I hooked my thumbs around the daggers on my belt. Arran marked the movement. His eyes had not left me since I’d brought us here. But if there was desire burning in his eyes, I could not see it. Not behind all the other emotions. Maybe that was why I did not see the next question coming.
“What about us?”
All the air was sucked from my lungs. My fingers began to tingle. The void called to me, promising sweet escape. If I let myself go now, maybe I could travel to another realm entirely. A place without this love and attachment that had led to such pain.
A low growl rolled through me, rooting me to the spot. Issuing a command.
Arran’s eyes remained unchanged, expectant.
“What do you want to know?” I said, hating the choked whisper.
“Our marriage was arranged, demanded by the Ancestors to keep peace between our kingdoms.”
“That is not question.” But I still knew the answer he wanted.
Another faint growl, this one from his lips. “But we are more than husband and wife, king and queen.”
I waited. A second, then five, ten. A full minute. Arran stared at me, waiting.
Fine.
I planted one hand on each hip, readying for a different sort of battle. One that would not involve blades, but would hurt so much more. “We are mates.”
He shook his head slowly. My hands curled into fists.
“It is more than a legend.” I felt my frustration rising. It was not fair to be angry at him. He was trying to piece it all together. But I could not stop it. I was held together by my own stubbornness and the echo of a love lost. It wasn’t enough.
“You were the one who recognized it for what it was, this bond between us,” I said, my voice rising with each word. “And now, you don’t even believe me.”
I felt the growl of his beast rolling through me. It was so fucking perfect. I’d missed him so much. And even though I was coming apart into a thousand tiny pieces, still desire for him unspooled inside of me. The way that growl soothed all the broken edges of my soul, saw the darkness within me and did not retreat…
Arran’s brows knit together. “I do believe you. My beast—”
“Thinks I am fucking delicious. I know what that growl means.”
Arran’s eyes blew wide, his mouth curling into something like a snarl. I wanted to regret my brash words, but it felt so damnright.
“You can hear my beast.”
I can talk to him too.
“Get out of my head.”
Fuck. Me.
It wasn’t going to be a blade or a succubus that killed me. It was the male I loved—systematically chipping away pieces of my heart.
The heart he had healed.
Maybe some of us just weren’t meant to be happy.
Maybe it had been foolish to think I even deserved it.
I turned away, stalking to the edge of the mountain where a sheer drop fell away, a thousand feet or more. If I was lucky, maybe a strong wind would come along and knock me off of it.
I waited for Arran to join me. Knew that he would. I even knew what his line of thinking was going to be, because we’d been here before. In Baylaur, he’d spent hours lecturing me on duty and trying to ignore the desire raging between us. I had changed since then, but Arran had been thrown backward—to the male who would do anything for the sake of his kingdom, rather than his mate.
“We need a plan of action. If the succubus is coming for Annwyn, we must be ready,” he said from behind me. From the pressure in my chest, I knew he’d left a solid two yards between us.
