I didn’t want my brothers or Kalia discovering I’d found my blood mate through rumor. I wanted to tell them myself when I’d had more time to figure out what todoabout it.
A rippling, small hush went through the atrium. I felt it like a pulse of energy, brief and startling, before the noise rose again.
When I turned, I saw Erina coming down the staircase, Maudoric a few steps behind her. She’d gone to retrieve her, then, also noticing her absence.
“Ah,” Lydrasa said, her voice utterly amused, and it set my teeth on edge. “And there she is.”
Erina looked beautiful. The dress I’d sent for in the village was simple in its elegance. An indigo blue—which reminded me of starwood blooms—that contrasted beautifully against her skin and dark red hair. The material was from a bolt of Salairian silk, prized apparently among the nobles, and it skimmed over her figure like a stream of water. She wore nojewels. Not that I’d given her any, but she also didn’t need them.
She turned everyone’s head—at least those who still lingered in the atrium. And she looked miserable.
Everyone would know who she was now. Not only was she arriving from within the keep, but I heard the whispers when I went to her, to meet her at the base of the stairs when she alighted.
Her gaze flicked up to me before it lowered again. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, the top half pinned back, though a few loose tendrils framed her rounded face.
I hadn’t seen her sincethatnight.
I’d be lying if I said that the thought of seeing her again hadn’t made me nervous.Nervous.I’d nearly forgotten what that emotion was like, and I hated it. The gnawing, the atrocious ache.
“Kyzaire,” she greeted softly.
It was abundantly clear she didn’t want to be here. But the longer I kept her tucked away, the more the nobles would talk, creating stories in their heads. And I didn’t need any more speculation than there was already.
Ishouldtell her that she looked…magnificent. Simply beautiful and lovely. She might not have been themostaesthetically beautiful female in attendance tonight—yet I only wanted to keep my gaze on her.
And she couldn’t even look me in the eye.
I’d felt like the worst kind of villain these last two days, but I’d needed to center myself again. That stormy night in my rooms…I’d thought of little else, when I didn’t need to be distracted right now.
That night had been dismantling. I’d felt torn apart, shredded to bits, and all I’d wanted was to beg for her to do it again.
Sex with akyrana?
My brothers were fucking bastards because yet again, theyhadn’t prepared me for the sheer destruction of it. Destruction so I would be made new again.
Everything in me ached to steal her away. To feel everything that night again. Erina would never know how close I’d come, on a hundred occasions, to slipping into her rooms. Of taking her into my arms and begging her to make me lose myself again.
“Are you well?” I asked, the silence stretching between us. My question felt stilted and awkward, two other sensations I rarely felt. I didn’t like this. This uncertain turmoil building in my chest.
“Yes, quite well,” she answered. I waited for her small, shy smile or the brightening of her cheeks, but still, she avoided my eyes…and she said nothing else.
I deserve that,I thought, dread pressing against my chest hard. I’d left her that night and hadn’t come to her since. Of course she would feel hurt, her ego bruised.
I had to be careful how I interacted with her tonight. With all the eyes of Vyaan watching, I’d wanted to make something clear to them: Erina Denoren was my blood giver only. That she would get the respect from me that her position demanded, but mostly I wanted to stop the loose, wagging tongues.
She would have received her first payment by now. I’d had Maudoric deposit the sum, in accordance with our contract, yesterday. I had hoped it would help dampen her ire toward me, but I might have miscalculated.
“You look very beautiful, Erina,” I said, my shoulders lowering softly as defeat went through me.
The quiet, hushed words made her breath hitch. She darted a surprised look up at me, and when those brown eyes pinned to mine, I felt relief spreading through me. Like the burn of liquor, welcome and warm.
Then she cleared her throat and said, “Thank you,Kyzaire.”
Her eyes lowered again.
“How long would you like me to stay?” she asked next.
My lips pressed. She looked like she was walking into a den oflyvins.
