I wiggle my hips. “We were talking?”
Heat flares in his eyes. His body answers me—his arousal growing thicker and harder—but his mind is still occupied by less pleasant things. “No, but we should have been.” He lifts off me enough to concentrate. “You thought I didn’t want you? How could you ever think that?”
The pain of our fight comes rushing back, and I stiffen. “It wasn’t an entirely absurd conclusion, you know. Your ‘I can’t be with you’ was a big hint.”
Griffin’s large hands bracket my head. His gaze troubled, he sweeps his thumbs over my cheekbones in a rough-skinned caress. “You misunderstood. And I wasn’t clear, which I’m sorry about. But that was never what I meant.”
“But I’m the enemy.”
Griffin’s eyebrows slam down. “Notmyenemy.”
“A big obstacle, then! You want to take over the realms. You want to turn them into one kingdom and be their king.” It isn’t easy, but I slip out from under him and sit up, facing him. “That’s not what I want. I’ve never wanted that, and while I live, it’s technically not even possible. As a direct descendant of the Origin—Thalyria’soriginalking—I will always outrank you. I don’t want to rule a kingdom. I don’t want to be Alpha. For the Gods’ sakes, I don’t even want to be Beta. Or the consort. Or whatever!”
Griffin’s brow furrows. “I don’t care who’s officially in charge as long as we do what needs to be done. Together.”
I shake my head. “I think you do care. In the end, you will.”
“And I think you want to stick your head in the sand and only come out when you have to save someone you love. What about everyone else? The realms are going to the Underworld with these rotten Alphas. They have been for generations. People are suffering. They need help.”
“And that’s the difference between us!” What makes Griffin good and a leader, and what makes me…me. “I don’t want to risk war, and death, and destruction, and the total annihilation of every single person I care about for the sake of people I don’t even know!”
“That’s not true. That’s not you, Cat.”
“Itisme. You called me self-sacrificing. You’re right. I am—for the people I love. It’ll get me killed. I know that. I accept that. What I don’t accept is dying for anyone else.”
He slices his head to the side.Stubborn man.“The Power Bid is here. War will come, whether we court it or not. Innocent people will suffer, and you won’t be able to stand it.”
I look at him in shock.Is that really what he thinks? How he sees me?
My heart starts beating too fast. In my mind, I see armies clashing. I see me in the center of a raging storm and bodies strewn around me. Suddenly, every last one of those bodies is my mother’s. Sable hair. Green eyes. A crown of Fisan pearls.Mycrown.
“No, Griffin, I…” I squeeze my eyes shut. She’s still there. She sits up and looks at me like I betrayed her.
I open my eyes again. This view is much better. “Andromeda is too powerful. She’ll win. She always wins, and when you’re dead, and it’s all my fault, I willneverrecover.” My voice breaks, and I inhale sharply, a fragile, reedy sound catching in the back of my throat.
Griffin understands this fear. It’s one I’ve shared with him—and yet he persists in not seeing our relationship for the death sentence it is. He gathers me close, smoothing his warm hand up my naked back. His fingers stop on my nape, locking me in place. “I’m hard to kill. And you won’t fail. You never fail.”
Pressing my lips together, I lean my forehead against his chest. Seeking comfort? Hiding, really. I already failed. I was fifteen. I stole back into my home, armed not only with a knife and my new invisibility and ability to steal magic—gifts from Poseidon’s Lake Oracle—but also with a soul-burning hatred after my sister’s brutal death. Mother was to blame for that, and for so many other things. It would have been so easy to take my revenge. She would never have seen me coming.
But when I found the cruel and mighty Alpha Fisa chewing her lip to blood, her eyes frenzied because she couldn’t findme… I couldn’t do it. I was weak and stupid because I thought, just maybe, Mother was acting like a normal person for once.
She didn’t love me, or miss me. Nothing as pure as that. But I was something to her, something more than just the Kingmaker. I didn’t know what. And I still don’t. But whatever it was stopped me, and then I hurt her in the only way I could. I ran.
Griffin takes my face in his hands, tilting it up, his grip light but firm enough to keep me from turning away. “Stop looking for things that could go wrong instead of finding things that will go right.”
I roll my eyes, huffing a little. “Great. An eternal optimist.”
Griffin squashes my cheeks until my lips pucker. “Am I going to have to kiss you into submission?”
I snort. Sort of. It’s hard with my face all mashed up. “Submission? When has that ever happened?”
He gives me the roguish half-smile that always makes my heart skip a beat. He winks, and I could swear I’m looking at a Fisan pirate. Something in my chest flutters.
“It was worth a try.” Sobering, Griffin lets go of my cheeks. “I know it’s hard for you to trust, and always has been, but you should have had more confidence in me. Inus. You should never have left.”
Deep hurt underlies his carefully even tone. Griffin’s neutral voice always does strange and painful things to my heart.
“I walked across the courtyard to the barracks.” Apparently, the last place anyone thought to look for me.
