I blinked. The guttural words fell from him, as soft as a confession.
Those words made me freeze in place, especially when he began to approach me. I straightened even further, wondering what the hell he was doing, and nerves erupted in my belly when he dropped before me, his knees digging into the carpets that lined thevoliki.
He was still taller than me, even though he kneeled. My knees brushed his hip when I shifted and his familiar scent swarmed me. I purposefully triednotto breathe him in because the smell of him always made me feel so incredibly aware of him.
“What are you doing, Rowin?” I asked quietly, meeting his eyes in bewilderment. Because surely, a horde king was not on his knees. A horde king would never be caught in such a position.
His expression was still as unreadable as ever as he let out a sharp exhale through his nostrils.
Then his hands found mine. I watched, incredulous, as he brought my palm up, brushing his lips over the very center of it. A shiver raced up my spine, never realizing howsensitiveI was there.
“I have mistreated you,rei Morakkari,” he murmured. “I have disrespected you. I have hurt you. I have no excuses for any of it. Only that I held onto bitterness and anger and used it against you, when you deserved none of it.”
Shock made my lips part. For the first time in over a week, I stuttered, “Wha-what?”
“I saw you for who you were even under the Dead Mountain. I knew your spirit was pure and giving. Yet I scorned you for it. I blamed you for events that I knew were completely outside of your own control. Iusedyou, callously and mercilessly. And still, you wanted to help me. In return, I chained you. I leveled threats against you to make you bend to my will. I let my horde think you were weak when really, it was my own weakness that they needed to witness. For all this, I need to make amends.”
“What are you doing?” I whispered again because it was the only thing I could think to say. A knot was rising in my throat.
Because yes, hehaddone all those things to me. He was wrong for it.
But to hear him admit it…it loosened a tightness in my chest.
His eyes dropped to the golden markings that wound around my wrist. I was sensitive there too, I realized, when his thumb brushed over the words there. The skin was still healing but I no longer needed to wear the bandages.
“Already I have broken these vows,” he said. There was a gruffness in his voice that made my nose sting. I heard…regret. “I told you once that your husband was an honorable male and yet I have not shown you him once, nor given you reason to believe it.”
My eyes dropped to the markings he was stroking. Vows of protection, of respect, of loyalty, of…fidelity.
Did he mean he’d broken that one too?
I’d seen him with Junira with my own eyes. Walking together through the horde, somethingIhadn’t even done with him. In that moment, I couldn’t help but think that they made a handsome couple. She was more suited to him than I ever would be. Her head had been held high and she’d smiled at him, beautiful and wide and adoring.
Instead of skirting around the question, I decided I needed to know. Once and for all.
“If I ask you something, will you be honest with me?”
His brow furrowed and his thumb never rose from my wrist. “Lysi.”
“Where have you been sleeping?”
His eyes flashed. He seemed perplexed by the question, a question I saw he hadn’t expected.
“Where have I been sleeping?”
“Have you…” I took a deep breath, bracing myself for his answer. “Have you been in others’ beds? In Junira’s?”
Wrune stared at me. I heard the rough sound that rose in his throat. “Junira?”
“I know about her. I saw you with her,” I told him, feeling a rush of heat flare up my neck. He wasn’t answering me. Or was he stalling for time? “I know that she was meant to be your queen. That I took her place and—”
“Nik,” he said, his tone low and even. His eyes held mine as he gave his answer. “You wish to know where I have been? I have been sleeping in my council’svoliki. I have been sleeping on your own pallet because I find that your scent helps me sleep at night.”
I reeled back slightly.
“W-what?”
I’d been socertainhe’d been with others, especially after seeing him with Junira. They’d seemed so comfortable in one another’s company, nothing like howourinteractions were.
