I do.
My eyes widen. Not altogether unpleased by what I see, but I have no idea how the male can possibly expect it to fit anywhere inside my body. Not that I have any intention of letting him try. When my gaze wanders back to his, I’m sure my cheeks are an unknown shade of crimson, and I look away. He just witnessed my obvious perusal of his malehood and he looks perfectly smug about what I’ve seen.
Gripping my chin, he brings my eyes back to his, gesturing to his body when he says, “This belongs to you. So, look as much as you like, and touch, whenever it pleases you.”
My head is spinning at the declaration when he wraps a decadently plush towel around my shoulders, tying another at his waist. I pluck pink petals from my loose spirals as I brush out my hair and the general opens a large window, letting the fragrant steam filling the room waft out into the night.
He shows me to a large closet, tucked back on the far side of the washroom, twice the size of my old room in La’tari. Maybe I should be mad when I see that he’s already taken the liberty of bringing a few of my dresses, but the gesture is thoughtful, if not a bit bold. I slip on a coal-colored gossamer sleeping gown and a thin scrap of lace to cover my core. In my own chamber, alone, I would have forgone it, but to crawl into bed without it tonight feels a little too much like tempting fate.
By the time I make it into the bedroom, the only light left is cast by the crackling fire. The general is crouched before it in a long pair of dark linen pants, hanging loose at his hips. His chest is bare, the flickering light from the flames embellishing the hard cut of his muscles. But it is the fea oaths, bound to his flesh in dark bands along his side and down his arm, that hold my attention.
There is a slight tick in his jaw when he rises to greet me, planting a tender kiss on my temple as he asks, “Are you ready for bed?”.
“Bed?” I wonder at the implications, my eyes gliding across the dark silk sheets on the oversized mattress. “Are you joining me?” I ask, altogetherunprepared for his answer.
“Would you like that?” he asks, brushing a fine curl from my eyes.
“Yes,” I answer without thinking.
What am I doing?
It’s not a lie, but I should be giving everything more thought. It’s not unreasonable to assume I may regret every decision I’ve made here tonight.
“Thank the stars,” he says, puffing out a breath of relief. “If I ever thought I was strong, watching you sleep when you could have been in my arms was a greater test of strength than I ever endured before.”
Odd.
I shouldn’t, but I take his hand and he grips it tightly as I lead him to the foot of the bed. I crawl across the top of the silky duvet, realizing too late the view I’m offering the hungry male staring at my backside. It seems a mighty feat for the general to break his stare, but he manages with a clenched jaw. The bed dips when he crawls in beside me.
Between the heat still spilling in from the washroom and the fire, it’s too warm to crawl under the covers, so I fall onto my belly when I reach the head of the bed. My body exhausted, pleasurably and otherwise, my eyes flutter shut, only to pop open the next second when he takes my hand and places it on his chest. His hand curls over mine, my fingers cupped around his thumb, and he breathes in contentedly, closing his eyes.
My gaze lingers on the male curiously until his breathing becomes deep and even. His hair parts around the nick in his ear, likely a battle wound from long ago. A small raven strand curls at the end where it falls in front of his eyes. The tension in his face relaxes and my lips kick up at the edges when I see that even in his sleep the male frowns with a pinched brow. He’s handsome, so much more than I let myself admit before. And he’s mine. Or so he claims.
Why? What have I done to garner his affections? I’ll add it to my growing list of questions I will never have a chance to ask, things I will leave these shores without knowing. I can never be his. Not in this life, not with my mission.
Our paths will collide, but not in the way the stories describe when fated lovers meet beneath the stars. Ours is to be a very different story, oneonly partially told, but I know how it ends, how we end.
You’ll already hate me for this.The words echo, twisting like a dagger that I can’t seem to dislodge from my heart. I push them down, sealing them off with the rest of the memories I tried to leave aboard that ship. I would sink them if I could. Send them off to settle at the bottom of some dark abyss where they would never reach my ears, and the memories never cross my mind.
Pain. Regret. That is all I will be for the general at the end. A hateful memory that he will do anything to tear from the fabric of his mind. A mistake. That is all I will ever be to anyone.
CHAPTER 26
THE A’KORI PALACE
Present Day
Must I forever be made to rise by a knocking at my door? I open my eyes, squinting at the light and glaring at the tall panels of wood across my room, willing them to turn to stone so that I might in turn fall back to sleep.
No. Not my room.
The general dips down from where he stands over me, planting a kiss on top of my head and draping a robe over my body. He’s fully dressed and wide awake. Too awake. I glance at the side of the bed where he’d been sleeping when I dozed off, and there is hardly a wrinkle in the sheets.
Sitting on my knees, I tie the robe around my waist as I stifle a yawn. I smile sleepily at Riah when she walks in, ushered into the war room by the general. The female goes ashen, her eyes bulging when she sees me. Despite the blows exchanged between us, it is certainly not the greeting I expect, and I frown when I lose sight of her beyond the doors.
I thought we got on rather well.
Wiping the sleep from my eyes, I tip my head toward the door. Evenwith it closed I can hear the general’s voice rising behind the thick hardwood. I only catch a few words, but it’s clear she’s taking a verbal lashing over my unnecessary visit with Caden last night. The female had only done what Awri asked of her, and I had been more than a little willing to go along with it. I don’t tell my feet to move, they just do. I’m in the war room a moment later with a stunned and still pale Riah, an angry general standing across from her.
