A challenge right there.
“Tonight?” I asked with a sneer. “I won’t live long enough to teach you all you need to know.”
“Will you disappear once we reach the castle?”
“My duty, my purpose, remains strong.” In that, if nothing else.
“We could find time for the lessons I need.”
“I believe those . . . lessons need to come from your husband,my queen.”
“He’s a wonderful man. I see that already.”
Jealousy lashed through me, but I did my best to stifle it before it took control. She needed to care for him. Love him, actually.
As for me?
I didn’t know what I needed from this woman, but I was on a track with no way off, and perhaps, like Merrick, I needed to hold on and let it happen.
Fuck it.
Fuckher.
We said nothing for too long a time before the words climbed up my throat. “You didn't come here solely for fresh air.” My eyes stayed on the sea, but my lungs refused to move air.
“No,” she said simply.
Her voice, soft and low, hit me with the same force as a blade, slicing away at the control I clung to. It wasn’t in the words, but in the way her voice trembled, how it betrayed something I understood too well. Yearning paired with regret.
“Ishouldremain in my cabin,” she said starkly. “I’ve kissed him. More than once! And . . .”
I still couldn’t breathe.
“I liked it.” Her voice hollowed out. “I guess I should like it since that’s my role, right?”
In many ways, yes.
Reyla wasn’t pretending. She wasn’t wearing the mask too many others did. And maybe that was what made this all the more dangerous. She was real, and it was that realness that was threatening to tear down my walls.
She was right in front of me. Not leaving like she knew she should. Not scurrying back to her cabin to lie in bed and dream about Merrick.
Maybe . . .
Ishouldn’t take advantage.
Fuck it all. For the rest of this wretched night, I wanted her to dream about me.
“What do you really want from me, Lore?” So much emotion in her voice. And she still didn’t leave. “Tell me.”
I wanted peace in a world consumed with hunger for power. I wanted to see the king live past his thirtieth birthday.
But more than anything else, I wantedher.
That realization, that sick, deep-rooted truth, stabbed through me.
A glance around showed we were alone except for the nyxin who sniffed at the ropes, seeking mice.
I took her hand and tugged her into the shadows at the back of the cabin wall, where I lifted her off her feet and pressed her against that rough surface. Then I leaned in close enough to suck in her heady scent. Drown myself in its wonder.
