His bladed jaw turned as sharp as Quinn’s machete.
“Why did you tell him I was your fiancée?”
“Because you are.” His voice was low yet echoed around us.
“So you didn’t say it because you wanted him to know I was off the market?” I was toying with a man who might not have been as lethal as atigri, but who could hurt me just as much. Especially now that I owed him a favor.
He grunted a dark sound. “Like you said,prinsisa, our union is arranged.”
I was so close to him that his kneecaps grazed my thighs. He jolted his legs apart.
“So, you’re okay with him and me sharing a cave?”
He seemed to become steeped in even more shadows. “I’m not your keeper.”
“No, but you are my betrothed.”
“Like that meansanythingto you.”
“You know”—I took a step closer to him, which forced him to tip back his neck—“it didn’t mean anything to me before we got here, but now that I got to know the Remo underneath the uniform and spite, I’ve realized it does mean something to me.” I took another step, one that made me bump into the stone bench. “I realize it means so much that the thought of you remaining with me because of a magical oathhurts.” Even though I wanted to set my hands on his shoulders, I hovered my palms over the water. “Remo, if your only reasons to stay with me are duty and magic, please have the honesty to tell me now.”
“Or what? You move on to Cruz Vega?”
I shook my head at his vindictiveness, and the step I’d taken forward, I took it back. How I wished I could take my declaration back too. I felt more exposed than when he’d stepped into the inn’s bathroom. “That’s not who I am. But perhapsyoustill haven’t figured out who I am beneath my crown and scales.”
I started to turn when his knees closed around my legs, snaring them.
“I know who you are. You’re the girl who makes me fucking crazy. Who’s made me fucking crazy for years.”
I side-eyed him, and although I was no longer shaking my head, I was still upset.
“Who I hope will drive me crazy until I turn into a weed.”
I let out a little snort. “A weed . . .”
“Yes. A weed.” He circled my waist with his hands and tugged me closer. “The sort that’s impossible to get rid of. The sort that’ll grow among youradamans.”
It was surely the strangest declaration of affection anyone had ever spoken, but damn if it didn’t thaw me out. “What makes you think I’ll turn into a glass flower? My sharp wit and sharper tongue?”
His eyes danced, and not from the rippling surface of the water surrounding us. “You do have a sharp wit and tongue, Amara Wood, but I actually said it because it’s my favorite flower.”
Goo.I was becoming goo. It was a wonder he still had anything solid to grip on to.
I pushed a lock of red hair off his brow. “No turning into weeds oradamansfor a long time still, all right?”
“Avoid consuming apples then, Trifecta.”
I flicked his nose. “And if you don’t want to be turned into a weed, avoid calling me Trifecta. Then again, you’d finally be quiet.”
His thumbs brushed up and down the base of my spine. “You hate it when I’m quiet.”
I lowered my forehead to his, the pressure of his fingers on my sore back delicious. “I do hate it. Almost as much as I hate you assuming I’m so flighty that I’d head into a stranger’s cave to spite you.”
His fingers gripped me a little harder, a little closer. “I’ve never been the jealous type, Amara. Never thought I would be. But now I realize I just never desired something that could be taken from me.”
“Don’t let anyone take me from you, then. Anddon’tgive me a reason to walk, fly, or swim away.”
“So many methods of leaving me.” A smile tugged at his lips. How that smile transformed his face. “Believe me, if the train still existed, I might’ve whisked you to another cell, so it could be just the two of us again.”
