered. “Things I was forced to carrybecauseof the luxury and titles.”
She hummed, clearly not convinced.
“But you’ve known a different kind of survival,” he continued. “And I… No one should have that kind of life, Kailia. Which brings me to my proposal. I’d like to move the union up. For your safety.”
