Exhaustion and grief line his face. The king was his only real remaining family. Queen Morvarid has never favored him, and now that Javed is king, Roshan will have no place to call home. I can’t imagine not having a family or a safe haven.
“What will you do?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“If you go back there, it will be to a dagger in your back or poison in your wine,” I say quietly. “You have a biological claim to the Oryndhr crown. Neither Javed nor Morvarid will suffer to see you alive.”
“I know. It was only by my father’s grace that I breathed all these years.”
“So come back to Coban with me.”
His smile is strained as he eyes me. “I fear that Javed’s shadow will follow me wherever I go, and I wouldn’t wish him to harm you because of me.”
The utter bleakness in his tone burrows under my skin, but I force a smile. “We’re in this together. Javed’s going to come after me whether you’re at my side or not. And trust me, when you taste my aunt’s cooking, you won’t want to leave.”
He chuckles, but the laughter doesn’t find his eyes.
When I’m sad, a hug helps, but I can tell that Roshan needs to get out of his own head. “You have to get this anguish out of you,” I tell him softly, watching his shoulders immediately tense. “Or you’re going to splinter apart.”
“Iamletting it out,” he says, with a violent kick to the bag. “I’m pretending this is my devious fucking brother.”
I keep my tone light, even though my heart feels like it’s breaking for him. “I suppose that’s one way to deal with your anger, but what about the rest of your feelings?”
His eyes are hard, a muscle twitching in his lower jaw. “What would you have me do, Suraya? Complain? Wail?Cry?” He growls the last word. “Princes do not display such useless emotions.”
“I thought you said you weren’t a prince.”
His hands stall their violent attack, fluttering in midair, as he turns fully to me. The latent anger in his eyes dissipates somewhat as a ghost of a wry, crooked grin hovers over his lips. “You’re right. I’m not.”
Something comes over me then, a desire to hold on to him, and I move forward, reaching my arms around him as he’d done with me in the coach. His bare skin feels slick but warm, his shivering muscles jerking beneath my fingers. The scent of him—smelted iron, warm spice, and bergamot—is a heady combination that does a number on my ability to hold a coherent thought. I struggle to keep my feelings in check as every nerve ending in my body comes vibrantly alive.
Stars,touching him was a mistake.
“What are you doing?” Roshan asks, an imperious eyebrow vaulting upward. His words are gruff, but I let my arms drift up over his shoulders, noticing that his pupils have dilated and his irises have shifted to the color of sun-warmed umber.
“You looked like you needed a hug.”
“Suraya...” he begins.
No one says my name the way he does, like it’s a delicacy. I laugh a trifle breathlessly at the pouting movement of his lips shaping the word.
“I’m sweating like a pig,” he says. “And I stink.”
“I don’t mind, and you don’t stink.”
He doesn’t. His sweat smells musky and rich, but not unpleasant. I have to force myself not to let my greedy fingertips explore the glistening, satiny curves and hollows of his sculpted biceps, from chasing the thick layer of dark scruff on his jaw, or from stripping that damp undershirt off his hard body and gorging my greedy eyes to distraction.
I’m flirting with disaster, I know, but I can’t help it.
It’s Roshan’s instinct to protect that has really burrowed its way past my defenses. Even though he’s safeguarding me out of some sense of misplaced guilt, everything he’s done up until now has been for my sake, and even in his sorrow, I’m still a priority. And now, when I see him drowning in his own pain, all I want to do is helphim.
Comfort him, which I have no idea how to do.
You could kiss him.
Every muscle in my overheated body locks into place, the very thought making my breath hitch and gooseflesh dance over my skin. As if so compelled, my gaze settles on his lush mouth.Sands on fire,no man should have lips like his—perfectly formed and full. Soft and inviting and stupidly kissable. Unlike my dream lover, whom I couldn’t touch, Roshan is warm and real beneath my fingers.
I sway closer.
